Steve Ballmer retirement: 2018, if Bill doesn't get in the way
By Thomas Ricker 
posted June 5th 2008 3:27AM
posted June 5th 2008 3:27AM
As you're undoubtably aware, Bill Gates is set to retire on June 27th at the ripe old age of 52. Bill's Harvard bud, Mr. Dancin' Steve Ballmer, also 52 and a notable fan of the developers, has been itching to take over since his appointment as CEO back in 2000. Speaking at an event on Tuesday, we now know that he intends to remain in command, "for another nine or 10 years... until my last kid goes away to college." Still, as easy-going as the relationship appeared at D, the transition was forged in fire. In fact, the power conflict was reportedly so severe, according to the Wall Street Journal, that it "paralyzed business strategy decision that the company still wrestles with today." The tension at least once unravelled into a public shouting match (no really, from Ballmer?) between the two. The struggle was apparently resolved in 2001 when Bill finally accepted that he was number 2, "I had to change," says Gates. Keep in mind that Bill will continue "working" for Microsoft one day a week and serve as the chairman of the board after his so-called retirement. And with Ballmer packing up Gates with a parting quote like, "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle. Use him, yes, need him, no," well, let's just say things don't seem 100% resolved. Read -- Retirement
Read -- Conflict
Oooh snap. Ballmer totally brought "it".
...Except in Nebraska!
My god, the same thing happened to Tony Stark and look how it ended up... Hopefully Bill Gates suit will stick to XP SP2...
Vista SP2 doesn't have Jarvis. Bill Gates will have to use Microsoft Bob.
Yeah, this photo right here says it all about Ballmer. What a fucking creep...
I've heard he once auditioned for the role of "Uncle Fester".
I see a pedo smile....
Steve Ballmer and Archer Quinn could be cousins or something.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/04/archer-quinn-calls-it-quits-you-may-have-been-able-to-prevent/
if crazy mac giggles (balmer) wasn't with Microsoft he would be a professional child molester.
Archer Quinn looks like the guy that ties women to train tracks in those black and white cartoons.
Total child molester picture..
Microsoft seriously needs to ditch Balmer and find a new CEO if they even want to have a glimmer of maintaining half their marketshare through 2018.
how can bill tolerate this jerk off? bill should can his ass.
You know what? I don't feel so much antagonism for Bill anymore. It actually makes me wonder if what went wrong the past...15, 20 years was entirely his fault.
Maybe now Bill will have time to pile on some pounds - damn that guy is scrawny. If he weren't white, he could be a 'starving kids in Africa' poster boy.
I don't mind Bill Gates.
But this Ballmer, well he can go suck monkey balls.
No need to go anywhere; he can just bend over... Seems like he got the monkey part down already :)
he also looks a little like Kevin from The Office (US)
I can't believe you said that. That was EXACTLY what I was about to write. And Billy G does look like a lil boy next to him. Is "Billie Jean" playing in the background?
man he reminds me of hannibal :/ scary
Ballmer looks like Frankenstein's monster in this photo!
Nerd fight!!!
Microsoft's best days are behind them.
How the hell Bill Gates do not do anything to this jackass... Sweaty Ballmer should be kicked out... NOT embraced. Sigh...
No Gates, YOU SHOULD NOT change, THAT JACKASS should change and realized that he won't have his job if you do not build this company.
Now I know the root of the problems for the last few years that plagued Microsoft... It's the stupid Sweatman
Ah, the Fortune article says Ballmer booted quite a number of techy types and replaced them with salesmen.
Gee. And we wonder why there's nothing interesting whatsoever (I know, they're gonna make a table-sized mPhone) coming out of them.
He has the evil look in his eyes
why do i feel we will be screwed before we will reach 2018.....
Hmmm. Dark days.
Why in earth is Bill stepping down? It is very obvious he doesn't want to, yet for some reason he is.
Balmer needs to go. It's pretty much over for MS if he keeps running it the way he has been. (Over is in the 10 years he stays he will ruin it).
Yeh Steve has it covered, Vista is a roaring success, XBox turns a huge profit, M$ successfully bought Yahoo! and now owns Google in the ad business.................Oh No wait a minute ?
well...actually, the Xbox 360 has been doing pretty well for itself this past year, as in actually turning a profit. Microsoft's games division seems to be the only part of the company that has any clue what their customers want these days...
Just because they've had a few good quarters, doesn't mean they've actually turned a profit on the Xbox 360. Microsoft lost 5 billion on the first version of the Xbox and are set to lose another 4 billion for this version. The Red Rings of Death cost them 1 billion alone.
From Gamespot.com
Microsoft's game division suffers $1.89B shortfall
Entertainment and Devices Division sees a 47 percent increase in its annual operating loss, thanks to $1.06 billion in warranty-extension costs and slowing 360 sales.
By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot
Posted Jul 19, 2007
Last July, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, promised that his department would be profitable during the company's 2008 fiscal year. However, he also warned that, like the years before it, the EDD—as the department is referred to in Microsoft's financial documentation—would suffer a loss during the software giant's 2007 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
Given Bach's warning, today's announcement that the EDD is still in the red didn't surprise anyone. For the year, the division suffered a $1.89 billion operating loss, a 47 percent increase from the $1.28 billion hit the division took the prior year. The shortfall came despite $6.08 billion in annual revenue, 28 percent above the $4.76 billion it took in the year prior.
Microsoft shipped—not sold—6.6 million 360s during its fiscal 2007, up from 5 million FY2006-—when it wasn't on sale for nearly half the year. Its current installed base stands 11.6 million strong, the most of any of the latest crop of consoles. However, the company only shipped 0.7 million units in the April-June quarter, versus 1.8 million during the same period in 2006.
