Forbes Calls Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Worst CEO Today

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Motorola and Google are not affiliated. Google only bought Motorola Mobility, Motorola is still a separate company and has pretty much nothing to do with Google.[/citation]
This is incorrect. As part the signed contract for offering to purchase Motorola Mobility, Google approves every decision related to current and future patent cases of Motorola.

 

[MaxTesla]

Wow the top posters dont know much

Steve Ballmer is a Republican, so is the boss man at Wallmart, the others I cant speak for since I do not know

But interesting how quickly false facts can spread

One more time incase you all missed it Steve Ballmer is a Republican

 

[calguyhunk]

Well at least 'Steve the lovable werewolf' (as evident from the pic) has a nicely shaped head

 

[carlosb]

I dont see EA's CEO on the list

 

[beayn]

I honestly don't think any CEO can turn Microsoft around. You can't fight the trend toward Apple products when the mentality toward windows in general is "it sucks" while Apple stuff is "awesome and cool". I'm all for MS sticking around and beating Apple down, but I don't see it happening. Apple has to release a royal screwup of its own more than once for that to happen.

 

[christarp]

microsoft hasn't actually done anything in a long time. The only reason people still use windows is because of backwards compatibility. Ever since 2000, microsoft has just let everything go down the shitter. They don't innovate, they don't advertise, they simply stopped producing things that mattered.

 

[Guest]

hmm, Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase) is having a rough week. And I might add Brian Moynihan (Bank of America) to that list. Why did Forbes only choose tech companies to pick on? Green Mountain Coffee, Chesapeake Energy, NETFLIX all had crappy years. MSFT if fine, win7 is nice...they've never been major innovators so what's new here? They're sticking to their script. Yellow card for Forbes on this article.

 

[sinfulpotato]

He guys! Lets get into markets that are super saturated with little to no profit available! This is the decision of a great CEO, no wonder Steve is on the list!

 

[f-14]

cisco is failing because they invested too much into this cloud computing fail with every cloud system being shut down by the RIAA and MPAA the wake up call is lawyers are just waiting for some one to upload something before going sue happy all the way to cloud 9.
the only thing that is cloud is cell phones, because they have limited battery life which affects their computing more than any b.s. cloud freaks can tout.
btw how's that pirate bay and mega upload cloud service working out for you?

walmart.... hillary clinton was a board of director of, now we have NAFTA, and ASFTA.
walmart isn't the only one with political 'donating' (congresssional vote buying) there is also ABC with it's right to work agenda and repeal of workers rights laws to which walmart endorsed. look at our too big to fails with their bail outs, who do you think put those bail out votes in office in the first place.
corporations fund the people that are their puppets. think that's a lie then why is ron paul out of money and yet romney and gingrich aren't? obama raised 40 million with one dinner, he would have had to have had dinner with 8,000 people who all donated 5 grand a piece. since when can you fit 8,000 people at a table let alone a single country club or restaurant in one night?

 

[-Fran-]

Ballmer?

Well, if you take into account that all baddies have been thrown out... He's the last bastion I guess.

I was thinking about Elop though.

Cheers!

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]cisco is failing because they invested too much into this cloud computing fail with every cloud system being shut down by the RIAA and MPAA the wake up call is lawyers are just waiting for some one to upload something before going sue happy all the way to cloud 9.the only thing that is cloud is cell phones, because they have limited battery life which affects their computing more than any b.s. cloud freaks can tout.btw how's that pirate bay and mega upload cloud service working out for you?walmart.... hillary clinton was a board of director of, now we have NAFTA, and ASFTA.walmart isn't the only one with political 'donating' (congresssional vote buying) there is also ABC with it's right to work agenda and repeal of workers rights laws to which walmart endorsed. look at our too big to fails with their bail outs, who do you think put those bail out votes in office in the first place.corporations fund the people that are their puppets. think that's a lie then why is ron paul out of money and yet romney and gingrich aren't? obama raised 40 million with one dinner, he would have had to have had dinner with 8,000 people who all donated 5 grand a piece. since when can you fit 8,000 people at a table let alone a single country club or restaurant in one night?[/citation]

TPB is still running strong. only Mega is in trouble and even then, they might win out anyway.

 

[XmortisX]

"Vista's development cost too much and that it launched too late."

I beg it differ, Vista was rushed and for that OS to cost them alot...I wonder how munch Win8 will cost them?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]xmortisx[/nom]"Vista's development cost too much and that it launched too late."I beg it differ, Vista was rushed and for that OS to cost them alot...I wonder how munch Win8 will cost them?[/citation]

Rushed or not does not matter. XP launched back in 2001 and did not get succeeded until 2006/2007 by Vista. Vista launched too late because XP should have been succeeded sooner than this.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Rushed or not does not matter. XP launched back in 2001 and did not get succeeded until 2006/2007 by Vista. Vista launched too late because XP should have been succeeded sooner than this.[/citation]

A lot of people don't look, and don't see anything but what's told to them. XP was succeeded way before 2006, it was known as SP2. If they called it another iteration of Windows, the blind masses would treat it differently, but the reality is, it was far more different from XP, than XP was from Windows 2000.

