“Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has started the clock ticking on his retirement from his position as head of the world’s largest software maker,” Paul McDougall reports for InformationWeek.
“Speaking at an event Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Ballmer said he would preside over Microsoft ‘for another nine or 10 years … until my last kid goes away to college,'” McDougall reports.
MacDailyNews Take: To each his own, but If we were already multi-billionaires, we’d have retired long ago in order to spend as much time as possible with our kids before they went away to college, not waiting for our many mansions, vacation homes, and seaside villas to clear out before abandoning the ship we’d run aground. We know college is expensive, but, come on; How much does Ballmer think college costs? Earth to Ballmer: You could buy each of your kids their very own school, you big dummy. We hope Ballmers’ kids never see that quote. They’ve got enough problems: those fargin’ Zunes that dear old dad has foisted upon them, those shitaceous Dells running that Vista mess to which he’s consigned them, the Red Rings of Death, always having to find places to hide their iPods, iPhones, and MacBooks, etc…
McDougall continues, “Ballmer, 52, is married with three children. If he follows through on his plan, Ballmer would retire at about the age of 62 — a not uncommon timeframe for top software executives who’ve made billions of dollars over the life of their careers.”
“Some pundits have called on Ballmer to immediately resign as Microsoft’s CEO in the wake of the poor reception received by the company’s Windows Vista operating system and its bungled negotiations to buy out Internet rival Yahoo,” McDougall reports.
“There is no clear succession plan in place at Microsoft,” McDougall reports. “In January, Microsoft confirmed that Rob Short, corporate VP for Windows Core Technology, had quit. Short, a 19-year Microsoft veteran, led the team responsible for designing, developing, and testing Vista.
“In addition, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes has said he would retire in September,” McDougall reports. “Microsoft’s mergers and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe stepped down at the end of February.”
MacDailyNews Take: Like rats from a sinking ship.
Full article here.
Hmm. I thought Balmer’s wife was Jane Goodall.
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Perhaps Steve Ballmer secretly has tens of thousands of Microsoft put options. That would explain a lot.
Yay! 10 more years of Vista-like Windows. This is the best news for Mac and linux fans.
To Ballmer: Wish you the best. May MS board of directors never fire you.
in 9-10 years Apple’s market cap will have exceeded MS’s.
> Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has started the clock ticking on his retirement from his position as head of the world’s largest software maker…
If he’s there for another 10 years, Microsoft will not be the “world’s largest software maker.”
PJ’s top ten hints that your filty rich dad has no intrest in spending time with you:
#3 He will quit his job to be able to spend more time at home as soon as you head out the door to college.
“… led the team responsible for designing, developing, and testing Vista.”
No wonder Vista came up Short.
So, about the time Windows 7 comes out.
Here’s hoping that his kid gets left back a few times. Long live Monkey Boy!
“until my last kid goes away to college”
Ha ha… That’s awesome. So he’s saying: “I’ll stay home once my kids are gone, until then… I’m staying at work, or going on business trips”.
The really frightening thing about this article is that somehow he was actually permitted to breed.
If he retires now he would have to spend more time with his kids. I guess he doesn’t want that.
BALLMER BREAKFAST TABLE – DAY
DAD: Who said, sit down!
FAMILY: Uh..?
DAD: Give it up for me!!!! Aaaaaagh!
YOUNGEST: Jeez, when’s this guy leaving?
2nd YOUNGEST: Mom, you had sex with this guy? I have to kill myself.
DAD: More bacon! I! Love! This! Company! Yaaaaa..Aaaaaagh!
OLDEST: Dad. Didn’t you mean family?
DAD: I know what I meant, smartmouth!
Macromancer said:
“…in 9-10 years Apple’s market cap will have exceeded MS’s.”
It will happen much sooner than that. Currently, Microsoft’s market cap is barely 1.6 x larger than Apple. We can all agree that there is pretty much nowhere for Microsoft to grow, other than following the entire stock market / tech sector, etc.
Meanwhile, Apple’s profits in the last quarter were around $1B (about $5 per share). Profits from single iPhone sold come to about $200. If Apple were to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008 (at this point, rather conservative estimate), that would add $2B to the bottom line, other things being equal. With P/E staying in the neighbourhood of 30 (current forward P/E is 29), this would require Apple to ramp it up to about 20 million iPhones per year in order to attain share price of about $290 necessary to eclipse MS market cap. This all assuming all other sales (Macs, iPods, etc) remain flat.
We don’t know how the stock market is going to behave once there is a change in the White House (whichever it may be, although it looks like the US is readying itself for their first black president) but if external factors remain calm, Apple should eclipse Microsoft in about a year or two; perhaps Christmas 09.
I’m sure they’ll still have Balmer around to mark that occasion.
If I were placed at the head of Microsoft today (which I would accept because I could use a few billion dollars in the ol’ coffers) I would immediately alert hardware manufacturers that we were on a path to end OS development and that they should begin creating their own OS’s, just like Apple. I would also abruptly end any and all hardware development, as that is not what MicroSOFT’s core competency is or should be in. That’s not to say we wouldn’t continue an R&D;shop that we could then generate prototypes for other hardware companies to utilize, kind of like the Kindle. Man, how did that get past the marketing department? I would focus on developing applications spanning all platforms; a market that would grow up from regaining their independence from Winsucks. For example, I would immediately devote teams to developing Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc. Office varieties. I would focus on games actually utilizing OpenGL and other open source frameworks. Business utilities, personal management tools, etc. all with the goal of turning M$ from a greedy, belligerent, evil company, to one that plays nicely with others but is still profitable and actually fosters an environment of growing knowledge and innovation, not suppressing it. Why have they been so inane to NOT develop applications for other platforms in the past? Don’t give me the horseshit Mac Office response. It’s crap and I don’t use it. Apple has had to fill in the gaps that MS has created, and while they’ve done an excellent job, I’m sure they’d rather have someone else affording development costs on large projects.
Users and hardware vendors need to free themselves from the tyranny of a vertical Microsoft and embrace a market where competition breeds innovation.
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Mother Nature doesn’t get it right every time.
It is wicked of me but I hope she gets it wrong again.
don’t forget to turn out the lights when you leave steve…
@Drunk Cheney. I think Billion should stay. I bet he has his money is in one of the banks that run XP/Vista the system will crash and he will loose all his money. He will need to build it back up wont he?
Ballmer is a fargin greedy bastage!
That man has THREE kids?!?!
Geez, what kind of woman would want to…
Oh, wait. Maybe it’s the tongue action.
No, no, I can’t. I have to go back to “What kind of woman would want to…
@ Streeble,
“don’t forget to turn out the lights when you leave steve…”
I think the lights are already out at Microsoft. They’re all bumbling around in the dark. The usual expression is “the light’s on, but nobody’s home.” This is just the opposite. To quote astronaut Taylor, “It’s a madhouse!”
Good riddance.
Turn the light off when you leave you sad fsck.
“Speaking at an event Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Ballmer said he would preside over Microsoft ‘for another nine or 10 years … until my last kid goes away to college”
Retirement? You guys don’t get it. It was his kids that insisted on this… not Balmer.
Of course Ballmer will be out. MS won’t survive 9-10 years under his “leadership”.
This is esp. so as Gates fully retires and gives Ballmer COMPLETE control of MS (OMG, to think Ballmer has been restrained so far…). Check out today’s Wall Street Journal cover story of these guys, 6/5/08.
MW: must