“Influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn has called for Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to step down, saying the world’s largest software company’s long-time leader is stuck in the past,” Bill Rigby, Svea Herbst and Edwin Chan report for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: Aw, crap.
“Many have been privately critical of Ballmer, but Einhorn’s remarks are the most pointed yet from a high-profile investor,” Rigby, Herbst and Chan report. “Speaking at the annual Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference in New York on Wednesday, Einhorn said it was time for Ballmer — who succeeded co-founder Bill Gates in 2000 — to step aside and ‘give someone else a chance. His continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft’s stock,’ he said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, puleeze. Look at McDonald’s. They’re doing just fine with a clown as their spokesman.
Rigby, Herbst and Chan report, “On Tuesday, Microsoft was overtaken by IBM in market value for the first time in 15 years, chiefly because of its static shares. Apple roared past it last year to become the world’s most valuable tech company. An investor who put $100,000 into Microsoft stock 10 years ago would now have about $69,000 worth.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ouch. An investor who put $100,000 into Apple stock 10 years ago would now have about $2,956,000 worth. But, but, but that doesn’t mean that Ballmer has to go!
Rigby, Herbst and Chan report, “Einhorn, the president of Greenlight Capital, which had $7.8 billion of assets as of January 1, first rose to prominence for making a prescient call on Lehman Brothers’ accounting troubles before the bank’s subsequent collapse.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s pretty early here on the east coast, but, after this news, one of our most favorite toasts is definitely in order now: “May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes!” Hoist!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Coffee cup hoisted! Soon to be a beer – Go Phillies!!!
I have a friend, who is an ardent Phillies fan (“one of those”) who happens to carry a smug attitude towards all things Apple. It made me wonder at the time, if there are many (or any) Phillies fans who happen to be die-hard Apple fans as well.
My best educated guess was that it was too dangerous a mix to be likely (or be allowed). I now stand corrected; happily apparently. 😮 )
Me, my fiance, and many of my friends are both.
Now, off to the Phillies-Reds businessman’s special.
A toast! “MSBRCOMFALAIT”!!!
My whole family is pro-Apple and huge Phillies fans
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
X2
No, no, no…
Einhorn must be mistaken. Please ignore his statements.
Go back to sleep, everything at MS will be just fine, no worries, Ballmer has a plan, you just need to wait a little longer.
Microsoft have today pre-announced the availability of Microsoft CEO2012, the latest version of their fully-featured corporate management system.
Whilst Microsoft confirmed that CEO2012 will see the end of the DMB (Dancing Monkey Boy) format for the CEO family, they released few details other than saying that the new product would be “really amazing” and available in a Light, Home, Premium and Enterprise Edition.
When questioned as to whether CEO2012 would ship in 2012, a spokesman declined to comment beyond saying that Microsoft would make the change when the product was “good enough”.
LOL!
Cheers!!
sshhhhh!!!!
1. McDonalds is retiring the clown. Microsoft should do likewise.
2. How wonderful that the clown’s nemesis is a unicorn (“Einhorn” is German for unicorn).
Bullshit.
Ronald McDonald Is Here to Stay, May 18, 2011
Source: McDonald’s
Steve Ballmer is also welcome to stay, here by the fries stand. Source: McDonald’s in a few months.
Say, oh say, where are all the Wintrolls today on this issue? C’mon, ‘tards, let’s hear it for the fat boy and his bloated, ineffectual, anarchical company!
Wintrolls are becoming extinct.
Five-years ago this place was crawling with trolls but have since stopped coming around. The sting of their rhetoric lost its wallop inversely to the meteoric rise of the iPod, followed by the iPhone and now the iPad.
The King Rat troll is John Dvorak who has been on the wrong side of history since the day he was born and he won’t live long enough to see any decline in APPL whatsoever.
This is blasphemy !!!
Microsoft employees originally wanted to name the “Bing” search engine “DuckDuckGo”. because of the flying chairs. now I bet they wish they did. I bet there are alot of chairs flying this morning.
If you’re old enough to remember who Betty is then I’d like to use a famous morning drinking quote of hers…”If you can keep the first one down, then buy another round.”
Remember, It’s always after noon…somewhere in the world!!!
Cheers!!!
Ford?
Amen…
If I worked in the vicinity of Ballmer today, I start hiding the chairs.
L’Chaim!
Einhorn is revealing his dirty little secret. He made a bad investment 10 years ago, he’s tired of waiting, and is now trying to reverse his fortunes.
So much for prescience.
I hope this story gains momentum in the press. I want to see the main stream media pick up the story and ask, Is it time for Steve Ballmer to step down?
I don’t want to see Microsoft try and get ahead of the story by forcing Ballmer out using the premise, he wants to spend more time with the family, to preclude the media from airing a litany of Microsoft’s dirty laundry.
