Ballmer intends to remain on Microsoft board after end of CEO gig Steve Ballmer may be stepping down as CEO of Microsoft, but he's not planning to let go of the reins in Redmond completely, if a recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission is any indication. In Microsoft's 2013 proxy statement, filed with the SEC on Thursday, the company's board of directors gave its …
That is known in Britain as "Bury Bad News".
Use the overall stinky situation at the moment to get as much as you can. Commendable effort on Billy Boy's and ChairThrower's part. I do not think it will fly though. Despite the markets being preoccupied with the banana republic situation and the impending USA bankrupcy, they are not likely to ignore this one. MSFT shareholder's revolt. Sweet... Popcorn please, I would love to watch that...
A board position would be reasonable. You need someone there to explain why management has done what they have done. Bill G. should move to a director role also and the CEO and Chairman roles should be some new blood that can provide a new perspective in the world of computing. Microsoft is sitting at a crossroads exactly where IBM (the previous Olympian gods of computing) was when they brought in Gerstner. They need to be able to redirect their focus from the past to whatever will bring them into the 21st century.
"Too much change will kill the company."
Unfortunately for MS the changes that are happening are external and the ability of any new CEO will be limited.
It could be that you are being ironic but if you are not then just looking at what is happening at MS in isolation mirrors the apparent view inside Redmond itself.
Be successful for long enough and you get to think that you are omnipotent, change is inevitable and it seems that MS have taken their eye off the ball.
Microsoft has made one terrible decision after another these last ten years or so. Vista, borking their cash cow Office, Win 7 only a half-good product bringing nothing of consequence to the table that wasn't already there in XP - in reality, the main reason for the success of Windows 7 was that it wasn't Vista -and then the monumental stuff up that was Windows 8. meanwhile, the company continues to loes bucket loads of money on blind, brute-force-stupid attempts to break into things it has never been any good at, such as search and telephones and tablets.
The first step to getting better is to admit you have a disease. Never in the history of computing has a company so desperately needed new, competent management. Hell, forget "competent", *any* sort of new management will do, 'coz even Bling Freddie could do better than Balmer's crew.
Just bring in someone new and get rid of the failures, OK?
I fully appreciate that once they took the company public they ran the risk of being outed.. However, like gates and Ballmer or not, they built that company and in their eyes it's still theirs and no VC is going to tell them what to do or when to leave. In my opinion it is time for them both to go but I also understand their reluctance.
If I were an investor in any company which was successful (and MS is, regardless of what random voices on the Internet say) and a long standing CEO was about to leave his job, I certainly wouldn't be wanting him to leave the company, I also would want to be booting out the Chairman who also founded the business. There needs to be continuance in order to ensure that the new people coming in actually understand the business and the historical reasons for decisions made. Hell, even RBS kept Fred Goodwin on after the government forced his sacking, in order that Stephen Hester could hit the ground running.
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