“Exactly 10 years ago this week, Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive of Microsoft, installing Steve Ballmer in his place,” Nicole Kobie reports for IT Pro. “That decade hasn’t been kind to Microsoft. In the past 10 years, Microsoft’s stock has dived 53 per cent – a slide that would have seen many other chief execs knocked from the position pretty quickly.”
“There’s nowhere else to start, really,” Kobie reports. “Sure, acting like a lunatic on stage hardly explains a 53 per cent stock prices spiral (one assumes, though maybe it does) but it’s hard to escape that one of the most enduring images of Ballmer is the big bald sweaty man hoarsely chanting ‘developers, developers, developers.'”
Kobie reports, “Or there’s the time, to mark Microsoft’s 25th anniversary, that he danced like a monkey across a stage for 45 full seconds (and looking like he pulls something halfway through it). Nearly a minute, as a monkey – this from the head honcho at one of the biggest, best known firms in the world.”
Kobie reports, “While dancing across stage like a monkey is one way to get attention, launching good products is probably the preferred method.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Don’t forget this one:
And no Ballmer retrospective would be complete without these two:
Excerpts from a BusinessWeek interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004:
Steve Jobs: Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly. But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself? So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy… Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.
BusinessWeek: Is this common in the industry?
Steve Jobs: Look at Microsoft — who’s running Microsoft?
BusinessWeek: Steve Ballmer.
Steve Jobs: Right, the sales guy. Case closed.
Source: The Seed of Apple’s Innovation
As always, glasses up: May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes!
And this one:
@ HMCIV
Thanks for the link. Great!
Ballmer is actually more intelligent than Bill Gates. That doesn’t make him a better CEO, but it should count for something.
Congrats Steve! Here’s to as much success in your next 10 years!
I like the foreboding Nortel signage behind Ballmer as he talks ruminates (think about that word) on the iPhone…irony
Ballmer is fantastic and should stay on board till he’s 100 years old. His RDF helps me when I’m constipated. Watching him on video, helps me get the push I need during hard times.
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Ballmer… May you stay for another 10 years.
@macaholic :
Not sure i completely agree. Not in today’s world, anyway. Most bigger businesses now use the following model:
– Market analysts ensure that customers receive the product that they want, at the price they want, in the quantity they want.
– Advertisers inform (and/or misinform, sway, deceive, schmooze) the public
– Customer Service renders support before and after the sale.
– Salesmen take orders and submit them to mfg for processing.
In small companies, all this might be done by a single person. In larger companies, much is automated and broken into different groups. Salesmen have largely been replaced by computers, the front end operated by Customer Service people and the back end completely automated.
Your point about Ballmer’s lack of management skill is completely valid. He’s not even a second-rate salesman
Nothing happens until someone sells something to someone else. The mechanics of this do not matter. The customer has to know about your product, and that is where the sales come in. Everything in life is sales. You have a job? You sold your employer on needing u. You get paid every month, that is your commission, on what u sold them for last 30 days. U lose your job? They ain’t buying what u are selling, whatever the reason. Everyone is in sales, they just don’t all know it. A sale is made every time another party agrees with your proposal.
I haven’t seen that last one before. Priceless.
@ macaholic:
If you’re yielding a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.
There are many pieces to the puzzle of exchange, and our society operated very well before the term “salesmen” became glorified.
For what it’s worth, entire industries now operate without a single salesperson. Perhaps you’ve seen Apple’s App store?
Yes i have seen the App store, and just because there is not a ‘salesman’ in front of you, does not mean there is no sales presentation. You are confusing a person with a presentation. The person makes the presentation to you as a potential customer, whether or not they are physically in front of you. A sales presentation was made, direct or indirect, to you, in order to solicit your business. Why all the animosity towards sales people? Once again, I reiterate, without someone making a sale, in whatever manner, none of us would be employed. If you are employed (maybe you aren’t, as it is the middle of the day, I am on a day off myself), then you made a sale the moment they hired you. And you make a sale every time they give u a paycheque.
Also, I never said the term ‘salesman’ was glorified. If anything it is vilified. Even tho with no sale there is no job. And as for the idea that society operated fine before there were salesman, or that entire industries operate without them? Absolute horseshit! You are defining the term too narrowly. Barter systems, guess what, still selling. Convince the other guy that your wagon of carrots is equal to his barrel of beer. Now that’s salesmanship!!
@macaholic
I think you made my point for me. The art of selling by SalesMAN or salesPERSON has been largely replaced by automated computing systems & web developers — most with hardly any salesmanship skills of any kind.
No animosity towards good salesmen, but the fact is there are precious few good salesmen in the world, and an overabundance of Ballmers and web-ad creators and big-box-store zombies.
How many salespeople do you actually encounter in the modern big box store that actually sell you on an item? Most often a modern purchase is a self-help endeavor. Can’t find a person to help you if you tried, and if you do have a question, good luck. More often than not, the pimply kid at your grocer/Home Depot/Best Buy/Sams/Wally World/etc can only do two things: check the inventory on the computer, or call for the manager. If a person really needs customer support and salesmanship, then one has to visit a small business operated by someone who actually cares about the customer … like an Apple Store, where most of them really seem to be your advocate rather than a time-clock-puncher.
Ten years too long!
But then again, he’s made life a lot easier for Apple!
Another 10 years with Ballmer and Microsoft is out of business.
(Warning: Mac Propaganda Ahead) Bill Gates is a genius, Steve Ballmer is not. The battle is no longer Apple vs. Microsoft, but Jobs vs. Ballmer. Checkmate.
These videos and the pain that Micro$hit has inflicted for decades on hundreds of millions of people explains why the US is hated today.
FrankenSteve video is AWESOME !
All hail Micro$oft’s top Sweat Monkey. May his rein last as long as it takes!
you’ve got to be kiddin – this guy is a hyper mess with little content!