I want to see Steve Ballmer convicted in the court of public opinion and not have him go quietly. I want to see an overwhelming case against his stewardship, forcing him to name names and get some of that stank all over Bill Gates.
Hey Bill, your company’s in trouble and I double-dog dare you to step in and take control.
I actually think Bill Gates will un-retire and take over for Ballmy.
Won’t happen. Gates isn’t creative, but he’s smart enough to know that Microsoft’s prime game playing days are over. No way is he coming back to help revive moribund Microsoft while it’s coughing up blood. He’s got his money, his reputation, and is too busy buying his way into heaven.
Also, I strongly suspect Gates’ narcissism would enjoy watching Microsoft die without him at the helm. It’s an old story. “Gee, remember the good old days when Gates was running the place? He left and the place went to hell.” Nothing new. Deliberately done.
I have no doubt Bill Gates left Microsoft because he saw the iceberg coming and knew it was too late to change course. I’m sure he knows there’s nothing he could possibly do to fix the irretrievably broken MS.
But can he resist copying Steve Jobs and his legendary return to Apple?
I’m guessing no.
Just happened on CNBC….. With graphs too! As long as it takes.
Micro$oft’s Investors:
“Now when I talked to Ballmy
I knew he’d understand.
He said “stick by me
and I’ll be your guiding hand.”
But don’t ask me what I think of you,
cos I might not give you the answers that you want me to.”
No, I’d rather have the ineffectual clown in charge than the vicious bully
Irregardless of who is running the company, Einhorn was stupid enough to buy so many shares. That doesn’t make him smarter than Balllmer.
Grammar nazi alert: irregardless is not an officially recognized word. Carry on.
It is where I come from. Control>Command>d brings up a perfectly good definition. Look that up in you Funk & Wagnall
It is a ‘nonstandard’ word. Besides that, its use mildly irritates me. I prefer the thriftiest prose possible.
The use of “irregardless” puts one in the same realm as those who would say “ironical”, and “orientate”.
Just. Don’t. Do. It.
DavidinMpls, you’re a good person.
Thank you David! That’s one of my biggest pet peeves.
aaaah snap
Frack. This is VERY dire news.
I personally believe Microsoft is now beyond hope and redemption. But if Ballmer goes off golden parachuting, we may well see Microsoft sticking around and continuing to screw over the computer community. And that’s bad.
Then again, there is always that atom of hope that Microsoft at long last becomes a helpful and contributing part of the computer community, as opposed to remaining a parasite. We can dream… 🙄
“…..clown as their spokesman.”
Brilliant.
Microsoft’s problems go much deeper than Ballmer. They acquired too many companies. For example, they wrote Word and Excel, but PowerPoint, FrontPage, Access, and most of the other parts of Office were each the product of a company that Microsoft acquired. It is a patchwork quilt of dozens of companies and clashing corporate structures, which is why it has an overly complex, self-defeating organizational structure.
Bill Gates once played dumb user and tried to do something on Windows. It didn’t work, so he sent a memo that we’ve all read to his staff. The memo dissipated into the organizational chaos and the problem was never solved. Bill Gates said he would run Microsoft as long as it was fun. It isn’t fun, so he’s not coming back. A Vista developer wrote an article about his experience. His group needed to be in touch with the people who wrote the kernel. All their communications had to go up seven steps in the hierarchy, then down seven steps. By the time they got the answers to their questions, they were overcome by events. Microsoft learned from that and made the Windows 7 team smaller, and the result was better.
Restructuring Microsoft, optimizing its structure, and pruning dead wood is a very big task. Bill Gates was a technical geek. Steve Ballmer is a wheeler-dealer showman. The next CEO will be a manager par excellence, and won’t have or want the visibility of either Gates or Ballmer.
Nevertheless, Microsoft is in for a long winter. This decade is for Microsoft what the 1990s were for Apple. What Microsoft needs, but won’t find, is a polymath like Steve Jobs: An artful showman, an effective manager and motivator, an advocate of good design, and a technical savant all rolled into one.
Microsoft’s golden age is over. It won’t die, it will just have a lower profile. It will recapitulate IBM’s history.
I miss Zune Tang’s remarks.
Where are you, Zune Tang?
NOOOOO!
So, this guy, known for shorting companies and then screaming about them, has put money into Microsoft, and now is calling for Ballmer’s head, in order to push up the shares. Maybe, the SEC should investigate him!
Also, this guy just bought a minority stake in the Mets, but he’s talking about Microsoft having Charlie Brown management? Doesn’t he know the Mets have Mickey Mouse management, and he just bought a minority stake?
No, Mr Einhorn, he’s not the droid you’re looking for.
Oh, and kudos to Cubert for the “Oh Well” reference.