“Senior Microsoft executives, disenchanted with the company’s stagnant stock, have been secretly discussing how to kick Chief Steve Ballmer, and maybe the board, to the curb,” Peter Lauria reports for The Daily Beast. “An emotional tribute to his 30 years of service nearly brought Microsoft’s testosterone-fueled CEO Steve Ballmer to tears yesterday in front of more than 10,000 employees gathered in Atlanta for the software giant’s annual global sales meeting.”
“‘He was rendered completely speechless,’ a tweet from one of the conference’s attendees reported. ‘Incredibly intense and moving experience.’ According another Microsoft executive at the conference, there may be a reason for the drama other than gratitude: Ballmer may not be at Microsoft when next year’s event rolls around,” Lauria reports. “‘It felt like it could have been a sign of his last mgx [Microsoft Global Experience],’ wrote this insider in a text message to me. ‘A farewell?’ Indeed, this executive and several other sources close to Microsoft say that there is a growing resentment among a faction of certain executives inside the company who blame Ballmer for the years-long stagnation in Microsoft’s stock price.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, by the way: JP Morgan ups Apple price target to $400 – July 21, 2010
Lauria continues, “Sources say the talk around Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters—which has grown increasingly louder ever since Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization–is that the company’s stock suffers from a ‘Ballmer discount’ and that the CEO is on the clock to significantly move the needle on its share price over the next two or three quarters or face a potential move to oust him. ‘Ballmer is on the list of mega-executives under pressure,’ says a banker who has negotiated deals for Microsoft. ‘If he was asked to leave the building, I suspect there would be more happy than unhappy people.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Wait until Microsoft confirms that Apple have zipped past them in quarterly revenue, too.
Lauria continues, “There are also two powerful intangibles that will make it difficult for any group, however sizable, to remove Ballmer: Microsoft’s board supports him unwaveringly, and there’s no obvious successor that could easily slide into his post.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Leave him be. He’s doing an excellent job.*
*For Apple.
Oh no! Go back to sleep. Poppies, meadows full of lovely poppies for all M$. Keep Ballmer, good Ballmer, live long at the helm, ride M$ down to Davey’s Locker. Sleep, sleep, you are content with Ballmer.
Well, at least he could go on to Dancing with the Stars if he is kicked out.
Don’t do it Microsoft, you will lose a legend and true visionary. Give him a Windows Phone 7 and a raise.
Ballmer shit-canned?
Nooooooooooo!
Let’s not panic people- Microsoft is always late on release dates.
He’s a perfectly good CEO, they’re just holding him wrong.
At the MGX, his reception was excellent, but admittedly was unable to talk.
The one thing that MDN has nailed more perfectly than any other is the fact that Ballmer is of more benefit to Apple than anyone.
All those times when someone in the media asked him a comparison to Apple question the reaction on his face, in his eyes, and coming out of his mouth have provided amazing insight into his failed leadership.
And, I don’t think he is going anywhere – if that happened it would be a Microsoft admission that Steve Jobs was the cause and that would be worse than Ballmer losing his zillions of dollars and camped out under a bridge somewhere.
It would take a big man to fill his shoes.
I suggest those looking for a successor do a reality TV show where the sales person who can throw the desk chair the furthest gets the job.
Whatever happens, make sure a sales guy is in charge.
Monkey-boy will go ape is doing a great job! of bringing down the company…..please leave him bee!
From Monday Note: here
“The departing CEO meets his successor and hands him three envelopes to be opened in the prescribed order when trouble strikes. First crisis, the message in envelope #1 says: Blame your predecessor. Easy enough. Another storm, the the CEO opens the second envelope: Reorganize. Good idea. And when calamity strikes yet again, he reaches for the third: Get three envelopes…”
Balmer opened the 2nd envelope when he fired Robbie Bach and J Allard and reorganized Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division. The coming Windows 7 Phone disaster will lead to the 3rd envelope.
