“Microsoft has gone from being a feared technology powerhouse to being a mocked has-been and shell of its former self. The glory days of being able to run roughshod over competitors and instill a sense of terror in rivals have come to a screeching halt as competitors such as Google, Sony, and Apple have rolled out incredible products and services that put Microsoft’s own products to shame,” Jim Lynch writes for ExtremeTech.
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone that displays a totally disregard of ethics and the law should be feared. Microsoft was never feared for its quality or ability to innovate, because they never displayed either attribute. They were feared because they had a monopoly that they were quite fond of illegally abusing.
Lynch continues, “But why? What’s been happening inside of Microsoft that has resulted in the former software giant becoming a pale echo of its former self? Well they say that a fish rots from the head down and in Microsoft’s case the fish’s head has been rotting and stinking up the technology world for a long time and, frankly, it’s time for him to go.”
“Yup, it’s time for Steve Ballmer to be fired and for Microsoft to find new, fresh leadership while Ballmer is put out to pasture like an age-hobbled cow (or is it horses that get put out to pasture when they get older? Well whatever, I’ll just go with the cow thing). Well…actually…come to think of it…not all cows get put out to pasture, some get turned into hamburger. Give him his due, Ballmer would make one hell of a hamburger patty these days,” Lynch writes.
Lynch’s top ten reasons Steve Ballmer should be fired – plus a bonus reason, too:
10. Microsoft’s Stock Price
9. Overheating Xboxes
8. Nobody’s Scared of Microsoft
7. Incredibly lame and stupid attempt to take over Yahoo
6. The Google Obsession (while Apple lurks)
5. Web 2.0
4. Windows Mobile & the iPhone
3. The Zune: The only people who’ve bought Zunes are either anti-Apple ideologues or masochists who enjoy being abused by Microsoft.
2. Windows 7: Illustrates Microsoft’s penchant for stealing from Apple. Apparently Microsoft has already stolen…excuse me…incorporated “multi-touch” into a preliminary version of Windows 7. While they say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I doubt Apple’s lawyers will see it that way and I suspect there will be a lawsuit if Windows 7 comes with anything resembling the multi-touch features already found on the iPhone.
1. Windows Vista
Bonus: Microsoft’s Big Ass Table: One of the stupidest and most useless things in the history of mankind.
Lynch writes, “Ballmer needs to be removed by Microsoft’s board and replaced by somebody who can give the aging and increasingly feeble company new life and a bold new direction.”
The full article describes and explains each point on the list in detail – recommended – here.
Lynch can write whatever he wants, but we fervently hope that Steve Ballmer continues to run Microsoft for as long as it takes.
Realistically, Microsoft still has a ton of $$$, Windows and Office rake in a TON of $$$ each year so MS is not going out of biz anytime soon. I’m sure they’ve talented employees too (Seriously. I think they probably just don’t get to do interesting stuff ’cause management wants them to maintain the status quo.)
I hope Ballmer stays President as LONG AS POSSIBLE because as long as he’s there, MS isn’t going anywhere interesting fast, playing catch up constantly with the rest of the computer industry.
Please note that as long as Ballmer remains Microsoft’s second (or third, depending on which outlet you read) largest shareholder (Bill Gates) and he retains the support of its largest shareholder, he isn’t going anywhere. It’ll take a severe drop in the portfolio value of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for Mrs. Gates to force Bill to fire Steve. And that will probably lead to Bill returning to the fold. Which will be equally as bad for Microsoft’s future.
Fun article, and true too.
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The thing he doesn’t mention and that people are missing here though is that the entire company needs to be “fired” really, and as big a dufus as Balmer is, if Gates was still in charge he would have made approximately the same decisions with the exception of the Yahoo acquisition.
Balmer is indeed an idiot and deserves to be fired, but the problems Microsoft is having are related to other companies “out-innovating” them (because the idea that MS innovates has always been a myth anyway), more than it is their own mis-steps.
Microsoft’s problems with releasing Vista and many of the other things he mentions come from a company-wide lack of focus and a overly huge lumbering organisation. Apple does almost the same amount of business dollar wise lately but it has something like a fifth (or even less) employees.
Balmer needs to be fired, but the whole organisation needs to be shaken up and about 60% of the employees fired with him. Until they do that, they will bleed money and trip over their own feet ad infinitum.
