[thorin]

Yet still most enterprises use windows, O365, teams outlook, AD/entra etc. Azure has like 30% of market share. Copilot, visual studio, Dotnet framework, Microsoft dynamics, Power Automate are massive. I prefer the current incarnation of MS to any of the previous ones TBH, experience of Xbox has been pretty good as well.

[Keyframe]

I think the question posed is whether that's due to Ballmer or despite him.

[alephnerd]

Because of him.

Ballmer backed the "Enterprise Business" (precursor of Office 365) and "Server and Tools" (precursor of Azure and MS Security) divisions over the then prominent "Windows" division.

MS back then was in a weird transitional phase where it as a company needed to decide whether it wanted to prioritize B2C or B2B/Enterprise. Ballmer made the call to go for Enterprise.

There was also no guarantee that then-resurgent Apple or new-kid-on-the-block Google wouldn't be able to eat into MS's Enterprise market share with release of the iPad+iWork and Google Apps (now Google Workspaces) respectively.

Before Ballmer, it was the Windows and B2C teams that had the upper hand internally at MS instead of Enterprise.

[nobodyandproud]

Sadly, Ballmer couldn’t reign in the Windows team before they effectively killed Windows Phone.

If I recall, the team had a large hand in hindering Windows Phone up until Windows 8; when everyone was too fed up to develop for the platform.

[alephnerd]

Imo, it's good that the Windows Phone died - it would have distracted Microsoft from the much more lucrative segments it's in today and opened the door to potential antitrust litigation.