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[News] Questions/Speculations Arise Again About a Ballmer Departure

If Ballmer bolts, who will lead Microsoft?

,----[ Quote ]
| "Hey! Ho! Time for Ballmer to go," a Wired.com headline proclaimed on April 
| 29. 
| 
| My rejoinder: "Hell, no. There are no Softies ready for a promo."
`----

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9932237-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Mary Jo writes for CNET now?


Yesterday:

Microsoft Should Fire Steve Ballmer, or Hire SuperNanny. Or Both.

,----[ Quote ]
| What should happen is this: Ballmer should re-canvass Yahoo's largest 
| shareholders and ask what firm price in cash would get them on-board, and 
| then offer it. No more futzing through middlemen bankers, just ask and 
| deliver. I doubt this will happen -- Ballmer is caught up among internal 
| politics, his own increasing impotence, and childish Yahoo intransigence -- 
| so he is stuck and looking more and like someone who keeps threatening to 
| ground his kids, but never does. As we have all learned from watching 
| SuperNanny, the trouble is rarely with the kids; it's almost always the 
| nitwit parents.        
| 
| Such is the case here, so my recipe for action? Fire Ballmer. Think how 
| quickly things would change at Microsoft, and in this deal. And then hire 
| SuperNanny and film some Microsoft meetings. I'd watch.  
`----

http://seekingalpha.com/article/74460-microsoft-should-fire-steve-ballmer-or-hire-supernanny-or-both


Recent:

Steve Ballmer's Nine Year Retirement Plan

,----[ Quote ]
| Bill Gates is retiring from Microsoft this year and the exec he left in 
| charge, Steve Ballmer, is ready to leave in nine years. 
`----

http://blogs.eweek.com/cebit/content/cebit/steve_ballmers_nine_year_retirement_plan.html


Does Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer need an intervention?

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may need an intervention before this obsession 
| with Yahoo–which is really about an obsession over Google–spins out of 
| control.  
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8597


Is Microsoft's Ballmer a bad dealmaker?

,----[ Quote ]
| The bid for Yahoo that helped sink the market value of Microsoft (MSFT) by 
| more than $20 billion in one day in early February is one of the latest in a 
| string of acquisitions and major investment stakes Microsoft has initiated 
| since CEO Steve Ballmer took over in 2000 that have been punished by the 
| stock market as misjudgments.    
| 
| "Some learn more quickly than others. It doesn't look like Mr. Ballmer is 
| learning that quickly," says UCLA Anderson School of Management professor 
| Richard Roll, lead author of a study that analyzed 11 years of merger and 
| acquisition announcements by 2,589 CEOs at 1,740 U.S. companies.   
`----

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2008-04-23-ballmer_N.htm


UCLA Professor: Microsoft CEO Ballmer a ‘hubris-infected serial acquirer’ with
dismal track record

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/16916/


Bear Stearns's Advice To Microsoft

,----[ Quote ]
| Co-founder Bill Gates can't be thrilled with watching
| Ballmer drain the company's cash. He didn't get so rich by buying at the top
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| of the market.  
`----

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/03/17/microsoft-bear-stearns-tech-ebiz-cx_ec_0316msft.html


Microsoft says to borrow money for Yahoo deal

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Corp said on Monday it may borrow money for the first time in its 
| history to fund a portion of its $44.6 billion unsolicited offer for Yahoo 
| Inc.  
`----

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN0455692920080205


Microsoft's DreamSpark – What a Giveaway

,----[ Quote ]
| The rest of the $44.6bn (£22.3bn) deal would be financed with an undisclosed 
| amount of credit. 
| 
| What that means is that it must squeeze as much money as it can from its 
| operations to fund that debt and still pay dividends to shareholders, who 
| will be looking for some payback from the Yahoo takeover. Giving away 
| software is the last thing it would want to do in these circumstances, and 
| the DreamSpark announcement shows just how worried it is about the future.    
`----

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/microsofts-dreamspark-%E2%80%93-what-giveaway


Will Deal-Making Chiefs Ever Learn? Maybe.

