UPDATED 12:30 EDT / AUGUST 26 2013

NEWS

3 Nails in Ballmer’s Coffin: Mobile, Music & Windows

Last week, Microsoft announced that CEO Steve Ballmer would be stepping down within the next 12 months, or as soon as the special committee, led by John Thompson, found his replacement.

Some have already drummed up possible candidates to fill his position and the list includes Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, former Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky, former Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner, Executive VP of Marketing Tami Reller, Executive VP Tony Bates, or Executive VP Satya Nadella.

Here at SiliconANGLE, we’ve already covered some angles in Ballmer’s departure such as the challenges the company is currently facing, the Ballmer era ending, and the mess Microsoft’s next CEO is cleaning up.  Still, there are a lot of things to be covered.

The Nails in Ballmer’s Coffin

 

If you’ve been keeping an eye on Microsoft since Ballmer took over the CEO position, then you may have noticed how crazy the guy is.  He has nutty moments on stage like screaming and running, getting the crowd psyched and pumped, a couple of weird videos of him and Bill Gates, and other really crazy stuff.  Some say his antics boosted the morale of Microsoft employees, while others just made fun of him.  But Ballmer’s craziness is just the tip of the iceberg as there were some seriously big opportunities he let slip, thus more than a few investors are quite happy he is leaving.

Windows Vista and Windows 8

If you’re a Windows user, you’ll know that Vista and Windows 8 were two of the most hated versions of the software that Microsoft has ever released. In fact, many have questioned why they were ever released when it’s quite obvious that they were half-baked operating systems.

When consumers realized how sucky Vista was, it gave huge leeway for Apple to entice disgruntled Windows users over into its camp, and the first doubts arose about how long Microsoft would be able to stay in the game.  Luckily for Ballmer, Microsoft was able to regain its consumers’ trust when it released Windows 7, only to disappoint users again when Window 8 was released.  Let’s just hope the forthcoming Windows 8.1 update will help Microsoft to somehow recover.

Mobile

Few can forget Ballmer laughing his head off when quizzed about his thoughts on the iPhone shortly after its debut. He called it expensive and not very useful for the enterprise because it doesn’t have a keyboard.  Ballmer mocked the idea of smartphones in general, but looking at where Apple is now compared to Microsoft – which is still trying to figure out how to break in the mobile market – and it’s quite apparent who’s had the last laugh.

Yes, Windows Phone may be gaining traction in Latin America but the that’s not the only market it needs to be competitive in if it wants to successfully compete with Apple in the mobile arena.  Ballmer just stood idly by and watched as Apple took the mobile sector by storm, and now he’s leaving the company in a position where its desperately scrambling to catch up.  Same goes with tablet computers.  Yes, Microsoft may have been the first to stun the world with a tablet computer but it looked hideous and performed even worse.  Thus, when Apple released the iPad, people were so quick to get one.

Music

Apple’s saving grace was the iPod and its iTunes store, as it allowed users to legally download music that they could listen to wherever they wanted.  At the time of Apple’s revival, Microsoft was still focused on being a software company.  Though it had the right software to rival Apple, the MP3 players it had to offer weren’t nearly as cool as the iPods that Apple had. And even though it has its cloud music service – the Xbox Music, launched in 2012 for the Xbox, as well as Windows 8 and its Surface tablets – this has failed to gain enough traction. Microsoft has since launched a web version and people are still waiting for the iOS and Android apps of this service.  But the thing is, there’s nothing to be excited about since most of Xbox Music’s features are already available on other cloud music services.

These are just some of the areas wherein Microsoft seemed to have the edge early on, only to let the opportunity slip out of its fingers.  Were these just missteps, or was it just downright bad judgement on Ballmer’s part?


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