The current rot at Microsoft goes way beyond anything getting rid of Ballmer would fix. Take their fractured approach to mobile phones, where competing divisions and infighting are resulting in numerous incompatible strategies, canned products, and loss of both carrier and manufacturer confidence. That’s the culture up in The Beast these days, and it’s reflected right the way through. Ousting the Board would only collapse the stock price sooner in the short term, and probably lead to the break up of the company in order to save stockholder value.
Apple need a strong Microsoft in order to keep themselves focussed. Keep Ballmer MSFT shareholders.
It’s already too late to replace Ballmer.
The magnitude necessary to properly reorganize MSFT, and Resnais it’s DNA gives Apple another 5 years to cement it’s lead in all areas.
By then MSFT won’t be able to close Apple’s 10 year lead.
No no, say it ain’t so.
Actually it is amazing he’s lasted so long, I guess because he was anointed by Gates, who must have wanted to put the one guy stupider than himself on the throne. Ballmer’s capabilities barely reach sales manager at a local car dealership.
Microsoft has hired a lot of brain power they just wasted. Even when they contracted top ad agencies, and then didn’t let them do good work. Hopefully the culture and the brand are so damaged, the dysfunction so deep, any new leadership short of a Steve Jobs clone can’t save them. This company deserves to die.
@deepdish
more like…
Dancing with disaStars
ha
The cellphone game has definitely changed the game. Apple stock up.. At&T hitting all-time highs. Every dog has his day. MS couldn’t reign forever. Who knew the cellphone would be the dagger that changed the game?(don’t answer that)
It boggles my (admittedly not-very-business-savvy) mind that Ballmer has been around as long as he has. Look at the number of really colossal failures Microsoft has suffered in even just the last five years or so, from Vista to Zune to the X-Box-red-ring-of-death to the Kin. And yet he makes millions, and Microsoft’s myopic board just keeps paying him.
“Things that make you go ‘hmmmm.'”
It doesn’t matter who runs that ship, it’s done. Their business model requires a monopoly. The next ten years will bring about the inevitable unwinding of some fraction of that operation.
Would that mean the end of the stylus?
This is a company that lives by the “good enough” motto. I doubt they’ll oust him any time soon…at least I hope not. Balmer really is the Windows of executives.
if WinPhone 7 flops, he’s outta there.
@ Justatecfan
“Who knew the cellphone would be the dagger that changed the game?(don’t answer that)”
It bears mentioning for the Balmers of the world, Apple knew.
The problem with Microsoft is that it has never innovated anything except copying Apple and competing on price. The thing is that Apple is no longer that expensive compared to comprable hardware from other manufacturers. So this price edge has evaporated to an extent. You can still built your own computer and save money, but how are you going to build your own smart phone, or you own tablet?
@MDN: “He’s doing an excellent job.* Yup, yessiree! Sure is. Always like the guy. I hope he stays at Microsoft for years to come. Yup.
And now – finally – it’s time to film the sequel to “Pirates In The Valley”. Yeah, who got the loot, Microsoft?
The greatest second act in business history is now complete.
@Dave H
What you have described is very similar to the situation at Ford when Alan Mullaly tookover. It may take some time to fix, (year or 2), but with microsofts cash flow, fixing it would be much easier than you think.
What Micro$haft has been unable to do, and this is indeed where failed leadership comes in, is cannibalize their current product for a better one.
The must have of compatibility with previous generations is a huge anchor around Micro$hafts neck, and until they get a leader who knows when to cut bait, and a good enough saleman to sell that change, then Micro$haft will not be able to innovate at the same rate as its competitors Apple and Google.
HP has figured this out, hence its move to create its operating system.
On the bright side, if he’s fired, maybe his kids can finally buy iPods.
No CEO can be like Jobs. Jobs’ brilliance is not only his vision, but his ability to HIRE and keep brilliant people around himself.
