There is much speculation about if he is leaving on his own or is being pushed out. I've been following this all day. He says it was all his own decision, but that doesn't mean he didn't feel the pressure and decide to leave before they kicked him out. Granted, there have been lots of missteps, but I challenge anyone to find a CEO of a major corporation that was in as long as he was that didn't make mistakes too. Again, I'm not saying he was right in everything.

As for VFP, there are many reasons why it was discontinued. They've been hashed over time and again. I won't do it here.

Zune was a great product. Easy to use. Great price. But suffered from being too late.

I think the Surface RT would have sold better if it had originally come with Outlook. From what I understand, the coding was done, but they didn't have sufficient time to test. The press pretty much said Microsoft had to go with it when they did because of market pressures. I'm not sure if was the right decision or not.

In an interview today with Mary Jo Foley, Ballmer said his biggest regret was Vista.

Microsoft has been playing catch-up in many areas for a long time. Lots of speculation about if they'll bring in someone from outside the company to shake things up. I don't know if that will work or not. It depends on who they choose. One interesting name that some people have brought up is Tony Bates, who created Skype. He's still enough of an outsider that he could shake things up, yet already knows the current executive team, board, and understands the strategic direction they are currently heading.


>What took this company SO LONG to get rid of him after SO MANY management-provoked disasters? It has been one mistake after another. The list is endless: worthless acquisitions, the wanting to be at everything, the way they handled the Surface deployment (waiting and waiting months... then there was no supply of the Pro, which is the one that mattered... they ended up having to write-up a $1 billion out of the books!), Xune and on the very top of the list: what they did to us VFP-developers. How many times must have Calvin Hsia, Ken Levy and YAG rooted for VFP to deaf ears! Look at kinect, WONDERFUL idea but try to buy a gadget with it. In any event, I hope they find their way but I think it took them too long to make this decision. Somehow they still have some of the very best talent at their disposal but talent and management are two different things. When people here say their business side is doing great I ask myself, HOW MUCH of that business is still not indirectly related to VFP. How many millions of those desktops and servers are not there mainly supporting VFP apps that would otherwise be Linux, Droids and Macs?