Timeline of Steve Ballmer's Past 33 Years at Microsoft

[Marcus Yam]

A look at the major milestones and products from Microsoft during Steve Ballmer's tenure.

Timeline of Steve Ballmer's Past 33 Years at Microsoft : Read more

 

[Azn Cracker]

Saw him in the parking lot during a Microsoft Store opening. Am I cool or what?

Sad to say the store doesn't have that many patrons.

 

[spartanmk2]

Buh-Bye! /wave

 

[house70]

Not a single day too soon.
The sad part is, this clown will get a huge bonus (on top of what he's already got) and will live the rest of his care-free life thinking he was one of the greatest assets at MS.

 

[Parsian]

He should of listened to the consumers more.

 

[irish_adam]

lulz at all this hate for Balmer, microsoft is not a 1 man band, you cannot blame every problem microsoft has on him. As the timeline shows he has been with the company since pretty much the start in a leading role. I think its fair to say the company would not be as big as it is now without him.

though that said, the company itself has stifled the PC industry and abused its monopoly position for decades. I mean the same people that post here bitching about how crappy M$ is are the same people throwing Balmer to the wolves for ruining the company

surely if he really is destroying microsoft then long may he stay!

 

[the1kingbob]

I find it odd that one of the worst WinOS (Vista or ME) and one the best (Win7) are not mentioned on the chart, and the 360 is oddly missing as well. How could the two best things to come from Microsoft be missing? The 360 kept Sony in check and Win7 finally gave a worthy upgrade from XP.

 

[QEFX]

@the1kingbob: ME wasn't that bad. Mine ran rock solid for weeks at a time. You just had to remove all the extra crap that came "pre-installed" and made sure your hardware was supported. My issue was the memory limit, but so be it. Just for all the ME haters ... if you spent 10 minutes (well 3 hours actually) removing the extra crap it would have been a good (but not great) OS.

VISTA shouldn't have been released when it was. MS should have waited at least 6 more months and fixed things, oh and only released a 64 bit version. They could have kept XP as 32 bit for a few more versions (XP SE, XP Final Edition) and had VISTA on as the 64 bit flagships. But then I wasn't head of MS, so not my fault things worked out as they did.

 

[back_by_demand]

So quick to hate, a year after he took over as CEO they released XP and Xbox, the 2 biggest things ever to happen at that time, then to eventually get to Windows 7 and Xbox 360 - it seems Ballmer get grief for a goddam Start button, get over it, that was all Sinofsky and he got whacked for that

 

[damianrobertjones]

???????????????????

Pc sales slumped BEFORE Windows 8

 

[damianrobertjones]

"He should of listened to the consumers more."

Never, ever, EVER listen to consumers as you'll get 10 different answers, requests and ideas. None of those 10 customers will EVER all agree on nearly anything. It's suicide to do such a thing.

 

[Blessedman]

He was a much better salesman than a captain. Win8 should have never been released. As much as everyone says they hated Vista, Vista >>>> Win8. I had some driver issues with vista, but it was far superior to winXP and anything apple made or currently makes.

 

[sean1357]

I think the future of Microsoft will turn into like IBM. More likely, Apple and Google will be the future ahead of technologies.

 

[Guest]

I remember in the 1990's Bill Gates was vilified for one reason or another; 25+ years later, you have the keyboard-business-analysts welcoming Steve Ballmer's retirement, at Microsoft. To the hind-sight 20/20 Generals: If you are so smart about what should have been done at Microsoft by Ballmer, how about you start your own business and show us how it's done. You have 30 years from your day of incorporation...now go.

 

[irish_adam]

[quotemsg=11411788,0,252514][quotemsg=11411444,0,967646]I think the future of Microsoft will turn into like IBM. More likely, Apple and Google will be the future ahead of technologies.[/quotemsg]

62% of the World's computers run Windows. 9% for MAC and .8% for Linux...lol 91% of the World's computers run software from Microsoft. Your statement is ridiculous.
[/quotemsg]

Your statement shows a lack of foresight, hes talking about the future. Computer sales are on the decline, while tablet and phone sales are on the rise which will soon give Apple and Google a lot more influence in where technology is going.

I'm not saying that the desktop is going to die out but lets face it the pace of evolution on the desktop and laptop side of things is shockingly slow these days, most new tablets and even phones now have a higher screen resolution than most new laptops, whats up with that?

 

[falchard]

I think Balmer is a vey smart economist under everything else. There is one fundamental reason why. He dropped out of Stanford University. People should understand that if you are an Economist you should learn economics, if you are a Smart Economist you drop out of college because the cost/benefit ratio does not match.

 

[back_by_demand]

Julie Larson-Green is likely to take over, but if Microsoft is smart and Ballmer can take the credit for it, they should finally acquire Yahoo. Then, install Marissa Mayer as CEO. Yahoo overtook Google in the US for web traffic last month and stock is up 75% since she took over. Also all the monkey jokes about Ballmer would dry up because Mayer is smokin' hot!

 

[cypeq]

Desktop is on the diminishing line because technology went far enough that 5 year old pc is still more than good for multimedia / office tasks. Laptop prices from what we had 10 years ago almost halved and the cheap ones provide flawless multimedia experience. Tablets and smartphones now chip out not even from pc but also console market.
Thing is the PC is still irreplaceable in many applications but it's not alone on the market like it was 15 years ago.

 

[sidramia123]

Apple Vs Google Vs Microsoft
---------------------------------
Profits: http://goo.gl/75iqp3
Revenue: http://goo.gl/91Chm2
Stock Performance: http://goo.gl/4DtdpG
Research Expense: http://goo.gl/XcVCzg

 

[house70]

[quotemsg=11411770,0,252514]
No outgoing Microsoft executive ever gets a severance package because they already are worth hundreds of millions or in Ballmer's case billions of dollars. He's leaving with 333M shares or $11.5B. Why don't you do some research before showing your blatant stupidity.[/quotemsg]

I mentioned bonus, not severance package. He's been getting a bonus every year, I don't see why not this year.
Take your own advice and research some, after you have learned how to read, of course. Spewing insults left and right does not make you seem more intelligent .

 

[GreaseMonkey_62]

I'm a little amazed at how much this guy is worth. I know he got paid millions a year as CEO but not enough to make him a billionaire, so his stock options must have been really good.

 

[Duckhunt]

Another A-hole who did not understand the business he was in and then when there is failure they media a+hole lickers won't say it. The media are just a bunch of harlots on the pay to lie and pay lip service. The final buck ends with the CEO. Lets understand it. He got paid millions, he has a team that got paid millions. They end up this ? mediocrity. Wow. Way to go ( sarcasm). Obviously they must be worth those millions.( sarcasm). I guess after the GFC. The 1% got bailed out and the rest of us got a kick in the pants. This is how you do it. When you are rich, You loan money out like its water and then you get the government and the middle class to bail you out. I guess that is where MS is heading.

 

[cypeq]

You make ton of money than you invest ton of money and you get 3 tons of money in return

 

[eddieroolz]

Starting salary of $50,000 in 1980. Must've been awesome...