Ballmer is ideal material as a COO but he is in no way CEO material.
He didn't even join the board until he got made CEO.
He has done a pretty good job with maintaining the lines that make Microsoft the bulk of its revenue but in new areas he is very fucking useless.
Bill Gates did some masterful work at making Windows the dominant force that it is but Balmer has done nothing but waste money on Windows Phone and Surface.
If only Balmer was smart enough to realize he needs someone else to get new shit off the ground, then Microsoft would have half a chance.
They have the cash and they have the researchers. Brilliant researchers doing excellent research. Thing is; they don't really use that research. A few things end up in cash cow products (like one of the automated data type detection features of rise4fun.com went into Excel), but that's about it.
He didn't even join the board until he got made CEO.
He has done a pretty good job with maintaining the lines that make Microsoft the bulk of its revenue but in new areas he is very fucking useless.
Bill Gates did some masterful work at making Windows the dominant force that it is but Balmer has done nothing but waste money on Windows Phone and Surface.
If only Balmer was smart enough to realize he needs someone else to get new shit off the ground, then Microsoft would have half a chance.