[sytelus]

Even when you compare post-bubble market cap, say from 2002 to now, it's shockingly bad performance for Microsoft:

AAPL: $5 billion -> $465 billion

GOOG: $16 billion -> $288 billion

MSFT: $217 billion -> $291 billion

I know now you might nitpick that AAPL and GOOG were very small in 2002 and not comparable to saturated markets Microsoft operates in. In that case, take example of even non-tech well established companies:

AT&T: $72 billion -> $203 billion

StarBucks: $7 billion -> $53 billion

However you can still argue that Microsoft increased its revenue 3 folds and profit 2 folds under Ballmer. That might be good metric to measure Ballmer's performance but this does not discount for inflation (36%) and auto-accumulating multi-year enterprise contracts that have been pilling up since Gates era (unknown value).

[shalmanese]

This is largely an artifact of survivorship bias.

If you compare MS to it's peers:

GE: $372B -> $239B

MS: $326B -> $239B

Exxon: $299B -> $403B

Wal-Mart: $273B -> $247B

Citigroup: $255B -> $134B

Pfizer: $249B -> $207B

Intel: $203B -> $108B

BP: $200B -> $130B

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_... http://www.ft.com/intl/indepth/ft500

[smackfu]

So the revenue went up 3x and profit 2x, and the valuation stayed flat, and that is a failure of the company? What crazy world are we living in?