Microsoft CEO took the mantle from none other than Bill Gates and he was proactive in providing the company success in certain areas. But ever since the decision of Steve Ballmer’s retirement came out, we were left wondering whether he was forced to make the decision or did he do so on his own. Now, in a an interview to the Wall Street Journal, he has openly stated that he did so on his own because he couldn’t change the company fast enough.
Ballmer’s Retirement: In perpective
Steve Ballmer’s exit from Microsoft came at a time when top executives of companies don’t resign or if they do, they do at high costs to the company. Look at Thorsten Heins from BlackBerry or Sanjay Jha from Motorola, they were either fired or maneuvered out of the company at high cost. On the other hand there is Stephen Elop or Eric Schmidt, they count for a lot and will give up their position in exchange for something heavy – Steve Ballmer’s retirement has a subtle edge to it. And this is the man who was the right hand man of Bill Gates, Founder and Chairman of Microsoft.
But Ballmer explains that his retirement was a different decision altogether a mix of tiredness of being at the helm for too long and the rapidness with which the device industry is changing. With the Microsoft board repeatedly urging him to transform the company into a devices and services company and basically taking it away from being a PC Operating system company to a smartphone OS and devices company. Ballmer, as we all know, tried and missed, tried again and missed and had to finally bow down and ask help from then Nokia Chief and former employee Stephen Elop. It seems that in trying to emulate Google success, Ballmer finally got tired till hell and just gave up.
While Ballmer’s career as a CEO was one with many successes, he has parted giving Microsoft a great gift – Nokia devices and services division which has a vast potential for the company too exploit. He also departs leaving Microsoft in a healthy state, it has increased the Windows Phone market share by 156 percent just last quarter and has started gaining popularity in a way better manner than many people would have imagined even until previous year. The company has a great chance to succeed and his line of successors are pretty crafty especially the prime candidate for his position – Stephen Elop.
The only other person who might actually be transformative in using what Microsoft has and taking it to another level is Bill Gates himself and people are pegging him for CEOship simply because he sat in the CEO office to take Ballmer’s retirement call but it is a rare possibility if any that it would happen.
We will keep you posted.