That is not the case in most other companies, MSFT included. Even if Ballmer goes, there is no one who can reign in the diverse, self-delusional executive teams within MSFT.
Then they still have to deal with the legacy OS(s) that is too bloated to ever evolve back down to a lean, cloud-based, machine, and an ever changing *framework* of devloper tools.
“Developers, developers, developers, developers…”
Can Ballmer????!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
NO!!!!
They should give Ballmer True Dictator Status : “CEO for Life”.
(I am an Apple Investor.)
Raise a toast to Ballmer, May he serve another 30 years (or until he runs the company into the ground)!!!!!!!!
Leeeeeaavve Balmer ALLLLLLOOOONNNNEEE!!!!
Jeez, they really need to get rid of that idiot Ballmer. What the hell is wrong with the board? I see why there is a trouble brewing amongst the stockholders.
The board gets what they deserve – Ballmer’s an idiot.
@chaz,
While I agree with you mostly, I have to say HP *has* its own OS – HP-UX, which is not a bad UNIX flavor in itself. The inability to evolve HP-UX out of the server box, or take on IBM with HP’s own move toward Linux and open source, do not inspire me to believe their WebOS effort will go anywhere far. On top of it they have to deal with their hardware, which suck. But at least they hired some new blood, and perhaps the internal culture is changing too.
Dear Microsoft Board, Everyone at Apple and all of its users really like your strategy — we like it a lot! Keep up the great work!
Usually, I hate to see someone lose a job. That is especially true in this case. I would love Ballmer to keep Microsoft in “suit in a boardroom” mode.
I suspect that his final attempts to save himself will involve uber-suit-in-a-boardroom mode, striving for short term gains and killing products that don’t have all the buttons/features/USB ports that the focus groups ask for. Not that MS won’t still be terrifically economically healthy and viable. They will. They’ll just keep producing shit products for another year, getting behind the curve even further.
Maybe MS should hire Michael Dell and his minion, Rob “Group” Enderle.
What’s John Sculley, Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio doing these days I am sure they would be more than willing to give Microsoft the kind of boost they are famous for.
Watch for crazy shenanigans to improve the quarterly numbers. What so many businesses have done over the years, at the expense of the long-term good of the company. He could manipulate them for at least two or three quarters. He may be around six to nine months.
Oh, no. I’ll be a bad, sad day for Apple when Ballmer leaves….
Getting rid of Ballmer is not going to solve anything. Look at all of the shitty products they’d have to clear out along with the guy to save the company. Leave him in. As MDN would say, “For as long as it takes…”
We need to do a letter campaign. We have to save Ballmer. He must never ever leave Microsoft!!!!
@chaz
Understood, but the computing and consumer products industry moves so quickly now they would have even less time to turn things around. If this was happening in 2002, even 2005 they would have the breathing space to reorganise and come back fighting. In 2011, with Apple, Google, even now HP all stealing customers away from the Microsoft ecosystem in ever increasing numbers the chances of someone new spending two years to turn the company round and succeeding are tiny. Ballmer needs to realise that, get his team together and come up with a strategy for the post-Windows world.
Because that’s where things are now heading. Windows has had its day. Even “Mac” OSX has had its day, although that will temporarily grow as it eats into what’s left of the Windows userbase. We’re going through the biggest paradigm change now since the original WIMP GUIs started to appear.
Only Ballmer has the opportunity to prevent Microsoft being turned into the next Novell. Whether Ballmer has the capability is questionable, but he may yet surprise us all.
@Justatecfan:
No, it’s not the iPhone that is the dagger that kills MS. It was OS X that was the poison administered years ago. OS X enabled everything else, from the Mac to the iPod to the iPhone. It’s all based on OS X, and it would take MS 5 years to duplicate it at a minimum, if they started tomorrow.
But it’s not happening. MS is dead, with or without Ballmer.
