It's hard to say that a CEO whose company has grown from $23 billion in revenue to $54 billion during his 10 year tenure isn't doing his job, but
The Daily Beast is reporting on a small, vocal (and of course, anonymous) minority within Microsoft that wants Steve Ballmer out on the curb. The main criticism seems to be the share price, which has oddly tracked in inverse with Microsoft's revenue: it's about half of its $48.93 value back in January 2000 when Ballmer took over. With the strong support of his board and an another supposedly positive earnings call coming later today, it's hard to call Steve's position as "shaky" at the company, but with
whispers of infighting, a symbolic battle with Apple over
market capitalization, and a
do-or-die mobile launch coming up, it's clear that he's under a lot of pressure to deliver. Right now any talks of replacement are hearsay and analyst fodder at best, but we'll be watching to see how this rumor develops during this 30th year of Ballmer's career at the company.
posted July 22nd 2010 3:58PM
You know Ballmer reminds me more of a C.O.O, than a C.E.O.
@TGrant
Completely Obese Orangutan?
Man, Steve can't win.
Make a great OS, sell millions of licenses, make a boat load of money and the story is, it's not good enough. Man oh man. Steve can't get a break.
@TechBlogger
They'll continue to print money with Windows and Office, yes. But they've essentially reached a plateau. Name one business they're in which shows serious growth potential. Yes people will replace their computers every couple years so Windows will keep printing money. But that's not growth, it's merely recurring revenue. Better than nothing, yes, but investors want to see NEW revenue and NEW growth. They see MSFT shitting the bed with mobile and search, and their eyebrows raise with a hint of worry.
@TomSawyer
Xbox 360 has huge growth potential with Kinect. You have to admit it's completely different from anything else and has a broader target audience. Windows with their new cloud strategy including Windows Live, Azure, SQL Azure, and plenty more. Bing with the Yahoo partnership, integration with Windows Phone, and it'll also have it's place with Kinect for Xbox Live. Office, Xbox Live and Zune integration with Windows Phone 7. All that AND Windows 7 still has more homes to reach. That's all growth to be had and I don't know if you noticed but it's because all these products/services are now working or integrating with and helping each other grow.
To be fair...Windows Phone 7 is not here yet BUT again most of us here would admit it does have "potential" when it gets here.
@TechBlogger
Don't trip, dude. I hope it stays like that for a while. Everyone, like you said, isn't giving Steve a break but look at the road ahead for Microsoft. A lot of their services and products are finally coming together for a bigger picture.
I hate this mofo more than Jobs.
Ballmer is the shit. I wish the dude nothing but the best, with or without Microsoft.
@MarkAnderson
In other news, Google's financial performance wasn't what the investor expected in the last two quarter due to new products like Wave, Me, and solar energy?
retire Ballmer. Let Ray Ozzie set the pace. He understands networking, cloud and is social. Remember Groupware. He is also a tech guy and not just a salesman like Ballmer.
i hate greedy shareholders.... :(
wonder if Gates is gonna have a second coming like Jobs did..
Paul - Your comments on stock price are so poorly placed that I actually registered for an account. So the stock price is still lower than half of the dot com heyday? Did you come up with that metric on your own? I guess Cisco is angry at John Chambers because they closed today at 23.27 versus their 80+ in January of 2010? Make sense?
That's because MS is no longer a growth company. They're now an infrastructure company like GE or Cisco.
The real issue for investors isn't the money Microsoft is making "now" (good job by the way) but the direction Microsoft is taking to compete in the future. You don't buy shares in a company "just for the dividend" but also for the growth. Right now Microsoft hasn't really shown that it has anything new (yes some improved technologies but nothing "new" as in WOW!!) so investors are looking elsewhere for market growth.
@MrLinux
I think once Kinect is out, that'll change. I'm no expert but here's how I see it. Kinect will lead to more people using Video Kinect to chat with people through Xbox Live and Windows Live Messenger which will lead to people buying more PCs with Windows 7 because Kinect only connects to WLM Wave 4 which can only be used in Windows 7.
Also, once Kinect is out, more people will discover and use Zune and buy the Zune Pass. Once they've bought the pass, they'll learn they can use the same Zune Pass on Windows Phone 7 and their Windows 7 PC. More sales there.
While using Video Kinect, it's obvious they'll discover or learn more about Bing. Now, Bing won't stay irrelevant forever as some say it's not as good as Google (which I disagree with) so eventually more and more people will like it and result in more revenue for Bing.
I'm not saying Kinect will change everything and increase sales for every other Microsoft product/service dramatically but Kinect will definitely play a large role as I see a LOT of people buying more Xbox 360s thanks to Kinect thus signing up for Xbox Live accounts(which will also be integrated into Windows Phone 7...more sales!)
Once more people start using Kinect, Bing, and Windows Phone 7...that'll increase Microsoft's three screens and a cloud strategy. And, they all work alongside each other in some way which we will soon see is a killer strategy. There's nothing like Kinect for Xbox 360 (it has a wider audience than the 360 alone), Bing "may" not be better than the Googs yet but we all know Microsoft is in this for the long haul and has only just begun, and Windows Phone 7 is still a question mark but I know I'm excited for it and so are plenty of others.
And, that's only my view from how Kinect plays a part into Microsoft's strategy. I think you're projecting your views through your make believe "investors."
You know if courier would have come out this wouldnt be an issue.....