Guy English on Ballmer’s “retirement” →
What a mess he’s leaving behind.
My favorite part of this news is that this — the massive, probably-terrible internal reorganization — is what seemingly got the board to finally fire Ballmer. It really shows how far Microsoft is up its own ass.
Let the stock stagnate for over a decade? Fine.
Fail to dominate consumer web services, and only get your share by losing billions of dollars for years? That’s OK.
Lose control of online collaboration of Office documents to your biggest rival? Well, maybe the internet will turn out to be a fad.
Miss the entire smartphone revolution, then field what’s still one of the least popular major smartphone platforms? No problem.
Preside over the mass cannibalization of the PC business by tablets, while having effectively zero tablet marketshare? Hey, maybe you can try again next year.
But try to mess around with our divisions? You’re fired.