“Microsoft’s board supports him unwaveringly, and there’s no obvious successor that could easily slide into his post.” That’s Microsoft for you – a talent pool a mile wide and an inch deep. They’d likely need an outsider, someone of the caliber of a Jack Welch (GE) or Louis Gerstner (IBM) who helped save their companies and drive them to new heights. (Of course, in those cases there was something worth saving.)
As to why he’s stuck around this long, Ballmer happens to own a few billion dollars in Microsoft stock. The presumption that when one has a financial stake he will act wisely apparently doesn’t apply to Ballmer.
<i><u>Please</u><i> keep Balmer at Microsoft. He is good for increasing the value of my stock in a computer company.
If we are unfortunate enough that Steve Ballmer has to leave Microsoft. Maybe we can get him a job with HP, Dell, or some other struggling PC box maker or smart phone maker. It is hard to find such a clueless person (OUT SIDE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT) that can help tank Apple’s competitors.
@Dave H
Agreed. When Jobs made the move from OS9 to OS X, well it was huge. The timing was really a test of a CEO. Making that decision, with the Mac base in total disarray, I’m quite sure there were lot’s of people saying lets just throw in the towel and get on with life in a Windows world.
That point right there, and Jobs impeccable leadership through that platform change cemented him in my view as the best tech CEO in history. And he may well have been the only person on the planet with enough credibility to pull it off.
Ballmer on the other hand can’t step up to making the changes necessary to Microsoft’s core technology to position it to be able to innovate at the rate of it’s peers. Lord knows he doesn’t know the direction to head, and he certainly doesn’t have the capability to sell it to his market.
M$ missed the train at least 5 years ago with multiple inaccurate predictions of where the puck was gonna be today. Apple and Google got it close. Blackberry missed the train by 2 years and is super-struggling to invent something just to hang onto the caboose. It all really comes down to inventing simple portable solutions that people really lust after.
The turtle won the race.
For God’s sake. Ballmer is one of the Great Thinkers®™© of our time. The media follows Monkey Boy everywhere he goes so they can catch his every utterance of wisdom regarding where technology is heading. How could they?
How could they?
@Raymond: “As to why he’s stuck around this long, Ballmer happens to own a few billion dollars in Microsoft stock. The presumption that when one has a financial stake he will act wisely apparently doesn’t apply to Ballmer.”
It also allows you to vote for friendly board members.
Ballmer can stay as long as he likes. As long as he stays there, Apple with thrive and MS will dive!!!!!
I think you’ll see Bill Gates step back in and try to save the company…he is the only real trusted figurehead for investors…man, when they do fall, they are going to really fall fast.
I almost feel sorry for them. They are business licenceers, not inventors, and it has finally taken its toll.
Let’s start a We support Ballmer group.
He has done for MS what no one else has.
Ballmer would do well as the Obama Administrations czar of knee-jerk reactions to false stories pandered by Faux News.
As far as stock price goes – work the product line up and stock prices will come along. SJ has not taken one step for the express purpose of pumping Apple’s stock price, it’s always improving the product. If M$ wants success, they need to copy the attitude, not the products.
PLEASE DO NOT GET RID OF BALLMER!!!
At least let him screw up the Windows 7 before kicking him out.
– Plays for sure
– XBox
– Zune
– Vista
– Windows Mobile 6,5
– Bing
– Kin
Adding a failed Windows 7 to this list would be perfect. : D
“.. and there’s no obvious successor that could easily slide into his post.”
Theres no one there can do the same pathetic job as well as he can.
And yes, MS has waited too long to dump him. All the better personnel have either left or were laid off. Maybe they should hire someone from their shareholders to run things. They were the ones who left him in charge all this time.
Or at least screw up Windows Mobile 7, that should be an easy one…
Noooooo! Keep Ball(war)mer where he is! No one else could possibly be more entertaining!
Developers! Developers! Developers!!!
Hey, Zung Tang!! What’s your take on this??
