Well, it’s finally happened. Microsoft’s Board of Directors finally awoke from their collective coma.
Microsoft’s press release, verbatim:
Microsoft Corp. today announced that Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has decided to retire as CEO within the next 12 months, upon the completion of a process to choose his successor. In the meantime, Ballmer will continue as CEO and will lead Microsoft through the next steps of its transformation to a devices and services company that empowers people for the activities they value most.
“There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time,” Ballmer said. “We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”
The Board of Directors has appointed a special committee to direct the process. This committee is chaired by John Thompson, the board’s lead independent director, and includes Chairman of the Board Bill Gates, Chairman of the Audit Committee Chuck Noski and Chairman of the Compensation Committee Steve Luczo. The special committee is working with Heidrick & Struggles International Inc., a leading executive recruiting firm, and will consider both external and internal candidates.
“The board is committed to the effective transformation of Microsoft to a successful devices and services company,” Thompson said. “As this work continues, we are focused on selecting a new CEO to work with the company’s senior leadership team to chart the company’s course and execute on it in a highly competitive industry.”
“As a member of the succession planning committee, I’ll work closely with the other members of the board to identify a great new CEO,” said Gates. “We’re fortunate to have Steve in his role until the new CEO assumes these duties.”
Source: Microsoft Corp.
MacDailyNews Take:
Yeah, Monkey Boy “decided” to leave. Riiight. “To spend more time with his family,” surely.
Today we begin the hopefully long – as long as it takes™ – goodbye to the king of tech comedy fodder.
Ballmer T. Clown’s “original thoughts on timing” were to ride the Windows/Office monopolies for as long as he possibly could, until everyone realized he had no earthly idea what to do besides be repeatedly, unmercifully steamrolled by Steve Jobs’ Apple.
Mission accomplished, Uncle Fester!
The luckiest dorm assignment in the history of the universe has finally run out of luck.
So, in a nutshell: Ballmer plowed the S.S. Microtanic straight into the iceberg and then the BoD finally woke up long enough to decide to plop him into the nearest lifeboat. Bravo! The perfect ending to big dummy’s reign of incompetence. Of course, he’d never go down with the ship.
For as long as it took – and then some. A moment of silence, please.
(Psst: Hire Forstall. He can put curtains in the Windows.)
Related articles:
The irrelevance of beleaguered Microsoft – July 26, 2013
Former Xbox manager: To save Microsoft, Ballmer and thousands of others must go – June 15, 2013
Microsoft CEO Ballmer crashes and burns in final CES keynote – January 10, 2012
Microsoft CEO Ballmer laughs at Apple iPhone – January 17, 2007
Steve Jobs: Apple almost ruined by ‘sales guys’ in mid-90’s – January 25, 2004
“There is never a perfect time for this type of transition” …
Actually there is and Mr. Ballmer missed it by about 13 years and 7 months.
The world thanks Mr. Ballmer for his utterly selfish and entirely unintentional service to the human race as a whole.
On the list of the first Microsoft CEO Job Interview questions: “Stick out your tongue please…”
I concur with MM in thinking that Apple really does need a more effective competitor out there, and hopefully this will create an opportunity for Microsoft to at least get back into the game. With the right leadership I’m sure it can happen..
Hopefully MS will hire a competent leader who can empty the trash and get things going there again.
It’s interesting to me that the market is up on this news as it should be.
Emptying the trash at MS would be expensive and painful up front.
That place is crawling with B and C players.
Nooooo!!!! Say it isn’t so!!!!!
NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
12 months isn’t enough time for the dancing monkey to finish running M$ into the ground. The guy is good but not that good.
So who’s next? If they are smart they hire from outside the company.
Dark Horse pick: Scott Forestall.
My dark horse pick. Cheryl Sandberg from FB.
John Skulley is a good choice.
Steven Sinofsky. Riding back on a white horse to save his former company, just as Steven Jobs did 16 years ago
Sinofsky was responsible for Windows 8 – he can’t save MS. lol
I’m guessing Punky Brewster.
May Gil Amelio is available.