Mr. Ballmer got his job when the very last vestiges of Microsoft’s tide reached it’s zenith. Given the sea of troubles left him, he’s doing extremely well and should not be let go. The big table will soon be a little tiny device revolutionizing everything. It is obviously the key to the future of computing and only the blind, deaf, halt, lame, anosmic and anguesmic would deny it. Those unwilling to see the future will find themselves suddenly trampled by it.
Yahoo’s inability to come to its senses and take the great deal offered by Microsoft is not Mr. Ballmer’s fault. Microsoft has a lot of cash and it would have been an appropriate acquisition had the other side been sensible.
I finally figured it out!
Ball$mer is an Apple Inc plant, a spy!
What a coup for Apple.
Kill the giant from within!
Give Ball$mer an academy award for his performance!
Great article. Nailed it.
Did you read the comments page for that article? I think Zune Tang with his Sarcastic parody of defending Microsoft must have written in as “NoOther.”
And did you guys check out the link? Too funny. Now we all knew someone would come up with this game eventually.
http://www.egg-attack.com/
If I were a MS stockholder, thankfully I’ not, I would start a stockholder movement to dump this ego driven lard ass. He’s mismanaged major opportunities and overlooked several others during his reign over the MS kingdom.
Based on his comments that he’d like to remain there for 9 more years shows that he doesn’t even know that he’s screwed up or just thinks the stockholders are stupid.
I think you gotta keep him for the entertainment value if nothing else.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
>>Those unwilling to see the future will find themselves suddenly trampled by it. <<
You are absolutely correct, but your target is 180º off base. It was Gates/Microsoft that didn’t understand the internet, it was Gates/Microsoft that never understood seamless integration, it was Gates/Microsoft that didn’t get the digital life style. Gates, Ballmer (whatever) made and are making, the same mistakes that Scully made back in the late ’80s.
They were making so much money with their monopolies that they failed to see the need to continue innovating. Both Scully and Microsoft stopped improving their products in favor of selling the hell out of what they already had.
That failure to innovate nearly destroyed Apple, it may yet destroy Microsoft. I’m thinking that Microsoft is far to large and ponderous to change directions. Within 10 years it will be a shell of its former self, subservient to the very firms it once dominated.
THe stock price performance alone will do. Everything else is just gray-veeee.
They should have included the now defunct “Plays for Sure” campaign with the Zune. That’s why you want to either own your music without DRM or rent without expectations of ownership.
I pointed out the potential for the “Plays until we drop the DRM server” a long time ago, and I fully recognize that it also applies to iTunes DRM’ed products, as well.
@ Ross Nicholson,
Well first things first, Yahoo is a Linux tech shop which does not fit into Microsoft’s Windows World. The Yahoo Engineers would not be able to enhances expansion and scaling problems without converting MS Live to Linux. A conversion which would not be allowed by the Monkey Boy. MS engineers made a mess of the Hot mail Linux to Windows transition so bad that Hot Mail’s code is still so F* up that it could never be integrated into Yahoo’s Mail platform. MS Live Search is a joke. Moving Yahoo Search to Windows would seriously damage it’s speed, scalability and stability to the point of being worthless. The Yahoo Dynamic Contextual Ad Engine would suffer similar issues if moved to Windows. Digg is suffering MS poorly designed and slow ad delivery system which slows Digg to a crawl (if you’re not blocking the ads). So MS buying Yahoo would have been a failure. Yahoo just saved MS the embarrassment of failure to integrate Yahoo into MS’s Windows World.
If MS ever expects to take on Google they’ll need to dump Windows out of their data center and develop a UNIX/Linux ad and search infrastructure otherwise they will never be able to even compete with Yahoo, let alone Google. If Vista and Windows Server 2008 are any indications of the Direction that MS is moving for it’s OS they should just put out the for sale or lease signs on the Redmond campus now and save themselves the embarrassment of failure.
