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Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

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Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#61

Post by paxys »

ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #55
scosman wrote: post #30

Having worked on mobile there 2008-2011: no, I would say he’s properly rated. Had years head start on the Android model (hackable OS+vendors+wide HW support), and threw it away. Chased iPhone model briefly without the commitment to actually win. Took smartphone market share from 20-30% to 0% when it mattered most. Invested more in XBox and Business intelligence platforms.

That was more directly on Terry Myerson, VP of Mobile and Embedded Devices or whatever it was called at the time, than Ballmer.

Can't credit wins to the CEO and blame subordinates for the losses. If Terry Myerson was failing then it was Ballmer's job to replace him (something that Nadella finally did).

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#62

Post by boredtofears »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #53
throw0101c wrote: post #6

"Steve Ballmer played a powerful part in Microsoft’s comeback" (2019): * https://qz.com/1551842/steve-ballmer-played-a-powerful-part-... "Satya Nadella credits Steve Ballmer for pushing Microsoft into the cloud": * https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/satya-nadella-credits-ballme... I think the biggest knock against Ballmer was not being able to figure out a (smart)phone strategy that ended up working. Having more than ju…

People on HN still remark on how much they liked their Windows Phone. Other than making a product so great that, decades later, people are still saying how much they miss it, what did you want him to do?

They do? I used to see it used as a punchline often but it seems to have faded into complete irrelevance the past few years.

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#63

Post by mulletbum »

ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #27

There's a case to be made that Ballmer is smarter than the ignorati give him credit for but let's not forget things like the attempted Yahoo acquisition. That would have been an absolute disaster for Microsoft.

I don't think him not doing something that makes sense is a negative. "Balmer did not invest billions in a company that would go no where" is not a negative.

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#65

Post by alephnerd »

For most people on HN, I'd say so.

Mobile is fun and cool and probably started a lot of HNers careers, but everyone on here seems to ignore how much more money there is to be made in the Enterprise and B2B space, and how it absolutely dwarfs B2C revenue from an effort and retention perspective.

B2C Growth Sales is a slog with a lot of variability outside of a company's control.

MS back then was in a weird transitional phase where it as a company needed to decide whether it wanted to prioritize B2C or B2B/Enterprise. Ballmer made the call to go for Enterprise and helped pivot MS away from being a B2C or B2B2C company to a company heavily devoted to Enterprise and B2B sales motions.

It was Ballmer who laid the seeds for Azure, M365, and Enterprise in general by making the "Enterprise Business" and "Servers and Tools" (precursor for Azure and MS Security) divisions much more prominent internally than their "Windows" division.

There was also no guarantee that then-resurgent Apple or new-kid-on-the-block Google wouldn't be able to eat into MS's Enterprise market share with release of the iPad+iWork and Google Apps (now Google Workspaces) respectively, and and could have tangibly done the same pivot that Amazon did in the late 2000s

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#66

Post by sph »

paxys wrote: post #43

During Ballmer's tenure, the Office division spent a lot of resources building apps for iOS. Ballmer saw a demo, realized that they were better than the Office apps available on Microsoft's own phones and tablets, and so blocked the release. The company sat on the apps for multiple years . When Nadella came on, one of his first decisions as CEO was to release them to the public. This single incident perfectly demonst…

Meh, I don't see how Nadella's "vision" is praiseworthy either:

* their flagship OS is more and more a spyware platform

* Windows Server is pretty much a rarity these days outside of large corporate deployments. Anybody has seen MS SQL recently?

* Azure seems to have reached its peak mind share, mostly pushed by free credits

* Their gaming division mainly lives on Game Pass, while XBox is further and further away from Playstation and now there's Valve eating their lunch

* Windows on ARM, even Windows branded laptops or 2-in-1s are a niche within a niche

* What is a cell phone again?

* Edge's philosophy is "as evil and spyware as Google, but worse". In fact, Microsoft as a whole is trying to badly emulate the peak evil Google of 2015+

Ballmer made some enormous blunders and a lot of his indecision proved costly. Nadella pushed proudly forward in destroying the Microsoft name all to make a quick buck. I'll give you VSCode and Github to be good ideas, though the latter is just an acquisition, not a bonafide good product built in house.

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#67

Post by FeloniousHam »

knighthack wrote: post #37

This was such an an enjoyable read. My view of Ballmer has completely changed, in retrospect. Am also impressed that he was a mathematician by training and outscored Gates, and went quite against norms by his own business judgment (which is commendable - it means he made his own path, and didn't just chase after trends).

There was a recent interview with Ballmer on The Dispatch Podcast[0]. I've been longtime casual Ballmer-hater because of Microsoft's treatment of Linux, but at least for 30 minutes, found him to be a genial, thoughtful, and interesting bazillionaire.

[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-data-we-trust-inter...

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#68

Post by alephnerd »

Keyframe wrote: post #31
thorin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet still most enterprises use windows, O365, teams outlook, AD/entra etc. Azure has like 30% of market share. Copilot, visual studio, Dotnet framework, Microsoft dynamics, Power Automate are massive. I prefer the current incarnation of MS to any of the previous ones TBH, experience of Xbox has been pretty good as well.

I think the question posed is whether that's due to Ballmer or despite him.

Because of him.

Ballmer backed the "Enterprise Business" (precursor of Office 365) and "Server and Tools" (precursor of Azure and MS Security) divisions over the then prominent "Windows" division.

MS back then was in a weird transitional phase where it as a company needed to decide whether it wanted to prioritize B2C or B2B/Enterprise. Ballmer made the call to go for Enterprise.

There was also no guarantee that then-resurgent Apple or new-kid-on-the-block Google wouldn't be able to eat into MS's Enterprise market share with release of the iPad+iWork and Google Apps (now Google Workspaces) respectively.

Before Ballmer, it was the Windows and B2C teams that had the upper hand internally at MS instead of Enterprise.

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#69

Post by keiferski »

sk11001 wrote: post #40
keiferski wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/microsoft-volume-ii I haven't listened to this episode specifically, but I have listened to probably 20 of their other ones. It's a solid podcast, although I wish they were a little more critical and not always so laudatory.

I got into Acquired through the Jim Simons episode which was great but the rest of their content is hit and miss. Sometimes they get hard to listen to because they treat every company as something incredible and many of them aren't - the luxury brands episodes are completely bizarre, no idea who the target audience is for a four podcast on a handbag manufacturer. And their SBF episode didn't age well at all - so much…

I really enjoy the luxury brand episodes. Hermes, LV, etc. are huge companies that have been around for a long, long time.

Re: Is Steve Ballmer the Most Underrated CEO of the 21st Century?

#70

Post by paxys »

mulletbum wrote: post #59
_7acn wrote: post #52

During his tenure, Windows 8 was released... Just as W8, the server version also lacked the START button, which was particularly noticeable when working through RDP. Also, the whole "Metro" design was a disaster. I also remember the acquisition of Skype for an astronomical amount. Where is Skype now? Indeed, an underrated CEO...

Skype is now the backbone of O365 and what evolved into Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Phone System, and Microsoft Team Room Systems. It's literally gobbling up the market as we speak, forcing long time AV vendors to have to build distinctly Microsoft products. Poly, Logitech, Crestron, all massive players in the space, have to bow to Microsoft's requirements and build hardware carefully sized for Microsoft Teams Room in…

No, the backbone is Microsoft Office Communicator, which was rebranded to Lync, then Skype for Business, and finally embedded in Teams. The Skype consumer product, which they acquired, has very little to do with any of this.
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