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Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

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Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#101

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

chucke1992 wrote: post #98
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Investment in R&D means nothing if you can't deliver. Intel has enormous R&D budget. Boeing too. Did it help them? No. The most profitable current divisions at Microsoft were started under Ballmer. That’s literally stated in the original comment in the thread you are replying to.

We cannot tell if the currently most profitable divisions would become that profitable under Ballmer. That's the whole point - Satya somehow was able to develop the platforms through acquisitions and business vendor lock much better than Ballmer ever could. And we saw what happened with Windows division under Ballmer - it was profitable but it had no future. MSFT could become another IBM. With Ballmer we could get so…

> And we saw what happened with Windows division under Ballmer - it was profitable but it had no future.

Microsoft under Ballmer was insanely profitable, more than its competitors and far more than before he took the helm. And despite that Ballmer launched Azure, started the push towards Entreprise software and at no point stopped investing.

I don’t think Ballmer was the best CEO ever but his poor reputation is very much undeserved.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#102

Post by chucke1992 »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #87
chucke1992 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here is the thing - launching the initiative means nothing. Satya is able to expand and develop it. Like with Ballmer we certainly would not have got O365 to iOS for example. It would be 100% bundled one way or another to Windows services or something or browser or whatever. Even with Azure we would not have got such aggressive expansion and attempts to push services across Windows and Linux or playing with Open…

> Ballmer's attempt to buy Yahoo and disregard for touch screen phones is what defined his legacy. You are weirdly obsessed with that but Ballmer actually started Bing and bought Nokia to make touchscreen phones. I think you are extremely biased to the point of being entirely disconnected from the facts at hand. > Ability to buy right things is important too. Ballmer bought Skype and launched the foundation of what w…

I am biased but I am not disconnected from the facts. I am still pissed at Ballmer with how they missed search and mobile market. They were late with Search and they were late with mobile.

With Teams it was just luck, but even then Team's growth happened years years after Ballmer and can be attributed to the multiplatform push of O365 by Satya.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#103

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #96
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fall of Xbox started with the Xbox One, which was developed and released while Ballmer was CEO. They put an enormous amount of investment into that console, but made some bad calls in both its development and marketing that put them in a deep hole that they've been unable to get out of since. The increasing backwards compatibility of modern consoles means that the current 4th generation Xbox is paying for the sin…

Yes, one can't blame Ballmer for the missteps of the Xbox team directly (that honor goes to Don Mattrick, VP in charge of IEB at the time of the Xbox One launch). Divisional VPs get a lot of latitude in how they run their org. However, Ballmer does have to accept ultimate responsibility for allowing Mattrick to head up IEB and how long he allowed him to stay there.

I agree with this. And it wasn't just Don Mattrick. Late in Ballmer's tenure there were a lot of VPs with poor track records who weren't being held accountable (or, in some cases, were being given more responsibility). Microsoft is still feeling the impact of those people today.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#104

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

kjs3 wrote: post #89
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #44

It’s funny how all the comments here are falling in the trap described in the beginning of the article of disliking Ballmer because he comes from the sales side and they can’t fathom someone not coming from the tech side leading a tech company. What’s undeniable in the article is that Ballmer literally built what remains Microsoft best asset even before being a CEO there: it’s incredibly good relationship with its co…

When you do deal with them as a corporate customer, you really get the feeling that they understand the way things work in a big corp IT department and will be reliable and predictable. Just got done negotiating our E5 license last year and omfg is this laugh-out-loud untrue. Don't even get me started on how we have to check the Azure websites before every meeting with our M$ counterparts to figure out what Azure ser…

> We have people that won't use Excel on a Mac because once they found a place where it didn't work exactly like the Windows version.

Then again, Excel on a Mac is significantly inferior to the Windows version to be honest.

> Don't even get me started on how we have to check the Azure websites before every meeting with our M$ counterparts to figure out what Azure services they've changed the name of since the last call.

Not my experience at all and we spend millions of dollars a year with them.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#105

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

chucke1992 wrote: post #102
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ballmer's attempt to buy Yahoo and disregard for touch screen phones is what defined his legacy. You are weirdly obsessed with that but Ballmer actually started Bing and bought Nokia to make touchscreen phones. I think you are extremely biased to the point of being entirely disconnected from the facts at hand. > Ability to buy right things is important too. Ballmer bought Skype and launched the foundation of what w…

I am biased but I am not disconnected from the facts. I am still pissed at Ballmer with how they missed search and mobile market. They were late with Search and they were late with mobile. With Teams it was just luck, but even then Team's growth happened years years after Ballmer and can be attributed to the multiplatform push of O365 by Satya.

