>It seems to me that Microsoft suffers from a lack of clear leadership and direction.
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>How much of Microsoft's failures, in your opinions, are Balmers fault?
Great question Brandon. I think that is being considered more and more over time. I think the approval for Ballmer among Microsoft employees is about 35%, which is seriously low, when it was over 75% during his first few years as CEO. The MSFT stock as not gone up (and a bit down) since he became CEO, while nearly all software related tech companies have increased their stock in the last decade. A big problem that has been hurting Microsoft over the last 2 years is a serious mass exodus of good employees from all levels (newer engineers, long time mid managers and developers, and VP executives). If you looked at Microsoft just on brain drain, you'd consider they were a leaking and sinking ship. Employees rarely have strong passion for their work and team, it's more now just a place to have a stable job with benefits. Ballmer has killed so many technologies and products, seems to have no value for community efforts, no care in backward compatibility, and to me is a salesman and in no way a visionary.
The attempt to buy Yahoo for around $40B made no sense at the time, with no apparent plan as to how they'd integrate the companies or get a return on their investment. The features in Windows Live Messenger are almost the same as Skype, yet they've failed so much in Windows Live (having to partner with Facebook and Bing, killing the majority of Live services in recent years), they shouldn't have had to buy Skype - it was due to lake of ability to compete and a way to keep competitors from buying it. The brand and perception among consumers and younger developers remains very low. It also seems the lack of any innovation and no ability to do anything quickly makes them seem more and more like the old IBM. Ballmer has essentially made Steven Sinofsky the #2 guy at Microsoft, and while he has done well at driving sales up for Office and Windows, much of that is based on the fact that more and more computers are being used by worldwide. Most of Microsoft's revenue is from business/enterprise, and if you compare what they do revenue wise, IBM is a bigger competitor to Microsoft than is Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. It seems all roads they are going down lead to less dominance and marketshare for Windows. Their problems with getting developers to build on their news strategic platforms (Windows Phone, then next Windows 8) seem to have real challenges.
Ballmer and Sinofsky combined is who is most responsible for what happens over the next 3 years. Microsoft has a culture where it seems nearly impossible to conceive a new CEO coming from outside the company, it would almost certainly be someone who has been there a long time already. And there is nobody there who you can point to as being an ideal replacement. If both history and current trends are combined, there are many areas for Microsoft where they are not on a good path. It may turn out that the worst thing Bill Gates ever did at Microsoft is select Ballmer has his replacement.
It was odd last week, on the day Windows 8 was shown at Build with all the news around it, and Bill Gates tweeting a link to a report about how the U.S. should commit more to energy innovation, with no mention at all of the new Windows. Gates can't say anything negative about Microsoft or Ballmer, he's still the chairman and largest shareholder. But raises curiosity of what he really thinks about the state and direction of Microsoft, and his opinion of how Ballmer has done as CEO.
