All you fanboys on here are nothing compared to him!
@Ballmer: mind the door doesn't hit you.
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is today stepping down from the Windows giant's board of directors – just six months after he was succeeded by incoming chief exec Satya Nadella. Ballmer announced his retirement in August last year, but remained at the helm until Nadella took over in February. Shy-and-retiring Ballmer also …
> "Success requires moving to monetization through enterprise subscriptions, hardware gross margins, and advertising revenues," Ballmer helpfully suggested. "You must drive that." Translation: Selling software is 2000 and late.
It most certainly is not and idiotic statements like this are the reason that he's not at the helm now.
The future for Microsoft and their ilk is most certainly not in selling software, but in selling services.
This post has been deleted by its author
The "hardware gross margins" worries me. Maybe he never bothered to speak to Sony, Dell, etc. about the pitiful margins on their products. Margins like Apple's are very much the exception rather than the rule in consumer electronics. For Microsoft the margins on selling software like Office are likely to remain crucial for the future. SaaS sounds so good until customers find ways to migrate to alternative providers.
> You can't get much more service-y than subscription services to hosted & managed enterprise systems.
By subscription services, I assume you mean online software licensing. If you mean hosting services like Azure, then I would agree.
Adobe have made this mistake and they will pay for it long term. They dress their offering up as a service, but in point of fact it is software rental.
If it involves running a substantial amount of software on your machine, then you're licensing, not consuming a service.
But is he any better? All he's done so far is take credit for Ballmer's last work.
[Ballmer couldn't have done the recent "open Microsoft" stunts without a sock puppet or he'd be laughed off the planet given his previous blurts, and it was far too soon for Nadella to pull it off]
I hope he's able to give MS the kick up the arse it needs, my career could depend on it.
Pretty sure Nadella told the board that after his "probation period" was over, Ballmer and Gates would have to go. Who in their right mind would have taken the job with those two lurking over your shoulder. I'm not being derogatory about the two former CEOs, but I think we can all agree MS needed to change course drastically and the last thing you'd want in that situation is your two former bosses in a position of influence. I think this is the best move made by Gates and Ballmer in at least a decade.
I'm not B A Barracus either ;-)
I know a few people who operate businesses as tax sinks for their other concerns, not to offset the purchase but the on-going expenses against some part of their other companies. They're not at the megabucks level of sports teams though...
Basketballs! Basketballs, basketballs, basketballs, basketballs, basketballs, basketballs! I love THIS team! Woooooooow! Wooooooohooooo! Basketballs, basketballs, basketballs, basketballs, basketballs, basketballs, basketballs!
I might watch a game just to see him do that. LOL
@ Jake
It is not a stupid waste of money when you have $18 billion and are a basketball fan...
Besides, look at teams that were 3rd rate when bought by a sugar daddy and are now 1st rate (Seattle Seahawks anyone). I think he'll put the money into the team, get the right coach and staff, and then start building the team into a championship contender.
Not a stupid waste of money, just because you have 18 billion dollars? So I guess if you have 180,000 dollars to spare, 20,000 dollars on a throw-away flirt with fame that will never be profitable is a good idea?
The Seahawks have no local competition. The Clippers are shadowed by the Lakers. The Clippers don't even have their own arena ... Gut feeling is that Steve could pour another 3 billion into the franchise (staff, new arena, advertising, etc.), and still not make a profit. On a vanity project.
I don't even like basketball ... but business is business.
Gut feeling is that Steve could pour another 3 billion into the franchise (staff, new arena, advertising, etc.), and still not make a profit. On a vanity project.
Even if he does have to put another USD 3 bn in he can still afford it. The key word is vanity: some people buy islands, other sports teams. Though I think that those that manage to stick around over time do end up making more than cost and with a good accountant it is an excellent tax sink.
If you have "$180,000 to spare" that's not much cushion in case things go south in your life (lose your job, expensive illness/injury, get sued over a car accident or whatever) and that $180,000 is no longer "spare".
Us non mega rich folks can't afford to be as frivolous, though if you analyze someone's life they probably are. How many people would question this, but spend $5 on a Starbucks every morning? If you do it every working day, that's over $1000 a year, if you do it over 20 years that's $20,000. You could have just drank tap water for free. That is really throwing the money away, because you don't get anything back for it. Maybe $2 billion is too much for the Clippers, but they'll never be worth $0 unless the NBA folds.
By contrast, when you have $18 billion, or even $18 million, even if you truly threw away $2 billion or $2 million on something that would be worth $0 in the long run, who cares? It isn't like the money evaporates, the seller gets it perhaps do something smarter with, and you get whatever enjoyment you get out of this "throwaway". You can't spend it when you're dead, might as well enjoy it while you're alive.
You can argue he should do something good with it, but as he's passing along the money to the seller, now it is up to the seller to do something good with that $2 billion or pass it on to someone who will if he similarly "throws it away".
>For a third rate team in a saturated market. That is NOT good business sense.
Really how many American sports teams have sold for less than the owner paid? Yet another edge to being rich is your vanity projects/purchases often appreciate in value (yachts, artwork, wine, etc).
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen#Portland_Trail_Blazers
As you can see, he also owns the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, this year's Super Bowl champions.
It is widely reported that when Allen first sought an NBA basketball team, he tried to buy his beloved hometown Seattle SuperSonics. However, when the owner of the Sonics would not sell, Allen looked a short distance south to Portland, and bought the Trail Blazers instead.
(I see now that "Trail Blazers" is actually two words, not one, as I had it before. "SuperSonics" was one word, but the second S was capitalized anyway. And the Sonics are now the Oklahoma City Thunder, having left Seattle in 2008 after 41 years.)
>"Hope you screw up. Which you will."
Ballmer is nothing but a sales droid tool but he genuinely wants Microsoft to succeed which is why the best thing he ever did for the stock price was to resign. The biggest indirect golden parachute in corporate history.
Corporate environments have become far too sterile in recent years. They're just no fun anymore. Everything is driven by compromise, moderation, not causing offence, and diversity targets.
I'll miss the characters at the top - Steve Jobs, Bob Diamond, Bill n Steve. People that could yell and shout when they needed to, and entertain while getting the job done.
Are they the ones who have broken clouds, change the PC desktop to something no one like, messes up old favourites like office, breaks servers with patches, sells tablets that aren't as good as the others on sale?
I just needed to check before I gave a shit about this billionaire clown.
is the sky falling? are penguins flying?
I think it's already too late for MS to remove the tarnish of the Ballmer years. I don't think I will see it in my working lifetime. But hey, MS, prove me wrong, innovation can only benefit the whole industry. Right?
$2billion for a sports team? I think the planet has enough hungry and cold people to think of before you drop $2billion for a sports team? I think the planet has enough sick and dying people that need proper care before you drop $2billion for a sports team? I think there are enough people who need a decent education out there before you drop $2billion for a sports team?
Those are just for starters before you drop $2billion for a sports team!
I'm wishing the company might start making good decisions, where good criticism is listened to, rather than bad ideas regurgitated over the workers for them to obey.
But on the other hand, I will miss the chuckle I get out of MSs decisions.
Oh, wait. Nothing will change though, will it.
I'm sure I can't be the first to comment on this but I am going to say it anyway.
40 seconds prancing before he flatlines. 26 seconds yelling, hopping, skipping and jumping for the equivalent of some 30 paces and just under 14 seconds walking because he ran out of steam.
I've been to catalogue company scams with more action. And they all looked a lot fitter. You have to look the part to act the part. With his money though, you can afford to buy peope to exercise for you. I hope it is a better investment than Windows ME, Vista, 8 or that mobile OS for pdas I can't recall the name of.