,----[ Quote ]
| Mr. Ballmer was considered a “hubris-infected” chief under the study’s 
| definition, because of Microsoft’s value-destroying deal to invest $100 
| million in Vertical Net in 2000. He followed up with deals for Intertainer 
| and BroadBand Office, which were also followed by below-market returns for 
| shareholders.    
| 
| In all, Mr. Ballmer made 15 deals between 2000 and 2002, with an average 
| market-adjusted shareholder return of negative 4.59 percent. 
`----

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/will-deal-making-chiefs-ever-learn-maybe/index.html


Mergers of Corporate Giants Not Likely to Benefit Consumers

,----[ Quote ]
| “There is little if any evidence that increased corporate size in 
| already-large national and international firms produces greater technological 
| innovation,” writes Elizabeth Sanders, Professor of Government at Cornell 
| University. “To the contrary, it probably leads to less, given lower 
| competitive pressures, and the starving of research in debt-burdened 
| companies.”     
`----

http://mslawnews.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/corporate_mergers/


Can Ballmer pilot Microsoft through a changed tech course?

,----[ Quote ]
| Can Ballmer steer Microsoft out of the roadblocks?
| 
| The highly competitive Ballmer, you might say, is the man who cried "nice." 
| And like the boy who cried wolf, no one believed him. The software giant's 
| attempt to make nice with much of the developer community by opening up its 
| APIs for key products was greeted with a jaundiced eye by regulators at the 
| powerful European Commission.    
| 
| However sincere Microsoft's stated change of heart may be, it is becoming 
| clearer and clearer that Microsoft -- which knows it has to change -- is 
| still struggling to find a fresher path.  
| 
| What's a poor CEO to do?
| 
| Now that Bill Gates has effectively left the building, Ballmer is free to 
| transform Microsoft, a job made all the tougher by the enormous reservoir of 
| mistrust the company has engendered over the years.  
| 
| Case in point: the open APIs. Microsoft will give its competitors free access 
| to the application programming interfaces and protocols it uses to ensure 
| interoperability between its own products, a very significant change in 
| business practices.    
`----

http://weblog.infoworld.com/tech-bottom-line/archives/2008/02/microsoft_open.html


EU May Fine Microsoft Over Antitrust Case, People Say

,----[ Quote ]
| The fine may be announced as soon as Feb. 27, said the people, who declined 
| to be identified because the decision isn't public. Microsoft said in a Jan. 
| 24 U.S. regulatory filing that the penalty may be as much as 1.5 billion 
| euros ($2.2 billion).   
`----

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=MSFT:US&sid=aG8SwG8llTmM


Microsoft's Last Big Beat: Internet Domination or Death

,----[ Quote ]
| What can $44.6B USD mean? Well, for Microsoft (MSFT) it may mean the cost of 
| survival. 
`----

http://seekingalpha.com/article/63876-microsoft-s-last-big-beat-internet-domination-or-death?source=yahoo


Related:

Will Microsoft Survive the Next 10 Years?

,----[ Quote ]
| I am not really an expert in this but when I read all the negative
| headlines and articles I ask myself if Microsoft really will survive
| the next 10 years.
| 
| [...]
| 
| I am pretty sure that the Open Source Community, the new Ubuntu,
| Google and of course Apple are those companies that are ready for
| our century and they will get more and more people that know what
| they really want.
`----

http://websquirrel.blogspot.com/2007/03/will-microsoft-survive-next-10-years.html


P. Graham: Microsoft is Dead

,----[ Quote ]
| A few days ago I suddenly realized Microsoft was dead. I was talking
| to a young startup founder about how Google was different from Yahoo.
| I said that Yahoo had been warped from the start by their fear of
| Microsoft. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a "media
| company" instead of a technology company. Then I looked at his face
| and realized he didn't understand. It was as if I'd told him how much
| girls liked Barry Manilow in the mid 80s. Barry who?
| 
| Microsoft? He didn't say anything, but I could tell he didn't quite
| believe anyone would be frightened of them.
`----

http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

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