Has Ballmer lost the dressing room?

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

There are six words a football manager never wants to read about himself in a newspaper: “he has lost the dressing room”. Reports of mutiny in the ranks are almost inevitably followed days later with another six-word epitaph: “spending more time with his family”.

Will Steve Ballmer’s three kids soon have more quality time to spend with their dad? Judging by the reaction to last week’s annual employees’ meeting at Microsoft, it’s looking increasingly likely.

The influential Mini-Microsoft blog posts a largely upbeat account of last week’s gathering. Yes, people were reported to be “streaming out” of the hall before the event had finished, although only in “small numbers”, and as the blog points out, it was “nowhere near as bad as BillG’s last company meeting where Ballmer started screaming at people to sit down”.

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Stuart Turton’s Alternative Tech Awards of 2010

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

As we usher in 2011, how better to reflect on 2010 than with some awards. To that end, I present the “Stuart Turton in association with PC Pro but not officially endorsed by them Awards”. For convenience sake, this will henceforth be abbreviated to the STIAWPPBNOEBTAs – which admittedly sounds like a gulag in Stalinist Russia, but will have to suffice.

So without further ado, it’s the first annual STIAWPPBNOEBTAs! Drum roll, please.

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What Microsoft employees think of Steve Ballmer

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

We can guess what Steve Ballmer thinks of Steve Ballmer’s tenure as Microsoft CEO, as he says his firm is doing just fine. “We’re a company that will make $26 billion pre-tax [this year], so I’m not going to be apologetic for our financial results,” Ballmer told the audience at a speech in London this week.

And we have a pretty clear picture what his own board feels, after it awarded him only half of his possible bonus. While that still puts an extra $670,000 in his pocket, the board chastised the CEO for his failings in the mobile space.

But what do those actually working at Microsoft think of Ballmer? Website Glassdoor lets employees rate their companies, giving advice for would-be workers on whether it’s a good idea to work there.

Of the 1,116 ratings on Glassdoor (out of 91,000 Microsoft workers worldwide), only 50% approve of Ballmer’s efforts. Of course, it’s probably biased: angry people head to the web to rant, not happy ones.
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What’s Steve Ballmer’s favourite Xbox game?

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

When he opened the floor for questions at the end of a speech on cloud computing this morning, Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer could hardly have expected the question posed to him by one plucky economics student: what’s your favourite Xbox game?

Ballmer thought for a second or two, before leaping to his feet to deliver his answer. Would the über-macho Microsoft boss pick something brutal, such as Halo or Call of Duty? Or what about a title his boardroom buddies could empathise with, such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour?

Nope. Instead 54-year-old Steven Anthony Ballmer beamed the broadest of smiles and in entirely typical fashion yelled: “Beach Volleyball, baby!”

I wonder why that 2003 title has remained in his affections for so long???

Steve Ballmer signs a Mac

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Never let it be said that Steve Ballmer doesn’t have a sense of humour. Nor that Nashville students don’t have cojones. Because it takes a brave man to ask the Microsoft boss to sign his computer, when said computer is blatantly a MacBook Pro.

The big question: is the MacBook worth more or less than it was before?

What do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Scott McNealy have in common? They’re lucky.

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

If you’ve ever wondered why it’s the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer, Scott McNealy and Eric Schmidt who are the successful ones who end up creating and running a hugely successful technology company and not you then I have excellent news – it’s not your fault. In fact, it’s an accident of birth.

I was reminded of this while browsing through Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point, Blink and generally considered to be a very clever bloke) as part of my research, such that it was, for next month’s Prolog – that is, the editor’s column in PC Pro. (more…)

What’s next on Microsoft’s kill list?

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

So Microsoft continues to kill off the backwater products in its vast product set. The latest to go is MSN Encarta. According to some reports, Encarta has a truly microscopic share of the marketplace, at least compared to the big monster known as Wikipedia.

What else has gone? OneCare, the really not bad antivirus engine, has been axed to be replaced by a free thing called Morrow. The entire Flight Simulator team has gone, as has staff in the Equipt division. (more…)

Ballmer vs Jobs

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

I went to see Steve Ballmer speak in London yesterday. For anybody who’s not had the pleasure, here’s a few simple steps to aid you in recreating the experience. Pick up your chair, pop it in the car and drive to the airport, then sit yourself behind the engine of a Boeing 747 and wait for takeoff. When it blasts you through air traffic control, you’ve pretty much had the experience of Steve Ballmer in full flow.

 He’s a force of nature. He stalks the stage like some slightly crazed but bizarrely literate bear stalking the bars of its cage. He barks his way through his speech, stops, heads off on tangents, U-turns, growls, snarls and flicks insults at rivals with the lethal precision of a ninja throwing shurikens. Take this from yesterday…

“Google has great search, but not much else. They don’t have much for enterprise, collaboration, email … They’re trying, but they’re not there yet.”

 When he bounded onto stage yesterday, he began speaking at a volume that caused every squirrel in a fifteen mile radius to immediately drop out of its tree dead. People in the audience were frozen in shock, as if a whale had just arrived on stage in a bowler hat and started singing showtunes. And halfway through this carnage, it dawned on me. I was being entertained. Contrary to popular perception, Ballmer is a charasmatic man, who is very quick and very funny. 

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The yolk of shame: A Ballmer game

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

The first time I watched the video of Steve Ballmer being egged in Hungary, I must admit I was disgusted. I sat open-jawed in amazement, completely outraged at what I’d just witnessed. The egg thrower had missed. Missed! He was so close he was practically sat in Ballmer’s lap, and yet somehow he had conspired to heft his egg dismally wide of the – not inconsiderably sized – mark. One can only assume he was blinded by a stray beam of light flashing off Ballmer’s shiny head, but even so… the shame.

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Stop picking on Steve Ballmer

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

I like Steve Ballmer. In fact, I struggle to understand how you can’t.

There’s something unscripted about him that’s uniquely entertaining. Watching him answer a question from the public is like watching a HGV driver trying to reverse out of a cul-de-sac. It’s a twenty minute event, filled with aborted attempts, sudden U-turns and near misses. Nineteen minutes of utter, exasperating futility followed by one minute of triumph when he eventually stumbles upon the way out. And here’s the thing – the more of it I watch, the more I find myself rooting for him. It’s endearing, and all the more so after being subjected to a number of smooth talking PR gurus who’ve perfected the art of speaking without saying anything at all.

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