“If you picked up The New York Times in December 2000, you would have seen very different headlines than exist today. Microsoft was projected to generate revenue of $6.4 billion for the last fiscal quarter of 2000, whereas Apple, the company’s almost-lifeless competitor, was clawing to reach $1 billion in revenue,” Nick Bilton reports for The New York Times.
“‘I’m not proud of this,’ Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive said at the time, while also noting that the company would not make its quarterly revenue goals. This was same year that Steven A. Ballmer, who joined Microsoft in 1980 as the company’s first sales manager, had taken over as chief executive of Microsoft after its co-founder, Bill Gates, stepped down,” Bilton reports. “Now, it seems that Microsoft is having a moment it is not proud of. Mr. Ballmer, 57, announced on Friday that he would retire from the company within the next 12 months.”
MacDailyNews Take: Enough with the “retire” bullshit. Ballmer finally lost Gates’ protection and was pushed out.
Bilton reports, “Under Mr. Ballmer’s leadership for the last 13 years, Microsoft has struggled to transition from a PC-driven company to a mobile-centric one. Observing his attempts to move into new product categories has been like watching someone try to run a marathon with her shoelaces tied together. Each step has ended with a fall. As Nicholas Thompson of The New Yorker wrote: ‘Ballmer proved to be the anti-Steve Jobs’ in his tenure. ‘He missed every major trend in technology…'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A Tale of Two Steves. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…
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