Sinofsky and the power vacuum inside Microsoft

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

Ray Ozzie, Jeff Raikes, Robbie Bach, J Allard and now – most surprisingly of all – Steven Sinofsky: the list of internal candidates to succeed Steve Ballmer has been crossed off, one by one.

This morning, despite years of rumblings of discontent from investors about Ballmer’s leadership, the Microsoft CEO has probably never been more secure. With Ballmer having seen off all the likely internal contenders to his throne, the Microsoft board must either continue to stand by their man or appoint externally.

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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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The man who should replace Steve Jobs at Apple

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

Whether Steve Jobs really does only need to get his hormones back in balance, or there’s something more serious going on, Apple are going to need to find a new top dog at some juncture.

For me, there’s one outstanding candidate for the job and (whisper it) he comes from the old enemy: Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky.

Sinofsky’s performed not one, but two minor miracles at Microsoft. He was the man responsible for the magnificent overhaul of the Office suite, with Office 2007. Microsoft was so scared of tampering with the Office cash cow that the software had barely changed in appearance since the days of Windows 3.1. Redesigning the interface on a piece of software that is used by the vast majority of office and homes around the world was fraught with risk, but Sinofsky and his team pulled it off with care and no small amount of style. Now not only is it immeasurably easier to produce professional-looking documents in Word, for example, but fast-gaining open-source rivals such as OpenOffice now look tired by comparison.

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Microsoft makes Windows less annoying

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

There’s been no shortage of humility from Microsoft at PDC this week. The likeable Steven Sinofksy, who was parachuted from the successful Office 2007 team to oversee the Windows 7 launch, has perfected his self-deprecating schtick. 

“UAC was so famous I thought it might surpass Clippy,” he remarked to journalists earlier in the week. 

He issued another half-apology for UAC during his Windows 7 keynote today, dryly remarking “we got a lot of feedback on Vista RTM. From users, from the press, from bloggers… Oh, and from one or two adverts.” 

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