“As you likely know, Steve Ballmer is stepping down under a cloud at Microsoft, and I too think he is getting a raw deal. What you don’t know is that I feel I’m partially responsible. It goes back to a meeting in the late 1990s,” Rob Enderle writes for ITBusinessEdge. “In 1999, I actually thought of Steve Ballmer as a friend (I still do actually; but I may be delusional). I’d had a private meeting with him and a few other analysts to talk about how he was going to fit into his president’s role. He was looking for advice and providing insight on what he planned to do as he phased into becoming CEO. Then a couple of years later, I met with a very different Steve Ballmer. He was angry and combative. I wondered where both my friend and what would have been a far more successful plan had gone.”
“Two things came out of the meeting with Steve in 1999: One that he executed on and falls into the success column for his time at Microsoft, and one that he didn’t execute on and goes to the core of why he appears to be leaving the CEO job as a failure,” Enderle writes. “The purpose was to pick our brains on what he needed to do. During the process we got a sense of what he planned to do and it was an impressive plan… The other aspect of the talk that stuck with me was how Steve was going to meet with the top employees in the company to collaboratively make Microsoft better. This clearly didn’t happen and I think the pointed feedback he got may have driven a wedge between him and the employees. Over the next few years, rather than getting closer to the employees, he had been isolated from them and failures like Zune and Vista, which could have easily been anticipated and avoided, resulted.”
Enderle writes, “Over the decade, Steve became more and more isolated and the product failures started to mount. The relationship with Intel, which had been rocky, worsened. All of this eventually led to Steve’s early retirement. I believe, had he remained connected to the folks that worked for and with him, we would have seen a different, better outcome… This is really a shame because I still see the unrealized potential in Steve that I saw in 1999, and even though I saw the problem progress, I was completely ineffective in addressing it. You see, I did eventually see that Steve was failing but couldn’t come up with an effective way to prevent the failure. Every time I tried, I just made Steve angrier. This is why, in the end, I view Steve’s early retirement as one of my own greatest failures.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “May?” Try “am.”
Wow, Rob’s delusions of grandeur are grandiose indeed!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Wingsy” for the heads up.]
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pomp·ous : Affectedly and irritatingly grand, solemn, or self-important: “a pompous ass”.
overweening: see Enderle.
😆
Rob Enderle…one bit brain with a parity error.
Rob called Zune an iPod killer when it was launched and now he calls it a failure that could have been anticipated and avoided. Was he high when he called Zune an iPod killer or is he high now and forgotten his long articles about Zune.
“… and failures like Zune and Vista, which could have easily been anticipated and avoided…”
Did Enderle anticipate Zune and Vista as failures when they debuted? I’m too lazy (and time constrained) to research this, but if Enderle didn’t review these two (and any other MS failures) and unequivocally said they would fail, then how can he now say they “could have easily been anticipated and avoided” ?
He sure as hell didn’t anticipate them.
I just read Bubbles comments, so never mind.
Just ignore me… and Enderle.
Rob, here’s your sign.
Reading Enderle, I can’t eat as much as I want to puke!
What a self-aggrandising, delusional wind bag!
The fact that a hack with no actual ability to do what he has deluded his job to be , has convivced hinself that he is a reason a CEO failed, may be the most incredible statement of arrogance ever penned. Wow!
Mr. Enderle, seriously? Your greatest failure is the failure of someone else? Your greatest failure is convincing your reflection that anyone should actually care what you think. Steve Ballmer failed because he was the wrong man for the job; you failed because you thought otherwise. Neither of you are any good at what you chose to do over the last decade; both of you should retire.
Wow! That was stunning. What is huge douche bag! I mean, the media is full of narcissistic nut jobs, but Enderle deserves an award or something. He truely has his head further up his own ass than anyone else has ever gone. Amazing.
Um, perhaps the pain he felt all those years in his (lower) back was Microsoft after all from him bending over ad taking it. I feel for him, but only with shark gloves. It wasn’t the Enderle Group, it was the Enderle Grope.
This is why, in the end, I view Steve’s early retirement as one of my own greatest failures.
I think this what’s called ‘CODEPENDENCY’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency
Please seek medical attention Rob.
Signs of a Codependent Relationship @WebMD
Jeezus, what an asswipe.