 

[freggo]

Never liked him and sure would not buy a used car from him

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]A lot of people don't look, and don't see anything but what's told to them. XP was succeeded way before 2006, it was known as SP2. If they called it another iteration of Windows, the blind masses would treat it differently, but the reality is, it was far more different from XP, than XP was from Windows 2000.[/citation]

That was a service pack, not a new OS. I can take an XP machine without any service packs and just update it to SP2 or SP3 (or Sp1, but that's beside the point). Vista was an actual new OS, not an update. An update is not a successor, it's an update. Vista is XP's successor.

 

[jdwii]

2 things

The only reason why he is in their is because he was Bill gates friend when they where in college not because he knows anything so i agree 100% with this.

Second that's a funny picture.

 

[kitekrazy1963]

The upgrade pricing seems a bit too high since this guy took over. There's plenty of XP systems out there. I know school districts that still use XP. That family pack upgrade would have never existed if it weren't for Apple doing the same thing. Unless I'm wrong but didn't Vista Ultimate users get screwed in upgrade pricing? There's too many little things pissing off people to make them switch to Mac.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]kitekrazy1963[/nom]The upgrade pricing seems a bit too high since this guy took over. There's plenty of XP systems out there. I know school districts that still use XP. That family pack upgrade would have never existed if it weren't for Apple doing the same thing. Unless I'm wrong but didn't Vista Ultimate users get screwed in upgrade pricing? There's too many little things pissing off people to make them switch to Mac.[/citation]

Or, just continues using Windows XP/Vista/7... It's not like they suddenly become not an option just because you don't like Metro (which can be worked around with freeware).

 

[K2N hater]

Windows 95 was the best OS Microsoft ever made. Not because it was fast, not because it was stable, not because backwards compatibility was perfect: that OS had a simple user interface and comprehensive help and tutorials, which was very appealing to those who were taking a PC home for the first time, and marketing strategy was well coordinated and executed worldwide. Meanwhile the technically superior OS/2 turned to be nothing but history.

For corporations MS had Windows NT 4.0 (1996) and they were also extremely successful. Despite the number of bugs Microsoft struggled to fix them while improving every aspect of the OS over time. After releasing Service Pack 5 Microsoft figured NT wasn't profitful enough it had to be phased out. It really wasn't nice for Microsoft to watch people run Apache and 3rd-party mail services instead of IIS and Exchange, browse the web and read emails through Netscape and Eudora, enhance desktop interface with programs such as Stardock WindowBlinds, having modified and 3rd party drivers which allowed FAT32 and USB. Even 3D games were playable through GLide and OpenGL. In practise MS propaganda was overwhelming but Windows 2000 didn't turn out to be any better than NT 4.0 in terms of performance or stability. Requeriments were much higher and there were severe stability problems due to the lack of proper testing prior to launch. Corporations delayed the migration due to compatibility issues and hardware expenses which ultimately doomed Win2K. Then XP wasn't really an improvement over Win2K SP4 but Microsoft really needed to make it a successful OS. Despite all the criticism and countless security flaws MS managed to unify the home (Windows 95-98-Me) and office platform (NT 4.0 - 2000) and even now XP holds its place as a stable OS which doesn't demand high-end hardware. But Microsoft had to be greedy once again and - while refusing to learn from their own mistakes - developed Vista... And now with Win8 it seems like they're letting corporations skip the new version while also irritating home users with a vastly inferior main UI akin to cell phones.

 

[halcyon]

I never really understood what was so bad about Vista. I had very few problems and none of them memorable. Yeah I like 7 better because it is better but to me Vista was fine.

 

[kyuuketsuki]

CEOs often get undeserved blame when their company goes downhill (or when the stock price goes downhill, anyway, which is all these pricks-in-suits care about), and undeserved praise when a company does well. A CEO of a large company has only a little more control of everything that goes on with his company as the President has of what goes on with the United States. Which is not much at all. They certainly can make mistakes and poor calls that have a negative affect (and vice versa), but the reality is there's just too much going on for any one man to really be in control of. There's a LOT of people and market forces affecting things "behind-the-scenes".

It also doesn't help that these high-level executives really have no incentive to consider long-term success (except in the rare case s/he actually cares about the company). Even if they fail, they get golden parachutes that set them up with more money than most people would ever see if they lived and worked good jobs for several lifetimes.

 

[kyuuketsuki]

Oh, that said, Ballmer should totally get the boot. It's plain that the only reason he's there is because he was Gates' buddy.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]halcyon[/nom]I never really understood what was so bad about Vista. I had very few problems and none of them memorable. Yeah I like 7 better because it is better but to me Vista was fine.[/citation]

That is not how it worked for most people. For example, I had a computer (a Compaq) that had a Pentium D at 2.8GHz, 1GB of DDR2, a 250GB hard drive, a GMA 950 GPU, and it's case just happened to have a sticker that said that it was ready for Vista. I tried it out. It was not ready for Vista, which also happened to not support my printer, my external hard drive, and my WiFi card because it lacked the drivers for them. It was also extremely slow, crashed often, and was full of glitches, especially glitches related to the desktop.

 

[livebriand]

To hell with Balmer!