I agree with most of what people are saying about Microsoft, but I have to wonder why Ballmer hasn’t been canned already. Is there any argument that he has done a good job in moving the company forward?
For a long time despite failures that have been fairly public, he’s returned record earnings per share, increased the dividend etc. A lot of the areas Ballmer is seen to have done bad in are areas that actually haven’t affected Microsoft’s bottom line too much.
Mind Bill Gates is the Chairman and largest shareholder, and Ballmer is his chosen successor and they appear to still be on very good terms and Bill appears to still support Ballmer.
A fair assessment of Ballmer would be that he’s been a good caretaker of the company but a poor innovator. Firing him would be a gamble because you’d be saying, “he’s done a good job keeping us profitable and increasing profitability, but we think someone else could break into new markets and return Microsoft to the forefront of technology innovation and growth.” That’s a very risky play.
To me they really screwed up having 2 versions of Windows 8 that run on different hardware, and the start screen/Start button mess.
If they would make the new start screen optional and bring back the Start button then Windows 8 would probably be as well-received as Win7. People like options, they don’t like being dictated to. (Yes I know there are Start button replacements.)
Good news, then. I read somewhere that the next major patch for Windows 8 will reintroduce the start button.