MacDailyNews Take: Come on, how could Ballmer move Microsoft until Apple told him, “No, dummy, like this.” Seriously, with iPad, he only just saw what to do in January; it takes some time to analyze what Apple’s done, fail to properly understand it, design upside-down and backwards knockoffs with your captives… uh, partners, and then devise marketing schemes that attempt to part the morbidly gullible from their money. Give him a reasonable amount of time is all we ask.
Rigby continues, “Ballmer, 54, received a cash bonus of $670,000 for the fiscal year ended June 30, equal to his salary, but only half of the maximum bonus payout, according to a filing with securities regulators on Thursday. A discussion of Ballmer’s pay in the company’s annual proxy filing also referred to the ‘unsuccessful launch of the Kin phone, loss of market share in the company’s mobile phone business, and the need for the company to pursue innovations to take advantage of new form factors.'”
“Microsoft’s Kin — a feature phone aimed at teenagers — flopped this year and was dropped less than three months after launch with poor sales,” Rigby reports. “Its Windows mobile phone software has been losing share sharply over the last few years to Apple’s iPhone, Google Inc’s Android and Research in Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry.”
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone could see that Kin would be a failure. Anyone. (Anyone not named Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott, of course.) That Ballmer couldn’t see it means that he should be… uh, Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes! Yeah, that’s the ticket
Rigby reports, “The company has also been in the spotlight for the lack of a quick response to Apple’s iPad — a revolution in what the industry calls “form factor” — which has sold more than 3 million since launching earlier this year. Ballmer said in July that slates and tablets running Windows would appear as soon as they are ready.”
MacDailyNews Take: More like as soon as Microsoft can throw together yet another half-asssed copy of Apple innovation. Thankfully, the public is much more tech savvy now than they were in 1995.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Rigby’s first nine words plus “it” will someday sum up Ballmer’s entire tenure as Microsoft CEO.