As for Multi-touch devices they we’ll be the future the only problem for Microsoft is that Apple owns most of the patents and even the technologies that will allow it to be moved to the desktop, laptop and handheld devices in a cost and size effective manner. So, while MS might be able to include some basic multi-touch in their OS UI. OEMs will not be able to tap into it effectively. The MS Big Ass Table is the perfect example to do multi-touch MS engineers had to uses cameras to detect the touch on a piece of Glass that has an image from the computer projected onto. Even the Windows 7 demo used the same or a similar trick. The Multi-touch screens of the iPhone, iPod and the Multi-touch trackpad in the Macbook Air and Pros use chip sets that Apple holds exclusive rights to for the next 10+ years. So, either everyone will be striking Licensing deals with Apple or they’ll need to find workaround technologies that do not conflict with Apple’s IP.
As for Ballmer, he’ll convert MS to a Google competitor. But in the OS and Software World he’ll have no focus and the Windows and Office cash train will slowly run out of steam, just as the Zune train is now winding down and the XBox will start doing next year. Ballmer lost interest in the Zune when it failed to compete of even effect iPod sells so, it’s been left with no direction, The Zune Team tried to prolong the end by purposing to put Ads on the Zune to entice Ballmer’s interest and delate the end. Ballmer is loosing interest in the Xbox because of the continuing Red Ring of Death issues and because Bungie Studios basically wanted a divorce and Bill gave it to them. Which ended the MS Halo hype. Next Year the XBox 360 will be getting up there in age and will start to be looking out of date and long in the tooth to gamers, MS has no plans for a refresh and they no longer have a game studio to turn out blockbuster games. The fact is the predecessor of the Xbox 360 is likely to be the last MS Game Console if not the Xbox 360 itself. The current Zune Hardware is likely to be the final version of the Zune before the end, though it’s likely to get another software update maybe two. Don’t expect an Official Canadian or international release of the Zune as rumor as it MS cancelled the expansion plans and by leaving Canada and other NAFTA countries off the Official Release list they can keep dumping excess inventories at steep discounted prices to inventory liquidators in NAFTA countries and still count them as fully sold units something they couldn’t do if the Zune were officially sold in that country.
People think Bill Gates is a philanthropist. In fact, Bill presided over MS while it made billions in ill-gotten gains. He’s just feelilng a little guilty.
Steve Ballmer is the real philanthropist. He’s running MS in a way so that they give back all of their ill-gotten gains. You just watch and wait. Give it a decade until his kids are ready to go to Seattle Community College.
Why would anyone in their right (Mac) mind want to oust Ballmer?
Quite the contrary, he should be promoted to a life-time position as head of Microsoft and I wish him a long and healthy life.
Don’t fire him…in another year Microsoft will be so irrelevant no one will even remember them. oh wait, who?
“People think Bill Gates is a philanthropist”
I think that most people realize that Bill had no interest at all in charity until his wife decided she wanted to buy some respectability.
He’s rather like Carnegie. He didn’t go as far as having Pinkertons commit any murders, but he made his money through some blatantly illegal maneuvers.
That being said, what he’s *doing* with his ill-gotten gains is all fine and dandy. I hear that Al Capone used to finance soup kitchens during the depression, too.
-jcr
I whole heartedly agree with MDN and others here: I hope, no I pray Steve Ballmer is never fired from M$! That bumbling idiot running M$ is great for Apple. Steve Ballmer’s missteps continue to drive the masses looking for an alternative and most end up looking Apple’s way.
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Goood reasons…. innovation? Innovation my grandmother….
Microsoft: Jack of all trades, master of none.
mw= simple
’nuff said!
“Ballmer needs to be removed by Microsoft’s board and replaced by somebody who can give the aging and increasingly feeble company new life and a bold new direction.”
MS is fscked beyond anyone’s ability to save it. From decades of unmanaged CRAP legacy code, to a corporate culture that makes General Motors look competent, the current MS is beyond any hope.
The only answer is to let MS completely collapse, and let new growth come from the rubble.
Hey, uh, don’t want to rock the boat here or anything guys, but the implementation of multitouch in Win7 is based heavily off of the technology we developed for the Surface, a project I’ve been working on since 2004.
As for the rest of the list, well… yeah, pretty much. Though if you need to add something to replace that, add his… somewhat easily excitable nature. I’ve been chewed out by him before and he really does get that sweaty.
Postin’ this from home so I don’t get fired
Re: Windows 7. The person who should be fired for that one is Ben Fathi…Oh, wait, they already did that..Well, there’s one good thing Ballmer did