(crickets chirping…)
Headhunters…headhunters…headhunters…headhunters
Noone can fix Microsoft. Its stagnation is institutionalized. They need to break it into at least 3 companies to revive the dead horse.
Get back in the basement Uncle Fester
“there’s no obvious successor that could easily slide into his post”
Although this seems like an absurd statement, after some thought I think he’s right. Its takes an unusual talent to fail so miserably at so many things. You could have put a giant bronzed dildo at the head of MS, and it would have done better than Ballmer. Actually, maybe they should try that because at least their clients and developers would know what coming when they do business with MS.
Well if Microsoft would like to copy Apple (again) they could bring back Bill Gates. That would be interesting.
MAY BALLMER REIGN AS LONG AS IT TAKES!
the damage is done, people see Microsoft for what is truly is. A half hearted attempt to make an OS that people can use everyday thats design is taking from apple little by little. If you have a PC and you want to Benefits of a mac so bad store.apple.com. That is the only place you can get a true Personal Computer.
I don’t want to see him go, and I’m not speaking ironicly.
The ‘Apple Tax’ and the ‘Ballmer discount’ LOL. That’s kind funny :p
” a ‘Ballmer discount’ “
I generally refer to that as the “Ballmer tax” not a discount.
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When Ballmer finally gets shit-canned, he’ll join the long list of other failed ‘Tech-luminaries’ like John Sculley, Ed Colligan, and Bruce Chizen as a member of some obscure ‘Venture Capitalist’ firm, get paid a bajillion dollars for duping investors out of their money, and do very little (if any) real work.
Fucking sponge.
He’s ridden the MS gravy-train into the ground and now the real product people at MS are getting pissed. Good for them, but it’s too late.
MS will continue to decline because MS will bring in some other bloviating, do-nothing CEO and he’ll rearrange the deck chairs to make it look like he’s doing something constructive while the MS Titanic continues to sink.
We are witnessing the end of the ‘Dark Ages of Computing’.
Rejoice, for the end is nigh.
MaWo, ‘enough’. As in, ‘what MS employees have had…’
You hear about internal discontent and power struggles at Microsoft all the time. Apple’s executives are all lined up and marching in lockstep. There may be plenty internal disagreements and differing opinions at Apple, but you hardly ever hear about it externally. And they execute toward a singular corporate goal.
And I think that, more than anything else, explains Apple’s success compared to Microsoft. Apple is highly focused with its more limited resources; every Apple product (even something like Apple TV) is profitable almost immediately. Microsoft has all the resources in the world, but squanders most of it on countless projects that go nowhere and make no money (or lose money).
Maybe now would be a good time to put some money into Microsoft, because MSFT back down at $25 a share means investors see very little growth for Microsoft. But Microsoft still has the resources to come back in a huge way, with the right leadership to provide some discipline, enthusiasm, and focus.
Well, I think I’d be a great successor to Ballmer, and I know exactly what I’d do… First, I’d give China all the rights to MS technology. That would be in the United States long term interests, no doubt. Then I’d liquidate the company and pay off the stockholders, and thank Michael Dell for the idea, along with a small cash tip.
Then, having saved the world from the grips of ineptitude, I’d retire.
Dear MS Stockholders,
You have three basic choices:
1) Do nothing and watch MS shrivel up and die. It’s already started.
2) Boot the old school and reform MS as a creative, innovative company that actually contributes something of benefit to the computer community. It could happen!
3) Fold up the company and distribute the assets among yourselves. You’d be doing the world a vast favor: The end of the computer dark age.
Every man in the world would follow your great data just about this good topic to write the high quality essay or even speeches essay paper.
Think Atlas Shrugged…
Replace copper with software, reardon steel with iOS, crap, I just realized who that makes Balmer.
And for the record I have always wondered if Woz has a huge gulch somewhere that a bunch of folks visit for a month every year.
I hope Microsoft stays with their management until Apple buys them out
(side note , I think the editors at MDN have calmed down. I think I’m back)