The Ballmer Days Are Over

Disclaimer: I own Microsoft stock. Yes, this is not pro-Microsoft but I feel the need to be very open about this.
He's employee number 30 and has been with Microsoft since mid-1980. In 2000, after almost 20 years of service, Microsoft enhanced Steve Ballmer to Chief Executive Officer. In the ten and years that Ballmer has been at the helm of Microsoft he has done this to the company:

As you tin watch that's no looking quite beautiful, but namely file alone doesn't narrate the all story. To be fair we have to look by what the stock mart in general has done too. Here's the same plot with the NASDAQ file by with MSFT's (memorandum I chose NASDAQ for the index best reflects the business of Microsoft):

It's pretty obvious from the chart that Microsoft has been moving right along with the NASDAQ,PULSERA NEGRA CON ARGENTINA, or it has been moving the NASDAQ right along with it - whatever you want to look at it.
From these two charts it seems rather obvious that Microsoft is on a downward trend, but is that accurate? Let's look at the same draft, but remove NASDAQ and join in Apple and Google:

Once you do that it seems pretty obvious that Microsoft has been slowly declining, when Google and Apple have been taking off like a rocket since 2004.
While these charts are anything but testimony of bad treatment - in business educate the first thing they instruct you about CEO's is: it is the CEO's job to mushroom the shareholder worth of the company. Since taking the rank Ballmer has decreased shareholder value ,PULSERA BLANCA CON ITALIA, as reflected by stock cost, by -56.63%. That. Is. Not. Good.
Countdown
I think it is applicable at this time to start the countdown of how long Ballmer has left until he that employee number 30 may get a reprieve. Let's take a stroll down Ballmer memory lane:
$ 8.5 BILLION
Ballmer's acquisition of Skype for $ 8.5 billion dollars is not only a gross overpay,PULSERA BLANCA CON PORTUGAL, but a complete garbage of money for Microsoft. Ballmer heven now to arrange out a clear cause why Microsoft wanted Skype. He has only stated the obvious: integration in Microsoft products - which could have been done in a partnership instead of an acquisition. In fact, the acquisition by most accounts sounded more like a move by Ballmer to buy something that others 2 may have wanted to own - just for the sake of others not owning it.
Beyond that is the fact that Microsoft has 89,000 employees - are you telling me that the company that put a computer in every family couldn't establish a Skype clone?
Not only could Skype have been made in-house, Skype should have been made in-house by Microsoft.
Even if it would have spend $ 1 billion dollars Microsoft would have been better off creating Skype in-house. Does any really think Apple spent everything close to $ 1 billion dollars creating FaceTime?
This entire acquisition feels like a desperate move, made by a desperate man. As a shareholder I hope that the regulators stop the acquisition, but I highly doubt that will happen.
The iPhone
Ballmer is now famous for saying:

There's no become that the iPhone is going to get any meaningful market share. No chance. It's a $ 500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you really take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd choose to have our software in 60% alternatively 70% alternatively 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%,PULSERA TRANSPARENTE CON BANDERA, which is what Apple might get.
We can get into talking tough and all that, but Ballmer - as the face of Microsoft - should have never made such a short sighted comment about any product released by a serious competitor like Apple. What is less quoted is the comments he made immediately following the above:

