[theonemind]

In the big picture, on a very long time horizon, they seemed on a trajectory of irrelevance through the Ballmer era, up until Satya became CEO. (That doesn't even necessarily preclude record profits under Ballmer, but a hide-bound inability to adapt to changing market fundamentals.)

PG tried calling it in 2007: http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

They really changed when Satya Nadella came in, however.

(Not to romanticize. Big tech has a smarmy evil these days. Ballmer just wanted to sell Windows and Office like products to big enterprises. It was less disturbing than donning their sith robes and joining the rest of big tech in trying to posses our incorporeal souls through massive amounts of data and 'nudges'.)

[nolok]

Which is unfair and short sighted, given that Ballmer is the guy who turned it from the windows shop to a company where windows is just one of 3 growing massive sections (plus a few smaller ones), with windows not even being the first one anymore.

[rootusrootus]

IIRC, Ballmer actually started many of the things that we saw happening early in Satya's tenure. So he deserves at least some credit for seeing the writing on the wall and trying to adapt to it. Perhaps he also figured that in order for the transformation to really happen he had to not be the one trying to lead it.

[devoutsalsa]

Ballmer also took charge right after the dotcom bust. Even though the stock tanked from ludicrous highs, revenue steadily grew under his tenure. I can’t speak to how company longevity performed under his reign.

[WalterBright]

I know Steve. He's been unfairly maligned for a long time. The biography of him is pretty mean. I doubt the author ever even met him.

[ChuckNorris89]

>Ballmer just wanted to sell Windows and Office like products to big enterprises.

Yes, but actually, NO. I know it's fashionable to bash Ballmer for being the stereotypical image of the late '90's corporate villain, pulled right out of Office Space[1], but he was also the one who got the ball rolling on what we today know as Azure and saved the Xbox division during the red ring of death and other major issues that plagued the Xbox 360 and cost Microsoft billions.

If he only cared about the enterprise stuff, he would have sold the Xbox division or let it sink at the first sign of losses, but instead he propped it up despite the massive losses. IMHO, he should get some kudos for that as Xbox is currently the only competitor to the Play Station (Nintendo isn't since they do their own thing).

"I am trembling, sat in front of Steve (Ballmer), who I love to death, but he can be an intimidating human being. And Steve said, 'OK, talk me through this,'" Moore added. "I said, 'If we don't do this, this brand is dead.'" If we hadn't made that decision there and then, and instead tried to fudge over this problem, then the Xbox brand and Xbox One wouldn't exist today."[2]

Ballmer also set the stage for Microsoft's entry into the cloud space in the early days before it was even called Azure, when he saw what AWS was doing.

"Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, initially resisted the idea of embracing the software services paradigm fearing that it would cannibalize Windows and Office business which was contributing to 80% of the revenue. Eventually, Ballmer was not only convinced but pushed Microsoft to become a fully-fledged cloud company through “we’re-all-in” war cry."[3]

Not saying you should like him or anything, but this guys really deserves more credit that he gets for where Microsoft is today (the good and the bad).

As a bonus, for added humor, here he is going crazy on stage about 'DEVELOPERS', like a hamster on cocaine. [4].

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/

[2] https://www.vg247.com/rrod-xbox-360-ballmer-xbox-one

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/janakirammsv/2020/02/03/a-look-...

[4] https://youtu.be/I14b-C67EXY?t=12

[michaelcampbell]

> As a bonus, for added humor, here he is going crazy on stage about 'DEVELOPERS',

I guess some people found it funny, but everyone I work around as a software developer (not for native Windows/MS, mind) all found it incredibly embarrassing.

[itronitron]

>> trying to posses our incorporeal souls...

I think this is driven by an addiction of big tech to being 'relevant' and engagement is the metric that gives them that sweet hit of relevancy. Heaven forbid they just turn out a useful product for a reasonable profit.