“It’s been almost 20 years since IBM’s Lou Gerstner got an elephant to dance. Now Microsoft, one of the companies that forced IBM to confront its problems, finds itself in need of a new dance partner who understands the realities of 21st-century computing,” Tom Krazit writes for mocoNews. “Steve Ballmer is not that person.”
“Microsoft is at a crossroads, not the first one it has stared down in its 36-year-history, but perhaps the most important,” Krazit writes. “It is both enormously successful and astonishingly off-course at the same time, generating billions in profits off of Windows and Office but ill-prepared and out-gunned in making the transition to a new style of computing that old rivals like Apple and Google are appearing to lock up for themselves.”
Krazit reports, “It took a new CEO from a completely different industry who was willing to question every single part of IBM’s business and culture in order to prime the company for a new era, and IBM remains one of the strongest tech companies on the planet as a result. Perhaps not as top- of-mind as it once was, but secure in its own identity and now once again more valuable than Microsoft. Microsoft needs such a leader.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Ballmer is that leader. His strategy just needs more time to unfold. We urge Microsoft’s board to continue with Steve Ballmer’s vision for as long as it takes.
I like Balmer. I like him very very much. I hate to see Microsoft without Balmer’s leadership.
Here at MDN, We support Bsllmer’s reign! May you remain CEO for another 10 years! We celebrate every news of you here and it has been a blast the last 10 years. My aapl stock has gone from $20 a share in 2001 to $335 to Present. You have been a true blessing to us.
Also *High Five* with your Skype purchase!
I support Ballmer as CEO of microsoft until the bitter, cold, harsh, complete collapse of the tech company.
GO BALLMER
Kick him while he’s down! But why really?
Microsoft has NEVER respected the concepts in vertically integrated product benefits for the end consumer (for various self-absorbed reasons).
I think MS is too far down past the top of the hill to realize they are heading down and life seems fine because the car is driving “faster than ever” going downhill toward the cliff…where you abruptly go vertical.
MDN has overplayed this notion that as long as Ballmer remains at Microsoft, Apple will win.
Apple doesn’t need Microsoft’s help. Apple is skating to where the puck will be, not where it was, and yet, MDN and many of you, think Microsoft is still a real threat. Why else would it continue with this parade of sarcasm?
Apple has a very comfortable lead. In fact they are so far out in front of the pack, they have time to explore, to think different, pursue other interests, that might otherwise out of reach because the competition is right on their backs.
Apple doesn’t have to out think Microsoft, it need only plan the work and work the plan.
Marketshare That’s what I want to see. I won’t be happy with any lead until it’s the marketshare lead, until friends I know aren’t forced to daily suffer under Windows in their every day jobs in the business world. And not allowed to use Macs by their local IT’s.
Mr. Ballmer hasn’t had nearly enough time at the helm of the good ship Microsoft to guide it to its destiny.
Once in Phoenix at a annual Sales Meeting I listened to Steve-O try and motivate a mostly US-based sales force in the PC industry and knew instantly, that I was witnessing the epitome of the Peter-Principle. That was in 1978… He has proven, with the staunch single-minded direction from Gates that Winders was all knowing and all seeing and all doing for everyone alive that most people can be fouled some of the time but not all.
M/S, or is it Nokiasoft or is it MicroSkype or is it something else – don’t know yet, but if they don’t get their collective heads un-stuck from the rest of their rear-facing anatomy, it will soon be NOTHING-SOFT…
Microsoft is losing consumer mindshare outside of the xbox imho.
In the corp world not as much. They are big on cloud computing, virtualization and web apps. For all the conplaints about office no one has been able to make a product near as capable and that is the flat out truth.
If MS actually gets big in mobile they will have to make a great product. Its possible but they have some strong competition like they have never faced before
May Steve Ballmer be replaced as soon as possible. Much as I’m enjoying Microsoft finally getting its comeuppance (been waiting my whole life), a competitive MS means an even more innovative Apple.