“Disclaimer: I own Microsoft stock,” Ben Brooks reports for The Brooks Report.
He’s employee number 30 and has been with Microsoft since mid-1980. In 2000, after nearly 20 years of service, Microsoft promoted Steve Ballmer to Chief Executive Officer,” Brooks writes.
“It seems rather obvious that Microsoft is on a downward trend, but is that accurate?” Brooks asks.
Let’s look at a chart…
Brooks writes, “In business school the first thing they teach you about CEO’s is: it is the CEO’s job to increase the shareholder value of the company. Since taking the position Ballmer has decreased shareholder value, as reflected by stock price, by -56.63%. That. Is. Not. Good.”
“I think it is appropriate at this time to start the countdown of how long Ballmer has left until he ‘steps down,'” Brooks writes. “This Skype deal should be the final nail in the coffin for the Ballmer era at Microsoft, yet I fear that employee number 30 may get a reprieve.”
MacDailyNews Take: We pray for it. Ballmer’s doing a great job!*
Brooks writes, “The scariest thought isn’t Ballmer remaining in power — it’s who his successor may be. My guess is that it is another long time employee (calling #40), but that would be a worse decision than letting Ballmer blow money on hookers and Skype.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: *Killing Microsoft.
Disclaimer: For all we know Ballmer T. Clown is a fine family man** and the only money he’s blowing is on Microsoft products and idiotic, panicked acquisitions.
**Besides brainwashing his kids to use Zunes.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fhoxh” for the heads up.]
These “Ballmer must go” articles have to stop!! We love him. I think it’s a great idea to pay others billions to use WM7 and outbidding Google and Facebook by $4 billion for Skype was genius. 🙂
I agree. Ballmer at the helm of MS forever (or as long as it takes)! Damn the icebergs – full speed ahead!
The right thing to do is for MS to take the next successor in line go vs. Ballmer in a dance off.
There’s a joke in there, but I can’t quite pull it out… “Dancing With the ________.” Help!
Balls?
Monkey Boy!
Dancing with the Czar
or better still
Dancing with the Epstein-Barr
It’s “Dances With Monkeys”, which was the long-awaited sequel to “Dances With Wolves”.
Dancing with the Lard???
Ducking from the Chairs
Dancing with the ‘tard?
Maybe a chair throwing competition. Has to go through the glass and over the secretary’s desk to count.
I think Steve Ballmer is doing a fine job at Microsoft as CEO, may he stay there for many years to come.
Ha! When I first looked at the chart I couldn’t figure out where the third line was. Then I realized the line at the bottom of the graph wasn’t a baseline, it was Micro$oft flatlined. 🙂
Doctor: CLEAR!
Awesome. (I’m in the medical field.)
but hey, no necessitate was requested by AAPL
Let’s flood the internet with articles praising Ballmer! Political disinformation campaigns have worked very well in the past decade. Let’s put that technique to good use!
Great idea!
YAY!!!
That, and attack ads.
#40 carries an iPod and has Macs at home!
MS ought to have a reality TV show: Windows on MS Musical Chairs.
You start with 14 chairs and each week 1 person gets the “You are fired” routine.
Special rules allow anyone to be fired anytime for throwing a chair.
I am sure this site is the only place in the galaxy which supports Mr.Ballmer.
Liberals should be supporting Ballmer and Microsoft with great enthusiasm. After all, they believe in “spreading the wealth”, so as long as Microsoft “invests” its money in Yahoo, Nokia, and Skype (after earlier investments in Mail and TV), they should be thrilled. The shareholders, not so much. The recipients of that largess, of course, are laughing all the way to the bank.
And conservatives should support him because he is an as$hole.
The complete ridiculousness of this entire statement is just…. the stupid, it burns!
You obviously haven’t seen the Windoze sites where the M$ fanboys rise to his defense
Seattle News:
” Another Bigfoot siting comes out of Redmond, Wa. this week as two school children describe their terror: ” It came out of nowhere, doing this weird dance and throwing chairs…. we just ran”.
uh, sighting.
ummm…Bigfoot sitting would actually be more frightening… 🙂
So .. We are going to flood the web with Kisses for Ballmer. But we need a strategy. We need arguments. We need leadership. In fact, we need Ballmer himself. Oh, the irony.
In a vote by IT pros and antivirus companies worldwide, Steve Ballmer voted top CEO.
There, argument # 1.
While I’m as happy as anyone to see MSFT flatlined, one must remember MSFT pays dividends, so the total return to shareholders is much better than what the line suggests.