Bing is insanely profitable. I fail to see how they missed search.

You are not disconnected from the facts but you happily discount Ballmer wins when they don’t suit your narrative.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#107

Post by Krssst »

SoothingSorbet wrote: post #92
Sakos wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ballmer's tenure started with XP and eventually gave us Windows 7. Nadella gave us 10 and 11. Though 10 was largely developed under Ballmer before its initial launch, it's been under Nadella's stewardship ever since. I'll take Ballmer, thanks.

Ballmer also gave us the maligned Windows Vista and Windows 8. Microsoft has also been way more open source friendly during Nadella's tenure, whereas Ballmer was openly hostile to FOSS. I'll take Nadella, thanks (although he should fix his user-hostile spyware).

Windows 8 was misguided but not user-hostile. I miss not being repeatedly asked by my OS to create an account or share my data. If it was a human doing it rather than software I am not sure it would be legal.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#108

Post by wkat4242 »

For me it was more his personality that made me dislike him. He acted like a baboon on stage. Nadella is much more composed and seems more intelligent as a result. I don't like that kind of extreme expression and this is important because I wouldn't respect such a leader at work. See also other stuff like the chair-throwing incident of course.

Also something I didn't see covered, this was also the dark age where Microsoft hated linux. Now they say they love Linux and there is certainly some affection going around (though I remain sceptical).

One thing I don't really like about Satya Nadella by the way, his AI strategy is a mess. They're slamming stuff on the market way too quickly (see the recall fiasco), they call everything 'copilot' so even their own people get confused which product does what because there are literally over 30 separate copilot products now. Stuff is changing by the day (until 2 weeks ago the copilot button controlled both consumer and corporate copilots, now it only works with consumer). It's the kind of overeager rush that makes it feel like nobody has a clue what they're doing anymore.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#109

Post by wkat4242 »

parl_match wrote: post #24
abirch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when he retired and the MSFT jumped. Satya is underrated.

Satya's tenure has seen the fall of Xbox, the lost relevance of Windows. While moving to a services model is going to be very lucrative for them, they risk competitors offering swap-out models.

> the lost relevance of Windows.

Yes but this doesn't matter. The market has evolved.

macOS has also lost a lot of relevance in Apple's world, but it doesn't matter. Because they are raking it in by the billions on the iPhone.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#110

Post by al_borland »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #87
chucke1992 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here is the thing - launching the initiative means nothing. Satya is able to expand and develop it. Like with Ballmer we certainly would not have got O365 to iOS for example. It would be 100% bundled one way or another to Windows services or something or browser or whatever. Even with Azure we would not have got such aggressive expansion and attempts to push services across Windows and Linux or playing with Open…

> Ballmer's attempt to buy Yahoo and disregard for touch screen phones is what defined his legacy. You are weirdly obsessed with that but Ballmer actually started Bing and bought Nokia to make touchscreen phones. I think you are extremely biased to the point of being entirely disconnected from the facts at hand. > Ability to buy right things is important too. Ballmer bought Skype and launched the foundation of what w…

Not OP, but Ballmer's attempt to reinvent Windows Mobile to compete with modern smartphones was too little too late.

Microsoft during that era was one bad call after another. When Apple saw multitouch they made a phone; Microsoft made a giant table[0] (very little imagination beyond the Jeff Han demo[1]). When Microsoft saw the iPhone reception, they sunk 2 years an $1B into the Kin line of phones[2], which lasted all of 2 months before being pulled from shelves. It was several years later when they bought Nokia, when then iPhone was already 6-7 generations in. By this time the world was already moving to "mobile first", and Microsoft was being left behind without a platform.

For a couple decades Microsoft worked to convince the world that Windows, Office, and Microsoft as a whole was needed to get real work done. It was during Ballmer's time at the helm that this belief eroded. People saw they didn't need Microsoft to make a good smart phone. They found they could get work done with Google Docs and didn't always need MS Office. They found macOS could be used to get work done just as well as Windows... and in fact, a desktop OS might not be needed at all. Ballmer's biggest failure was giving his competitors time to show the world that Microsoft wasn't as necessary as the world was led to believe.

As far as Teams goes... it is used a lot by companies that are all-in on O365, but Slack and Zoom were the two household names in the space during the pandemic. Once again, the world was shown that work could be done without Microsoft.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_han_the_radical_promise_of_th...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin

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