if you were a shareholder when he was running the company, you would not be happy (I wasn't a happy camper)... the stock did 'dick' during his reign, only moving after he left the day/day..
it was a good company before/during/after his tenure... but was only making $$$ for the shareholders b4 and after his tenure...
when ballmer took over day to day operations I think microsoft was fighting a huge antitrust lawsuit. but to say the company failed under him may not be accurate.
Under Ballmer's tenure as CEO, Microsoft's annual revenue surged from $25 billion to $70 billion, while its net income increased 215 percent to $23 billion, and its gross profit of 75 cents on every dollar in sales is double that of Google orInternational Business Machines Corp.[SUP]
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In terms of leading the company's total annual profit growth, Ballmer's tenure at Microsoft (16.4 percent) surpassed the performances of other well-known CEOs such as General Electric's Jack Welch (11.2 percent) and IBM's Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. (2 percent).[SUP]
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These gains came from the existing Windows and Office franchises, with Ballmer maintaining their profitability, fending off threats from cheaper competitors such as GNU/Linux and other open-source operating systems and Google Docs.[SUP]
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Ballmer also built half-a-dozen new businesses[SUP]
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such as the data centers division ($6.6 billion in profit for 2011)[SUP][
citation needed[/SUP]
now to be fair, his tenure had it's issues as you stated
Ballmer attracted criticism for failing to capitalize on several new consumer technologies, forcing Microsoft to play catch-up in the areas of tablet computing, smartphones and music players with mixed results.[SUP]
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Under Ballmer's watch, "In many cases, Microsoft latched onto technologies like smartphones, touchscreens, 'smart' cars and wristwatches that read sports scores aloud long before Apple or Google did. But it repeatedly killed promising projects if they threatened its cash cows [Windows and Office].")[SUP]
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Microsoft's share price stagnated during Ballmer's tenure. As a result, in May 2012, hedge fund manager David Einhorn called on Ballmer to step down as CEO of Microsoft. "His continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft's stock," Einhorn said in reference to Ballmer.[SUP]
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In a May 2012 column in Forbes magazine, Adam Hartung described Ballmer as "the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company", saying he had "steered Microsoft out of some of the fastest growing and most lucrative tech markets (mobile music, handsets and tablets)".[SUP][33]
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so the company made money with ballmer, but as mentioned he missed the ship on some new technology even making the huge mistake of underestimating the Iphone.. with that said, he made a lot of money for the company.. just didn't do much as far as increasing share price...
As the owner of the clippers, we won't be looking for him to increase share prices, just run that organization in a professional manner. Make good decisions.. As we have seen he did a good job with existing products with microsoft, just missed on new technology and as we know a lot of people miss on new tech.... with the clippers has walked into a really good situation , talent wise, and I don't expect him to mess that up at all..
The guy is not as bad as some of you are making him out to be, actually he is not bad at all, and if he were to replace dolan I am sure many knick fans would be defending this guy... do you think he is worse than dolan? he certainly has a lot more bank than dolan does....
He is a good motivator, a pretty smart guy, I think he will do well with the clippers and anything above sterling is a win - win situation..
