Why Microsoft's missing Bill Gates

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 24 Mar 2010 at 11:31

Barry Collins argues that Ballmer without Gates is like Wise without Morecambe

You can tell a lot about a man by the size of his queue. When I was last at CES in 2008, I joined the line for Bill Gates’ farewell keynote speech three hours before it started, and I was around 200th in the queue. The press queue, that is – not the one for paying punters, which was already snaking around the convention centre and was well into the thousands.

This time, with Steve Ballmer at the microphone, I took a chance and left it until two-and-a-half hours before kick-off to take my place in line. Instead of 200 press, there were around 20; there weren’t even 200 regular attendees waiting to fill the hall, which was itself much smaller than it was when Gates last topped the bill in Vegas. As they say in those parts: Steve, you just ain’t showbiz, baby.

There’s no doubt that part of Gates’ appeal was the chance to be in earshot of the richest man in the world, but he never once failed to deliver a vision of where Microsoft and technology were headed for the next five or ten years – even if that vision was sometimes hopelessly off-beam. And judging by the paucity of Ballmer’s speech, Microsoft could do with a visionary right now.

Ballmer certainly needs to elevate one of his techie elite, someone who can deliver the blue-sky thinking

Instead of demos of awe-inspiring prototypes and predictions for the future of computing, we were subjected to a history lesson: how great Windows 7 is, how well the Xbox is selling, how brilliant Project Natal will be – all products or announcements we’ve already seen and know well. It felt more like an AGM than an event designed to drum up consumer excitement. Only briefly did we get a glimmer of a new product: an HP slate PC that was whipped out so fleetingly that if you’d dropped your pen you might have missed it altogether.

Perhaps more worrying for Microsoft than the lack of new products was the lack of vision. We all know where Google is heading: all of our data stored on Google-shaped clouds, accessible through web apps that start with a G. And we know that Intel is aiming to get its processors in everything from server farms to food blenders, and connect all of these devices to the internet. But where is Microsoft’s masterplan? It half-heartedly plugs its “software + services” ethos, but the company currently lacks a clear direction.

A born salesman

Ballmer’s problem is that he’s a salesman, not a software engineer. While Gates was coding the foundations of Microsoft in the mid-1970s, his Harvard buddy Ballmer was working as a product manager at Proctor & Gamble. His catchphrase may be “developers, developers, developers”, but the painful 15 seconds or so it took him to (badly) type that simple phrase during a CES demonstration betrayed the fact that this is a man who’s remarkably uncomfortable at a computer keyboard. A brilliant businessman he may be, but a technologist he’s not.

Up until Gates decided to spend more time with his philanthropy, Steve could leave the big thinking to his old friend. Gates even wrote books on the future of tech in his spare time. Ballmer’s job was to make sure the numbers added up – and dance across the stage like a deranged orangutan at the developer shindigs. He was the ying to Gates’ yang; now Ballmer’s like Ernie Wise trying to keep the act going without Eric.

That isn’t to say Microsoft has a deficit of technical talent. The few interviews given by chief software architect Ray Ozzie reveal that he’s an astute technical thinker, but he also looks uncomfortable in the spotlight: he may have the vision, but would he be able to communicate it? Jon Honeyball – who’s seen off more Microsoft executives than I’ve had hot baths – was impressed with the “clear-speaking and authoritative” Scott Guthrie, the vice president of Microsoft’s developer division at the company’s recent Professional Developers Conference. And then there’s Windows chief Steven Sinofsky – the man who oversaw Office 2007 and Windows 7, an unashamed geek, and a man whose sheer enthusiasm endears him to audiences both big and small.

I’m not suggesting it’s time for Ballmer to step aside. There are certainly growing calls for his head, but he’s helped put Microsoft back on the rails after the drifting and uncertainty created by Bill’s long goodbye. Windows 7 has (so far) been an unbridled success, the Windows Server release schedule is now neatly aligned with the client OS, and Azure is getting out of the door – although the jury is still deliberating on whether businesses will be tempted by Microsoft’s cloud operating system.

But Ballmer certainly needs to elevate one of his techie elite, someone who can deliver the blue-sky thinking – and the buzz-generating CES keynotes – while he concentrates on keeping the shareholders happy. It might even be worth picking up the phone to an old friend. I’ve heard he could do with the money...