MayBE. Learn to spell, Mikey.
Hey Mikey don’t be so hard on yourself. I just assumed you had autocorrect issues….
Sure. He couldn’t do much worse than he did with Apple. 😉
Too late to do any good for Microsoft. He should have been dropped five years ago. The guy has less vision then a bat. Microsoft has way too much catching up to do to remain a viable player. How much longer can they ride the MS Office bandwagon? With desktop sales waning, the profits from selling the MS Windows operating system will become a smaller revenue generator over time. They’ve already lost in the tablet and smart phone sector. With their inability to innovate, they’re a dead man walking. Ballmer’s lucky, he won’t be there when the company finally falls.
Dead company walking.
Dead Company Sweating
Oh no, Apple’s secret weapon, finally revealed and removed.
He initiates a massive reorganization and then hits the road. Nice. What a loser. My grandma could have run Microsoft as well as Mr. B did over the past decade, and by that I mean not at all.
Here’s a tip to the Microsoft Board: Technology is no longer an appliance; it is poetry, it is creativity, it is life. You need a CEO whose vitality is unequaled, whose compassion for the world is eclipsed only by their focus on condensing pure Beauty and Joy into gloriously functioning forms. You need a spiritual alchemist, a guru, a genius.
Ballmer was none of these. WIthout some of these in your next CEO you are sunk. In fact, you may be sunk already in this round. But the next round will be your chance. If you’re ready.
12 months is still a lot of time to do more damage. I’ve shopped for houses that were foreclosed and the previous owners often trashed the place. Though I can’t imagine Ballmer doing any worse than what he’s done in the last 10 years behind the wheel.
There are no internal candidates to replace him, as he has run any of the really competent people out of the company over the past several years.
This may take a while.
I hear John Browett is available if they want to make a retail push.
Personally, I think that the BOD should have given Tongue-boy the boot, just for running a company the size of MS, without having a plan of succession already in place.
But there are oh, so many things wrong with MS. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
He can’t leave! All the plants will die!
Scott Forstall could turn that place around.
He’s already run a division of Apple whose products make more revenue than all of MSFT, and he’s an actual engineer himself.
-jcr
Microsoft stock immediately went up 7%. The market has spoken.
Maybe Ballmer can get a job as the new spokesman for Men’s Warehouse, to replace George Zimmer. Ballmer has a certain sartorial splendor about it. He could launch a new line of sweat ring blue shirts . . . .
Would be a real pisser, too, if Scott Forstall took the reigns as CEO of Microsoft. Doesn’t his brother work there or something?
I’m mentally visualizing the movie scene where Anakin is resurrected by the Dark Side.
R.I.P. (Retire in Peace)
That sucks.
Who the Hell woke up the MS Board?
How about The Woz for MS CEO?
One can only hope that the Board, in it’s cash fattened wisdom, will allow Balmer to pick his own successor. Better yet, they can get Browett!
Oh come now this guy is a genius, the greatest secret agent we have ever seen, integral to the destruction of the evil Empire that no normal virus could possibly have matched in its thoroughness. Have a wonderful retirement Agent Ballmer.
Oh, the good times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8M6S8EKbnU
♫♫♫♫♫♫ Ballie, I love (NOT!) you so
I want you to know
that I’m going to miss your love (NOT!)
the minute you walk out that door
♫♫♫♫♫♫
so please don’t go
don’t go, don’t go away
please don’t go
don’t go, I’m begging you to stay ♫♫♫♫♫♫
I know a lot of us feel sad at this announcement but I guess there are is a silver lining to it all, Bill Gates is on the selection committee so that’s a bit of relief.
The other good thing is that Mrs. Ballmer has announced that Steve will be learning how to clean the windows at home. It gives you some insight as to why Steve stuck his tongue out so much out in public.
I understand the former CEOs of RIMM are available…
The third Friday in August is known in the news business as the slowest news day of the year. If you want to sneak out a story on a day when most people will miss it, this is the day. That tells me that this announcement has been planned for months.
The Board of Directors had to know that it would bump the value of their shares