“Microsoft Corp’s board stood behind Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer on Thursday, defending its longtime leader after influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn touched off a debate by calling for his dismissal,” Bill Rigby reports for Reuters.
“The fund manager, who made his name warning about Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc’s financial health before the investment bank’s collapse, accused Ballmer on Wednesday evening of being stuck in the past, launching the sharpest attack yet by a high-profile investor against the company’s leadership,” Rigby reports. “Microsoft’s nine-person board, including Chairman and co-founder Bill Gates, supports Ballmer, a source close to the board told Reuters on Thursday.”
Rigby reports, “Gates, who co-founded the software company in 1975 and is still the largest shareholder with 6.6 percent of the company’s stock, is generally regarded as the one person who could make the decision to switch management… Gates, who spends most of his time on his philanthropic foundation, has given no indication he is considering a change.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: That’s right. Everything’s just fine. Nothing to see here. Go on about your business. Ballmer’s doing an excellent job. We like his strategy. We like it a lot!
Of course, any board would say the exact same thing the very second before they shitcan their CEO, so take this “board backs Ballmer” news for what it’s worth.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jai G.” for the heads up.]
Whew. That was a close one.
Luckily that Einhorn dude said yesterday he’d be willing to throw away $200 million dollars for partial ownership of the NY Mets. Clearly he’s clueless and his advice to M¢… worthless
Yeah! Seriously! Sigh of relief… ‘as long as it takes’ … and it’ll take another decade…
I think that it will be less than a decade at this point. The students in college are now about 70% plus Macintosh. The halo of the iPhone and iPad are killing the old school devices and those users are turning to Apple with all things. Cloud computing doesn’t care about the users OS and Microsoft Windows no longer has a real hold on anyone. The more they use Macs the more they can save on IT expenses. And local schools no longer have tax dollars to dump Windows PCs on kids. And when you get a new Mac you are giving someone an older working Mac and the dirty PC refresh cycle is ended.
Long live the Mac.
Whew! For a moment I thought they were about to let Ballmer go! May he remain CEO as long as it takes to disrupt Google’s Android hackware mobile OS then both companies shall burn in shrinking revenue and profits. China’s success has been built upon these 2 companies hacked/copied/pirated OS’s. Apple has always been a true innovator!
YES!!!
*fist pump*
R-O-L-A-I-D-S
Oh thank God, nice to see the companies head still firmly planted in the sand.
Whew, that was close.
Very funny!
Board members! Board members! Board members!
(repeat cheer)
Turkeys! Turkeys! Turkeys!
I like Turkeys!
(repeat)
“The first thing you’ve got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots. This is the engine room. To operate, all you need is any group of well-trained monkeys. Ninety-nine percent of everything we do is strict routine. Only one percent requires creative intelligence.”
– Lt. Keefer (Fred MacMurray), The Caine Mutiny
Great quote and comparison!
well of course. the MS board is just as incompetent as he is.
I believe this is something like when Nero fiddled while Rome was burning. I just hope they continue to keep their heads buried in the sand.
Consumers eventually rebel when presented with constant problems over a series of years.
MS mindshare in consumer’s collective memory fades after so many crashes, crises, and conundrums where NO Microsoft solution EVER appears.
That loss of mindshare is very hard to gain back.
good news!
Why fix it if it ain’t broken; the winningest board ever.
Comfortably numb.
Hello? (hello-hello)
Is there anybody IN THERE?
Ohhhh! Great one, one of my favs.
It just makes sense that Ballmer be at the helm when the ship goes down.
The chump is still in charge and that’s all that matters. This truly is a great day.
YAY!!!!
Bravo! Bravísssssimo maestro!
And to hear talk of Mac cult drinking the koolaid…man…that is conplete and total delusionalness by the entire clan.
Is Office 17 going to save them?
It’s a different world now, and they are absolutely OFF the bandwagon…talk about peer pressure.
“influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn”
Why is this guy always referred to as “influential”? He’s manipulative, just like Goldman was.
He took a position against Lehman, and then talked it the way he wanted the stock price to move. That’s not different than what Goldman did to Lehman. Goldman took a position against Lehman, and then demanded higher amounts of collateral, forcing it to fail. Einhorn took a position against Lehman, and fomented to get others to lose confidence in Lehman. When an investment bank loses the confidence of its lenders, it fails. Rumor-mongering is a way to kill an investment bank.
Well, you wouldn’t want to stand anywhere in front of him within the line of ‘chair-launching’ fire, would you?
DIRECTORS DIRECTORS DIRECTORS DIRECTORS!!!!!
I LOVE THIS BOARD OF DIRECTORS YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!
Great News!!!
All of u wishful thinking. MS is insanely profitable. They’re not going anywhere. Kinect, xBox, Windows, Office and their server products will carry them another decade at least.
The monopoly will carry them several decades.
It’s so profitable that you can get a hugely discounted xbox 360 with bundled games and kinect all for a measly 150 bucks. They’re in the bargain basement everywhere. Piles of them still in boxes high enough to create an igloo for every salesperson in America. The millions that aren’t stockpiled in mega stores are lying in landfills sporting the Microsoft rrod self-destruct feature.
Microsoft would be lucky to make a couple of dollars on each sale to even slightly put a dent in the ten billion or so $ outlay spent on xbox development costs.
Oh, what Microsoft could REALLY do with that still significant and basically “automatic” revenue/profit from Windows and Office… if only it had competent leadership and a change in corporate culture.
But those twin cash cows will not live forever…
There will be a microsoft for some time to come, but not as big, and certainly not as a monopoly. MS is a two product company: windows and office. The server business is an artificial partition of the windows sector. Kinect loses money, bing loses money, mobile loses money, the big-ass table loses money, zune loses money, explorer is stagnant, xbox is so deep in the hole, break-even is a distant dream. Windows and office are like two aging sand castles and the tide is coming in.
Yay! I am so happy, I still crack up everytime I hear “I like our strategy, I like it alot!” well Steve we like your strategy ALOT!
Just as Windows Sufferers have Stockholm Syndrome, so too has the Board of Directors at Microsoft.
Personally, I think they should can Ballmer and hire John C. Dvorak to run things. He’ll scrap the mouse (who needs that thing, anyway?) and return MS to the DOS command prompt.
Suckers.
Any more Skype companies lying around to buy for $8.5 Billion! Nows your chance to make a killing!