In the circumstance of music, Apple got out early. They were the premier to truly recognize that you couldn't fair think about the device and all the chips apart. Bravo. Credit that to Steve (Jobs) and Apple. They did a good job.
But it's not like we're at the end of the line of innovation that's going apt come in the course human listen to melody, watch movies, etc. I'll bet our ads will be less edgy. But my 85 - year-old uncle probably will not own an iPod, and I wish we'll obtain him to own a Zune.
What is so frightful about this is that Ballmer recognizes that first to market is important - additionally it took until 2010 to launch Windows Phone 7, 3 years behind the iPhone.
Where is the
This is the epitome of short sighted action by Ballmer and should have made the embark and shareholders incredibly un-easy at the time and especially now. Instead it bolstered his advocate as a man who was going to squash the malign Apple bug.
Short sighted behavior like this can and should be forgiven if the person later recognizes his peccadilloes and immediately moves to correct it, yet again whereas it took three years to get a serious iPhone competitor out of Microsoft. They never created a music / video player that gained tension after the Zune disappeared into Wikipedia packages. That cannot and should not be excused.
Windows Phone 7
As I mentioned above Windows Phone 7 was seriously late to the party. Three years late manner that most buyers Microsoft was targeting were on at least their second iPhone before Microsoft started to slowly ship Windows Phone 7. Add to that the basic absence of now mutual place clever phone traits and you begin to see that Microsoft shipped a product that was competitive with the software from three years ago.
Windows Phone 7 may stand to be a long term success for Microsoft, but I mistrust it. It is a product that in every way shows why Ballmer should not be in dictate anyone longer. It was late and short sighted about the new market needs. In 2006 Windows Phone 7 would have thumped away every technophile, this 1 contained, in 2010 it is amusing and underwhelming.
I can ensure you there are no throngs fashioning to get one.
It namely the Zune all overagain - a solid offering made far too late to make a actual feud.
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile 6.5 was a powerhouse of a product. Pre-2007 most US buyers of smart phones chose between BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 6.5 5. 4 Both were small screened devices with a hardware keyboard - with exception to the few HTC devices with stylus based touch screens. Palm was struggling at the time and Windows Mobile was the dominant player in consumer minds, BlackBerry was the animal in boardrooms.
In the US it was a two platform market a great many- the iPhone changed that. BlackBerry swiftly started to make clones with the Storm launching in 2008. Microsoft could have started shipping constraining devices - instead they misspent what little market they had until it was an negligible market share. So many as that 60% Ballmer wanted.
Copycats
In 2005 Apple held its World Wide Developer Conference with banners hanging that read: ) and squashing that small corporation. Apple made a joke about it, but Ballmer should have taken it as a command. Instead it wasn't until a year later while Microsoft unlocked the heavily distressed and much criticized Windows Vista.
Copying your rivalry is not necessarily a penniless business move - Microsoft itself has proven time and time again that you can be very successful by doing so. Ballmer has continued this institution, but with a glaring difference: tardiness. Where Microsoft used to be hasty to copy and shut down these companies - before traction was gained - they have now been slow - and comically bad - at copying others. What happened?
Hell, Microsoft used to innovate too, but even that seems to have evaporated (unless you count the Office Ribbon interface).
Danger, Danger
In 2008 Microsoft paid $ 500 million for Danger. This was Ballmer's answer to the iPhone: an acquisition that went (virtually) not where. I could mention more, but Michal Lev-Ram of Fortune does a better job:
Microsoft says maximum of the group going on Danger has already been absorbed in to the Windows Phone 7 team (Microsoft's home-brewed mobile operating system). But the Redmond-based software mammoth had much bigger plans for Danger behind in 2008 , when it announced it was purchasing the small Palo Alto, Calif. company. The plan was to pat into the Sidekick-maker's to a company release from 2008). Obviously,Balance arriesgado, that never quite occurred.
The Infamous iPhone Funeral
About a month ahead the launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft held an iPhone funeral procession in Redmond. This is not something a confident business does,PULSERA TRANSPARENTE CON FRANCIA, this is something an haughty business does - regardless of what company does something like this it is either childish and silly. Not to say that the people in the parade look like evil domestics, complete with a Darth Vader on a motorcycle.
It's foolish - and it was done in nice fun to boost employee morale. None of that materials though because a good CEO would have never let that happen and that fact that Ballmer let it happen says a lot about him as CEO: arrogant to a mistake.
Next Steps
The above are all recaps of the asset that Ballmer has had a hand in over the last ten years that should be ample to give the board a reason to remove him. The scariest thought isn't Ballmer remaining in power - it's who his beneficiary may be. My suspect is that it is another long time employee (shrieking # 40), but that would be a worse determination than letting Ballmer blow money on hookers and Skype.
There are two things Microsoft needs to do now before it is really time to fret.
New CEO
Microsoft should be questing for a new CEO right now. The Skype acquisition mar can still be alleviated if the appropriate people are put in area to immediately leverage the Skype brand. A new CEO should be:
Passionate about technology : don't you get the feeling that Ballmer doesn't really care about the products that Microsoft makes, in the same way that Steve Jobs cares about how employee shuttle buses look and how and where color is applied? Any fashionable CEO should love technology and that will start to show at Microsoft like it did when Gates was still at the helm whether the right human is employed. Ballmer seems to care more about being the biggest thing on the market instead of the products his company creates. Forward thinking: Ballmer has shown his short sightedness time and time anew, let's get an executive with some vision. It is time that Microsoft starts creating new markets instead of trying to comprehend markets that their antagonists are creating. An outsider: this is going to be the hardest thing for Microsoft to accomplish, but they need to get some fresh eyes on the problem. At the very least it should be somebody who has not spent extra than the last five years with the company. Microsoft needs a fresh appearance perspective. An insider will just reserve following the GPS coordinates that have been set along along Ballmer. Talent
The second entity Microsoft absences to focus ashore is acquiring talent and not production labels. They should be production acquisitions that send in altitude nick artist. Microsoft accustomed to be the altitude pick for young budding tech stars, today that is scarcely the case . 5
If Microsoft wants a chance and long term survivorship they need to make themselves appealing to young stars. You can't appeal to this young harvest of talent unless you offer compelling products. More and more job culling for the essence talent is less about money and more about job satisfaction. Microsoft's best bet here is to start acquiring fresh young companies and keeping the talent that comes with it.
The End?
Microsoft isn't dead yet, nor will it be soon. It is however in the early stages of death and Ballmer isn't going to the hospital - he's sprinting to go gathering some more.
Microsoft needs a swift hit in the ass.