Re: Ballmer's MIcrosoft legacy...
For the life of me I can't ever remember reading about even one single successful contribution/idea/decision that Steve Ballmer made
I think you're being unfair. Not that I think he was a good CEO, but he did do some stuff right. Or at least was in charge when it happened. So he gets the credit for not stopping it, like he gets the blame for the stuff that went wrong. He didn't have any charimsa or seemingly any feel for marketing, which I think is much more MS's problem. I think they need a marketeer in charge, rather than a technical person. Because they've got lots of good stuff, but lots of left-over bad reputation to get rid of.
Also he did nothing for Microsoft's dysfunctional internal culture. Which by everything that I've read is hostile to anyone who's not an insider - which means robotic, sharp-elbowed, office-politics-assassin. I've also known 2 people who worked in Reading, one left with stress and the other did not paint a flattering portait of the cocaine and office politics (although he was in sales).
I think his two huge mistakes were letting Sinofsky run riot in Windows land and annoying everyone, and ignoring smartphones. In the days before iPhone, Windows Mobile 5 was not bad (for the time and available hardware). If they'd actually done some development on it, they could have taken more market share off Symbian - and might have been able to compete with Apple. Instead of getting stomped on by them, and then crushed into the ground by Google. Particularly as RIM were already kicking their arses before Apple did. As I recall they made almost no improvements in their mobile software after about 2004, and the iPhone was 2007? And it took 2 years after that for the rubbish WinMob 6.
On the other hand, he recovered quite well from the mess that was Longhorn. Vista wasn't as awful as it was painted, once the initial driver issues were sorted out. And there was some pain to be expected given how much of the codebase they had to change. Almost everyone agrees that Windows 7 is good. Best I not mention 8... MS aren't doing badly in Cloud as well. But surely their best improvement has been in servers and tools. All that active directory and group policy stuff, which keeps them safe in their corporate market. Even if PCs are living longer, so they're not getting refreshes every 2-3 years, but more like every 5-6. Surely Exchange + Outlook + Exchange Active Sync are in pretty good shape nowadays. I'm certainly not aware that there's anything else around to beat it. Even if I personally hate Exchange. I'd be lynched if I suggested moving us off it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