YES!!!! I support the fat bastard with all my heart. I would support him will all my soul too, if its battery hadn’t ran down.
I LOLed!
If Ballmer goes then Roz Ho 4 CEO.
from the full article, quoting Ballmer:
“In the case of music, Apple got out early. They were the first to really recognize that you couldn’t just think about the device and all the pieces separately. Bravo. Credit that to Steve (Jobs) and Apple. They did a nice job.
But it’s not like we’re at the end of the line of innovation that’s going to come in the way people listen to music, watch videos, etc. I’ll bet our ads will be less edgy. But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we’ll get him to own a Zune.”
This epitomizes the Ballmer suits-in-a-room approach to Microsoft’s consumer strategy – no clear underlying principle of consumer use or experience, just strung together business decisions made without regard to one another.
“I’ll bet our ads will be…” indicates that he has no clear idea of what their music strategy was going to mean to consumers or how they would market it. At Apple, they start with that principle. Predictably, their ads were a bunch of hipsters in “the social”, which to his 85 year old uncle probably seemed like a technology driven orgy. His one goal, to appeal to all segments, was utterly undercut by their entire ad campaign. The dude had one clear, if vague, notion of what the MS music product would be and, in the end, their ad campaign was completely the opposite.
MS has spent so much time with their stranglehold on the OS marketshare, able to dictate to luddite drones and enterprise hostages, that they do not understand the concept of giving consumers what they need, nor do they value it.
Ermmm….doesn’t ‘….Ballmer has decreased shareholder value, as reflected by stock price, by -56.63%.’ mean the stock price went up? you know… 2 negatives make a positive?
Saying Ballmer has increased stock value by -56.63% would be more accurate and mischievous, surely? Maybe it’s a transatlantic thing.
Steve Balmer and Microsoft are like two peas in a pod: both equally incompetent.
Balmier is giving the commencement speech today @ USC. What a perfect opportunity for him to publicly step down. Give the graduates a demonstration of contrition & humility.
But instead he is just prancing around the stage, getting all sweaty & chanting “graduates graduates graduates graduates, graduates graduates graduates graduates…”
OMG, seriously? Someone actually wanted him to speak at a commencement?
So what is his advice? Your college roommate can make you rich and famous beyond your wildest dreams and abilities?
“How long does Steve Ballmer have left as Microsoft CEO?”
All together now,
AS LONG AS IT TAKES!
Microsoft is like the sewage system: ugly but indispensable.
Click. Check. Click.
[video src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3035667/Click_Check_Click-iPhone.m4v" /]
Skype is hilarious. Every Skype user I know has jumped to other paid VoIP services, I’m happy with Nimbuzz, yet makes a point of using Skype (and Skype alone) for free calls.
It’d be fun if a few million more joined in- Let Microsoft die a death of a thousand cuts!
Bill Gates is waiting for the right moment pull the ultimate Steve Jobs imitation. He’ll come back and attempt to save the company he founded. But things are not desperate enough yet.
The script will go something like this… Once Ballmer has had another two year or so, he’ll announce that he is stepping down to “spend more time with his family” or “pursue other interests” or whatever. The move will be sudden (or at least seem sudden). Gates will “volunteer” to be interim CEO (the “iCEO”) for $1-per-year salary until a suitable replacement is found. Ultimately, the Microsoft Board will determine that Gates is the “most suitable” replacement for Ballmer (which is probably a true statement).
I want him there FOREVER!
Hey, if Steve-o remains CEO at Microshaft, then the rest of us that watch M/S as a COUNTER-TRUTH indicator in most technology-based fields will continue to feel fine…. With him around it’s so easy to tell what the rest of the world is going to do… generally….
Then there are those that believe Steve-O has become a menace to rationality and he should be put in a rubber room where he’s belonged for a long time. But those are the two extremes of the meme that goes around the world about Steve-o EVERY DAY !…
So I have a family member that lives up around Redmond.. He and his wife have friends that have worked for Microshaft for decades. THEY believe that Mircoshaft has lost it’s way and will soon crumble like the shell it is turning into… The way that Balmer went in and gutted Nokia was probably the final straw… Many a folk in Scandinavia are looking for Steve…. in back alleys….
I’m surprised the board *still* hasn’t canned Ballmer. I’ve thought they should do that for some years.
The board of directors hasn’t canned Ballmer even after the Skype fiasco. I’m just starting to realize that the shareholders should can the board!