Steve Ballmer to Retire as CEO of Microsoft

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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

So sad, you were the best CEO ever, haters gonna hate, you revolutionized done let anyone tell you anything else.






*i am writing this so if he is reading the commends he wont be sad and go kill him self
 
It's not very often that stock prices go UP when a long term CEO of a major tech firm announces retirement. Just goes to show how little everyone thinks of his leadership. I hope they can get someone that has a little more foresight this time.
 
@stevejnb: Its not "cool to hate Windows8" - its just a crappy product. WinRT sucks, its a dead platform. Win8x86 tablets are not flying off the shelves. Many people who have these report that the keyboard is an important part of these tablets for day to day use... which then you should ask "Why not buy a damn $400 notebook that would be faster, etc?"

The Win8/RT tablet has some uses, but not for the consumer. iPad does very good for what it was design to do. its already being used for business functions.

"Win8 can run more than one thing at a time" - Metro/tifkam is not a windowed GUI. It should be called "Screens". Whatever, the latest versions of Android supports multi-app screens now. It works pretty good.

Microsoft has under 25% of the OS market as of now. Tablet sales are surpassing PC sales... and very few of those tablets have "microsoft" on them. bye bye microsoft.
 
I will actually miss Steve. All this hate, you guys forget what he has done. No Steve = no start menu EVER. I don't know why people freak out over this start menu so much, the Windows 8 Start Screen is so much better than a menu anyways. Steve, you will be missed!
 


You know, MP3 players and smartphones and tablets all existed prior to the iProducts coming out but were not the world-breaking products that the iProducts were. Why? Marketing, image, etc. The ideas, and even the devices themselves were not bad devices, they just never caught on. Enter Jobs who was not a tech guy by any stretch, but knew how to sell a product on its strong points - and all of the sudden MP3 players, smartphones, and tablets were all world breakers - but only his iterations of them. He took existing ideas embodied in existing products which were, by the standard of marketshare you're using, "bad," and made them hot items which changed computing. Were tablets, MP3 players, and smartphones "bad" as you're suggesting because they couldn't make an impact in the market prior to Jobs doing his marketing thing? You'd be stupid to say "yes" but it's a pretty obvious conclusion from your line of reasoning that "not selling stupidly well" = "bad product and bad idea."

My conclusion from this? Using marketshare as an argument that a product is "bad" is problematic at best depending on what standard you are using for "bad." If "good" means "it can perform the functions it is meant to" well, then Windows 8 is a damned good product and better at what it does than any other product on the market. And yes, it is "cool" to hate Windows 8 every bit as much as it's "cool" to think Apple has the best hardware, software, and is TOTALLY worth the money you pay for it.

I'm going to copy and paste part of a post I made on NBC just a few minutes ago.

"I am typing this message from my Acer Iconia W700 (Acer equivalent of a Surface Pro - full Windows 8 PC) which is hooked into my 55 inch HDTV. I am looking at a regular desktop screen with a regular desktop browser. When I am done typing this message, I will unplug it, fold it up, and bring it with me. When I am on the bus with it, I will turn it on, keep it on the Metro interface and read a book on it with a fully touch-friendly interface making it a breeze. When I reach my destination, I will sit down with it, turn it on, turn on my bluetooth keyboard and mouse, switch to desktop mode, and work on a document file in a full Windows desktop environment. When I am done that, I will come home, plug it into my HDTV and my portable hard drive and watch movies in VLC on it with my girlfriend. At night, I may bring it into my room and read on it like a tablet while I try and fall asleep, or use it like a laptop and continue working on my paper. There is no other mobile or PC OS that lets you switch functions like this with one device and, simply put, I do not need another device to fill any computing or tablet need beyond graphic-intensive gaming. Your post is based on the fallacy that Windows 8 sticks you with Metro, and that is outright false."

The iPad, and Android tablets, are half measures for productivity and business. Yes people bring them into meetings, but you cannot use it as your primary work device for long before you'll need a full PC. Once they're done some work on their iPad/Android tablet, once they're done the meeting, they'll open up their laptop so they can do their real editing/formatting/etc. On the other hand, that laptop/desktop can't be picked up and read like a book, and is cumbersome as heck to try and use touch-scrolling through web-pages and e-mails on a bus or in a crowded meal hall because you're always tied to a cumbersome keyboard. Windows 8 gives you the potential for one device that does what I described above - can be the fully functional device in each context, that of primary work machine OR fun-media consumption tablet. Try it with an Android or iOS device and you get a crappy, half-measure desktop experience. Try it with a touchscreen laptop and you've got a cumbersome beast of a machine that is awkward at best on a bus. Try it with a Surface Pro or Iconia W700 and you've got a device which works *very* well in each context, something that no other type of device can replicate.

Why do I say Windows 8 is good? Because it's the core of the most versatile and functional productivity and tablet-style-entertainment device I've ever used, and it serves in this capacity *far* better than any competing software suite, be it Windows 7, iOS, or Android. I don't like a tablet that is an inferior experience when I'm word processing, just like I don't like a laptop that is an inferior experience when I'm trying to read a book on it in the park. The Surface Pro/Iconia W700 are the vanguard of no-compromise devices - impossible without Windows 8, or until Apple/Android make their tablet OS's viable desktop solutions.

PS - I've to assume, by the glee you're taking in MS's downfall, that you are pretty much a fanboy of some other computing company. The thing is, I just want devices that work. I was more than happy to use a PC laptop for serious work and then an Android tablet for on-the-go media consumption, until I found an option that worked better. The Iconia W700 is it - I really don't need either my old Le Pan II or my Asus G73 any more, unless I want to do some heavy duty PC gaming or play Kingdom Rush. My comments concerning Windows 8 and the Iconia W700 being good are based on it *working*. MS can burn for all I care, as long as someone else offers a better hybrid device solution for me to use then. Their competitors do not at the moment. Therefore, for the time being, I'm pro Windows 8 Pro tablets.
 
Microsoft's "transformation to a devices and services company", you say? Because, just being the most successful software company on the planet was a failing business model, I guess. They better keep pushing those tablets! It's got to be more important, than, I dunno, making an operating system that they can sell to businesses.
 
I really doubt his retirement was "optional". There's a lot you don't see in the board meetings, and I really doubt investors have been satisfied with his constant failures. Remember he didn't get a bonus for last year, that was the warning for him to turn his performance around. Instead he continued to plow forward with the failure of XBone this year. Poor him, forced into early retirement with a large severance and enough wealth accumulated that even his great grandchildren won't have to work. I really feel bad.
 
About time.

I'm wondering if the new CEO can get in office fast enough to keep TechNet alive? Probably just a pipe dream, unfortunately. I did have MVP aspirations prior to this move.
 
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