Besides decreased Xbox 360 console sales, the EDD's fourth quarter suffered a catastrophic blow when then—Corporate Vice President Peter Moore announced a three-year extension of the Xbox 360 manufacturer's warranty. Today, the company confirmed it took a $1.06 billion charge as a result of the unprecedented move, causing operating losses for the quarter to tally a massive $1.2 billion—a staggering 183 percent year-on-year increase. The company said the loss was lessened somewhat by "decreased Xbox 360 console manufacturing costs" and "increased Xbox accessories and video game sales."
Among the grim financial figures were a few nuggets of interesting news. Apparently the EDD is beefing up its staff, since the company's report says that "headcount-related costs increased 15 percent [for the year], driven by a 9 percent increase in headcount and an increase in salaries and benefits for existing headcount, partially offset by a decrease in stock-based compensation expense." The company also said that for the year "Zune, consumer hardware and software, and TV platforms revenue increased $539 million, or 65 percent."
But while Microsoft's game-industry efforts proved costly, they were more than made up for by the company's other businesses. Despite the $1.06 billion 360 warranty charge, the company saw a $3.04 billion net income on $13.37 billion in revenue during its fourth fiscal quarter, 11 percent higher than the same period in 2006. For the full fiscal year, the company saw $14.7 billion of net income on revenues of $51.12 billion, a 15 percent increase over the prior fiscal year.
From Gamepro.com
"Microsoft has lost unthinkable amounts of money on its Xbox business. In the six short years it's been in the industry, the company hasn't made a dime. When adding the recently announced $1.9 billion losses incurred in fiscal 2007, total life-to-date Xbox losses are conservatively estimated at somewhere around $6 billion dollars."
You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling—Philip Marlowe, Th Big Sleep
I actually like Bill Gates, I think he epitomises a nerdy programmer who has made good.
Balmer on the other hand worries me. As someone mentioned above, the picture of him and Bill is worrying. He has that mad psychotic axe murderer stare his eyes and looks like he is about to start giggling manically. His antics all over the internet in various videos tend to in my opinion to corroborate the fact that he isn't wired up correctly.
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft fares after Bill stands down and Balmer takes over.
While Gates is certainly nerdy and was even a good programmer I still think of him as more of a slacker genius who knows opportunity when he sees it, and will basically put the chips on the line to go for it.
So even if he wasn't a programmer he'd have made a pretty good businessman IMHO.
Ballmer is also pretty smart, but I'm not sure if he has quite the same kinda vision like Gates had, and it seems like he's more of a CEO management kinda guy, except that might be a bad thing.
But then again Gates' would always be very aggressive about just about anything, and that is more or less what lead to the anti-trust problems that MS faced, whereas Ballmer has basically done the managerial work of cleaning up any messes and smoothing things over with other companies.
Ballmer looks like Uncle Fester or the Penguin from Batman (Danny Devito)
Even a little more scary.
Here is the the kind of "progress" MS makes:
Ballmer: you can buy Vista and downgrade to XP for free
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/04/ballmer_you_can_buy_vista_and_downgrade_to_xp_for_free.html
good thing they got that little Office thing kicking ass everywhere.
Damn, after seeing that photograph, I wanna throw eggs at him aswell O.o
He keeps making bad decisions for the company and the consumer and acts like he's intrinsically entitled to success. But having said that, I don't see where a fresh direction would come from either.
Ballmer won't last until 2010.
Ballmer is sheer living hell to work with, a complete dick who unapologetically knows it and doesn't care. He epitomizes the arrogant, self-absorbed, kill everyone b4 they kill you corporate exec who road the coat-tails of the real brains behind the company's upstart.
OOh, hope I didn't sound too opinionated there...
I like and respect Bill Gates FAR more than I do Microsoft, which means that after Bill "retires" I hope the company goes downhill as much as possible.
And then, maybe when Bill's 62, he'll take up the company once again and bring it to new heights. That sounds familiar...
The picture alone seems to reinforce the opinion that Ballmer has a special spot in hell reserved just for him.
Ballmer is a phuque wad - you know the stuff that kind slides out after your done.... You know what I mean.
Except what woman would really do it with him.
I figure the children he mentions are adopted and he can only see them on weekends of about and hour and only if supervised with two or three SWAT teams in place.
I have never had a greater disrespect for another human being as I do him. @Duke 2 - you said it so well!
Despite what some people think about Bill Gates, he was a GREAT business man, and got Microsoft to where it is today. Microsoft is screwed once he retires.
That Steve Ballmer is a billionaire is fate's greatest joke on mankind ever.
This guy should be managing a McDonalds.
Hah, you think Balmer could actually manage a McDonalds. The guy couldn't manage a lemonade stand if it was the only place to get a drink on a 100 degree day.
It's sad that people actually like Microsoft. Look at the person that is running it. A company is its CEO and Balmer is two steps away from the devil. In fact when he goes to hell he will probably set up good ol satan and take his spot as king of the underworld. Then bust into the monkey dance.
Or better, that guy should be made into McDonalds.
I waiting still for Ballmer to don a Top Hat and sing Easy Street and then light his thumb on fire as an encore.
Wait a minute, is Ballmer cupping is own balls?
Is Balmer Gate's Cheney?
Balmer doesn't look like much, but I can say he looks sinister. Very sinister.
I wonder what his wife is like. You know she had to look at him before she accepted his proposal. Says something about her..
Doesn't Balmer remind you of Obadiah Stone from the Iron Man movie?