Roy Schestowitz wrote:
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Gates-Ballmer Clash Shaped Microsoft's Coming Handover
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| One of the most successful business partnerships in history was coming
| unraveled. It was early 2000, and Bill Gates had relinquished the chief
| executive's job at Microsoft Corp. to Steve Ballmer -- for the first time
| taking a back seat to his college pal and right-hand man of 20 years.
|
| Mr. Ballmer got the title. But Mr. Gates retained the power, triggering a
| yearlong struggle between the two men that until now has remained largely
| under wraps.
|
| Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Mr. Gates stormed out of a
| meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer jumped to the
| defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the
| time. After the exchange, Mr. Ballmer seemed "remorseful," the person said.
|
| The conflict between the two men paralyzed business-strategy decisions that
| the company still wrestles with today. Board members stepped in to try to
| mediate a truce.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121261241035146237.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
Interesting how that's the period of microsoft's real windows troubles.
XP's feature set and codebase would have been mainly finalised by the
time Gates handed over, and what have we seen since then? A massive
problem getting XP SP2 out the door on time and the less said about the
Vista debacle the better. Come back Bill, all is forgiven? Well, maybe
not but somebody competent needs to take the reins there.
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