12.21.09
Gates Successor May Leave, Steve Ballmer Expected to be Kicked Out Too
Photo via Wikipedia, speech bubble added
Summary: Speculations about Ray Ozzie preparing to move on and Microsoft’s CEO getting the boot
EARLIER this month, Microsoft’s chief financial officer (CFO) announced that he is quitting, having sold many shares. Kevin McLaughlin from ChannelWeb is one among two people (one of whom is a Microsoft booster, Mr. Gralla) who read some writings on the wall and suspect that “Ray Ozzie [May Be] On His Way Out At Microsoft”
Does the executive reshuffle that accompanied the unveiling of Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)’s new Server & Cloud Division (SCD) in early December mean that Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie is leaving Microsoft?
The ‘Microsoft press’ wonders about this too. For those who do not know, “On June 15, 2006, Ozzie took over the role of Chief Software Architect from Bill Gates.”
McLaughlin wrote another short article about Newsweek’s prediction that Steve Ballmer will “get canned”.
2010 will be the year when shareholders finally decide they’ve had enough of Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, Newsweek said in its Predictions For 2010 report issued this week.
Newsweek noted that Microsoft’s stock has fallen almost 50 percent since Ballmer ascended to the CEO position nearly a decade ago and claimed that distractions like Windows Vista have kept Ballmer from moving into “every new big tech market of the past decade.”
Some investors want Ballmer out and one Microsoft shareholder likens Steve Ballmer to Bernard Madoff. Many articles called for him to be fired around March of 2008 after he had made the catastrophic bid for Yahoo!
“What about the piles of failed products, worse than useless technologies, illegal unethical and anticompetitive business practices, price gouging, growth-though-acquisition, and so on?”
–AnonymousMeanwhile, one of our readers has identified what he considers to be “Microsoft whitewash” [1, 2]. Matt Asay is trying to blame Ballmer for Microsoft’s failure (the company has debt now). Maybe Asay just reads too much CNET, but either way, our reader wrote to us two hours ago: “It’s pretty ****ing sick how Asay is trying to whitewash Bill Gates’ past activities at Microsoft.
“What about the piles of failed products, worse than useless technologies, illegal unethical and anticompetitive business practices, price gouging, growth-though-acquisition, and so on?
“Gates built the crappy reputation that Microsoft has today. What is Matt getting out of whitewashing him?”
Actually, Bill Gates continues some of his old (and nasty) practices under the umbrella of the Gates Foundation.
As Comes vs Microsoft exhibits show, a lot of Microsoft’s crimes were masterminded by Bill Gates himself, not just his minions. In fact, Ballmer is a lot more benign than Gates based on the court’s evidence.
Microsoft has just made some financial announcements about dividend and the next financial report:
Microsoft Corp. will release fiscal year 2010 second-quarter financial results after the close of the market on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010.
In the previous report, which Microsoft concealed by releasing it on the same day as Vista 7‘s overly-hyped up release, Windows revenue was down 40% and more layoffs came just 2 weeks later.
The Microsoft crowd does not know how to properly counter claims that “it is game over for Microsoft in consumer” (maybe because it’s true).
This new press release reveals the loss of another Microsoft veteran, who is finding a new host in MediaTrust.
MediaTrust (www.mediatrust.com), the digital performance marketing company, has named Microsoft veteran David Coburn to the new position of Head of Product.
One real problem is that as Microsoft disintegrates it sheds off a lot of pro-Microsoft people, who in turn join other companies and have influence there. █
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Chips B. Malroy said,
December 21, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Quote: “Ballmer is a lot more benign than Gates based on the court’s evidence.”
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Totally agree. Ballmer is just the apprentice, the real heavy thinking, planning (evilness) is still done by the Master, who still pulls most of the puppet’s strings. At heart, Ballmer is only a salesman, and more like a shoddy used car salesman without morals, willing to say, or do almost anything to make the sale.
Ask yourself what would make Gates come back to replace sweaty B? It would have to be a falling out between the two, IMO. Such as Ozzie being forced out, coupled with the declining fortunes of MS under the partial helm of Ballmer. Under Gates, I would expect M$ to act mostly the same, but nastier. The only real reason for Gates leaving in the first place was court cases, Antitrust worries, etc. If he comes back to run the day to day activities at MS, he will have to deal with the courts as well. Assay is probably correct in one thing, in that only Gates can come back to replace Ballmer, there is nobody else with enough votes to be able to replace him.
As far as Free Software in general, we would be better off with Ballmer.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 1:17 pm
We would be better off if Ballmer became the CEO of Apple and drove away all their customers overnight. /sarcasm
Yuhong Bao said,
December 21, 2009 at 9:02 pm
I think it would be a good opportunity to finally fix MS properly, and I agree that Gates is not a good choice for that. Remember when IBM was evil? Eventually they reformed though and is much better now, but not before they unfortunately inadvertently helped MS gained a monopoly. The sad thing that there was an alternative (DR), but talks with DR failed, and it is not because Gary went on an airplane, because there was Dorothy Kildall, who was pissed off during the talks, partly because of the problems in the NDA from IBM, such as the fact that it was unequal. Part of the problem is that I heard Kildall was an idealist, and Gates was an aggressive businessman, which was part of what made MS so evil.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
He still is an “aggressive businessman” as you put it, but he hides behind a sweater and a smile (for the cameras).
Yuhong Bao Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Not my point though, my point is that it helped MS win the IBM PC deal, but it helped MS to become evil too.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Microsoft was quite unethical before that. Consider how they ‘stole’ code and ideas. Also remember how Gates got started with computers.
Yuhong Bao Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
“He still is an “aggressive businessman” as you put it, but he hides behind a sweater and a smile (for the cameras).”
Gates is not the only example, there are others too (like Mackey, I think), many from corps far less evil than MS, I would not call it hiding.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
What I mean to say is, some people hardly hide their inner nature (Ballmer comes to mind as the example here).
Yuhong Bao Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Yea, I read about Ballmer saying that “GPL is a cancer”, for example.
Yuhong Bao Reply:
December 21st, 2009 at 11:33 pm
It is also called “business causal”.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 am
Yes, his remarks about the GPL are one example. Yesterday I posted the “Ballmer laughs at iPhone” video as another example.
uberVU - social comments said,
December 21, 2009 at 9:55 pm
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williami said,
December 22, 2009 at 12:42 am
From what I’ve noticed, M$ seems to be going the way of Enron, which is going nowhere fast, and laying off and killing products like crazy. If this keeps up (and I hope it does), bam, bankrupt M$.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 am
They have a similar problem to Novell. Their cash cows are dying away slowly.
williami Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Roy, after hearing all of this news about Micro$oft shrinking and Novell bleeding to death, I think the M$-Novell deal was bad juju to both companies. And that’s really good news for the free software community, as the dissaperance of a major competor is very good news.