Friday, August 23, 2013

Investopedia: Microsoft Critics Get Their Way, As Ballmer Announces Impending Retirement

In all the time I've written on Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) it seems like readers/investors always came together on at least one topic – they really didn't like CEO Steve Ballmer. While I think Ballmer has often gotten a bad rap and that Microsoft is better-positioned in enterprise software and services than commonly believed, trying to make that case is tantamount to spitting into the wind.

Under Ballmer's leadership, Microsoft has lost close to half of its value. Again, I think you could argue that almost anybody taking the job was going to preside over a significant erosion in market cap, as Ballmer took the CEO position of Microsoft just three months before the tech bubble peaked. In any case, I will side with the critics who feel that, whatever the quality of Ballmer's vision for Microsoft, he did a poor job of selling the Street on it.

Now they won't have Ballmer to kick around much longer. On Friday morning, Ballmer announced his intention to retire from the job within 12 months, with the exact timing tied to the search committee finding a new CEO for the company.

Read more here:
http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/082313/microsoft-critics-get-their-way-ballmer-announces-impending-retirement-msft-ibm-orcl-goog.aspx

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