Ballmer: That didn’t go over so well.
Flunky: The reaction seemed about 50-50.
Ballmer: At best.
“That was elevator chitchat overheard by a Business 2.0 reporter and relayed on a blog by the magazine’s Owen Thomas. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had just emerged from a meeting with analysts in Manhattan last Thursday,” Kevin Kelleher reports for TheStreet.com.
“Yes, that meeting — the one at which he uttered those magical, market-cap-killing words about the company’s new Vista operating system: ‘Perhaps people are somewhat too bullish,'” Kelleher reports.
Kelleher reports, “There has been a lot of back-and-forth in the days since Microsoft’s CEO said Vista sales could come in below analyst forecasts… A careful reading of the transcript of the analyst briefing provides more insight. For one thing, Microsoft recently started recognizing more revenue up front rather than spread out over time, which creates what Ballmer called a ‘blue bell’ in year-over-year comparisons.”
“When Ballmer talked about Vista sales forecasts, he was ignoring that one-time bump in revenue,” Kelleher reports. “But it’s not clear that the analyst forecasts that he believed were overly optimistic were also factoring out his blue bell. When Merrill Lynch analyst Kash Rangan confronted him with that possibility, Ballmer’s tone grew uncertain, stuttering, as if he realized he may have blundered big time.”
Steve Ballmer: What I basically tried to say in the very highest level was that you shouldn’t think of a huge surge in fiscal year ’08 versus fiscal year ’07, huge relative — I mean, in some senses whatever you think the growth is of PCs in developed markets, in developed markets — because I talked about emerging markets — we should do somewhat better than that. We shouldn’t do that much better, we should do that much better, whatever it means. This is before the accounting one-time blah, blah, blah.
Rangan: That was very good.
Kelleher reports, “I found Ballmer’s diffident tone more discouraging than any single comment of his. Gone is the Ballmer who skipped mightily across the stage, who pumped his fists and shouted ‘Come on!’ … who exhorted the crowd to ‘Give it up for me!’ Instead, he starts off the analyst briefing with jokes about infected feet, infected stocks and profuse sweating.”
More in the full article here.
Like Microsoft’s office chair supplier, we hope against hope that his reign as head buffoon lasts forever, but, seriously, how much time do you think Ballmer has left at Microsoft?
Related articles:
Gates: ‘Windows Vista’s had incredible reception’ – February 21, 2007
Ballmer says pirates to blame for poor Vista sales – February 19, 2007
Ballmer calls Apple ‘cute, little tiny niche guy’ – February 15, 2007
Microsoft’s Ballmer warns on Vista, says revenue forecasts too aggressive; shares drop – February 15, 2007
Microsoft CEO Ballmer laughs at Apple iPhone – January 17, 2007
Ballmer: ‘Zune halo effect’ will help Windows Vista – December 06, 2006
PC World’s 13 Most Embarrassing Web Moments: #1 Microsoft CEO Steve ‘Monkey Boy’ Ballmer – November 17, 2006
Ballmer analyzes Microsoft’s One Big Mistake, Vista… er, ‘One Big’ Vista Mistake – August 02, 2006
Ballmer: I’m Microsoft’s ‘primary champion of innovation’ – July 27, 2006
Microsoft CEO Ballmer spends two days unsuccessfully trying to clean Windows PC malware – June 05, 2006
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admits to brainwashing his kids not to use Apple iPods – March 28, 2006
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: ‘We love to be first’ – January 25, 2005
Couldn’t this have waited till after lunch?
Like Microsoft’s office chair supplier, we hope against hope that his reign as head buffoon lasts forever, but, seriously, how much time do you think Ballmer has left at Microsoft?
One year after Gates leaves. No more, no less.
I think major stockholders have put it to Gates and Ballmer rather forcefully, “We need new leadership, thank you for your time”.
My breakfast is on my monitor.
I can’t stand that sweaty dumb ass.
Read the latest ‘Joy of Tech’.
Peace.
When he gets the bullet he’ll make more than most of do in our lifetime.
“Instead, he starts off the analyst briefing with jokes about infected feet, infected stocks and profuse sweating.”
At least he’s consistent about the profuse sweating (although I think we would all be happy if he gave that up).
TT and Thomas…. come on guys, you’re not being far to the real uncle fester…. at least MDN didn’t put a pic up there of the real ballmer.
Infected Feet? I never heard ANYONE talk about or joke about infected feet. Sick, just sick. The guy is losing it. I fear for his mental state. We all knew he’s a whackjob, but this is over the top.
far = fair
Please Microsoft, keep the ‘ol bastard in the Chair. He deserves it. The company deserves it.
Ballmer’s just one big infected purple bell-end…
This was on the original quote site in the commnets. Sad hey?
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“I have owned MSFT stock for the last 7 years and lost a boat load of money on it but I am proud to be a stock holder of a highly ethical top professionally managed firm.” Posted by: Sri Thirumala | February 15, 2007 at 06:35 PM
Come on guys/gals, cut Ballmer some slack. I’d be a little worried if MS fired his sweaty ass and hired someone competent.
The longer he stays at the helm, the better.
When is Ballmer going to do something about his TONGUE problem? That flesh flag has been waving WAY too often for me. It shows up at the oddest moments too… perhaps he’s taking tongue viagra and can’t help himself.
Please, I just ate….
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Microsoft today continues to thrive due to inertia, in that the majority of its revenue and income is due to Windows and Office licenses installed by default on new PCs or paid for in Enterprise Licenses. Given that Ballmer remains Microsoft’s second largest stockholder, I expect he’ll stay around as long as the money keeps coming in. But once that inertia falters, it will mark the beginning of the end of the Microsoft era.
Ah. Now the truth comes out. The real reason that Vista sucks isn’t because the management and staff at Microsoft are incompetent. Rather, they’ve all been distracted for the last five years by their infected feet.
From TFA:
“In just a few minutes, Ballmer managed to suck more than $7 billion in market cap out of Microsoft’s stock.”
Woo Hooooo…. Yeah, Give It Up for Me!
“When he gets the bullet he’ll make more than most of do in our lifetime.”
Sure, but is he as happy.
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Blue Bells? Is that anything like blue balls?
“Microsoft recently started recognizing more revenue up front rather than spread out over time”
Having just watched the Enron documentary which talks about their use of Mark-to-Market accounting (method of booking anticipated revenue up front rather than spread out over time as it actually comes in), this change sounds rather fishy to me…
Maybe he heard about this:
In an attempt to boost its sagging fortunes, Dell, one of the leading PC makers in America, recently launched the Dell Idea Storm website to solicit ideas on how to get Dell back to the top. The most popular idea so far? Desktops with pre-installed Linux.
——
Specifically, users wanted the top-three free Linuxes — Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE — offered as selections for the Dell desktop. The Linux option was almost twice as popular as the next option. That next option was, by the way, to have OpenOffice pre-installed instead of Microsoft Works or a trial version of Microsoft Office.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8382062536.html
Ballmer is even better than Zune Tang.
Ballmer’s payback is he is stuck using Windoz the rest of his sweaty life.
The ultimate payback.
Don’t complain too loudly.
The longer they keep him in charge, the better for Apple. I don’t think we could have PLANTED a better F### Up into the oppositions camp! Ballmers a dream come true for Apple. C’mon Monkey Boy give us one more dance!
Well, there’s nothing new there.
Things must be really bad for the warning
and the plan to cut expenses down to ’06
levels. They can’t figure out what to spend
on….
Read More.
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