[ystad]

Ballmer made bets on the windows phone, Zune, Bing (ads) etc in a bid to strengthen the moat around windows/Office. Most of these bets didn't pay, the strategy to build stuff to protect your core business does stymie company growth. I think Google has gotten itself into a similar position that Microsoft was in circa 2012.

[osigurdson]

Ballmer focused more on short term growth - pushing Windows, Office and related tools. The board was happy because revenues were up. They shouldn't have been happy. Tech companies have two choices: innovate or become irrelevant.

[rchaud]

How is Google in a Microsoft position? Ballmer made wasteful acquisitions like Skype and Nokia, and wasted 3 years trying to compete with the iOS by building 2 separate ARM operating system (Windows RT, Windows Phone) only to kill them both and revert focus to the x86 Surface line.

Google hasn't done antything like that. Their product discontinuations have mostly been for niche applications.