Steve Ballmer on The Huffington Post

Microsoft Shareholders Grill Ballmer: Apple Ads Make Us Look 'Like Buffoons'

2009-11-20T08:10:33Z

Ballmer, on the other hand, had plenty to say -- particularly in response to shareholder questions about Macs, Windows, and the company's struggle to regain its footing in the market for mobile phones.

Steve Ballmer: Technology Spending Won't Fully Recover

2009-11-02T07:31:27Z

SEOUL, South Korea — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday corporate spending on information technology will not recover to levels seen in recent years before the global economic slowdown.

"The economy went through a set of changes on a global basis over the course of the last year which are, I think is fair to say, once in a lifetime," Ballmer told a meeting of South Korean executives in Seoul.

Mark Goulston, M.D.: Just Listen Microsoft - An Opportunist Does Not a Visionary Make

2009-10-23T00:56:43Z

With the release of Windows 7 and Microsoft hoping it will reverse their luck after Vista, I was reminded of a recent appearance on This Week in Startups hosted by Jason Calacanis and our discussion about the difference between an opportunist and a visionary.

An opportunist* by nature sees something that is already out there, and then focuses on a way to ruthlessly beat the competition, create barriers to entry and race ahead. That head start can give an opportunist a short runway advantage over the competition, but there's no guarantee that others won't find a way to catch up and beat them. Microsoft was opportunistic when it jumped out with Windows to lift sole proprietor status of the user friendly interface from Apple's first Macintosh. It did the same again with Microsoft Office which quickly became the 800 pound gorilla, outmaneuvering WordStar and WordPerfect for market share dominance. But Google beat the crap out of Internet Explorer not to mention Yahoo as far as the search market is concerned.

Opportunists are about extending a grasp in an already competitive environment. They are about being grabby and when they have the clout of a Microsoft about being "pushy."

A visionary by nature is about seeing something that doesn't exist. It's not about extending human grasp and outgrabbing the competition; it's about extending human experience and going beyond the imagination. Walt Disney was a visionary because he extended the human experience from what his wife referred to as a "dirty" amusement park into not just a "theme park" but "The Happiest Place on Earth."

"When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, 'But why do you want to build an amusement park? They're so dirty.' I told her that was just the point -- mine wouldn't be. Disneyland would be a world of Americans, past and present, seen through the eyes of my imagination -- a place of warmth and nostalgia, of illusion and color and delight." - Walt Disney

From a practical standpoint, one of the other advantages of a vision over an opportunity is that it extends your runway, because you are so far beyond everyone else. That may explain why Apple so fiercely guards the opening presentations of its visionary products. When they are finally revealed, it is so clear how they have outdistanced the competition that many would be competitors don't even bother trying. Think of how the iphone has done just that to the competition and how unreliable and unsatisfying its competitors' products have been (such as the Blackberry Storm).

One of the problems with a number of founders and entrepreneurs that I discussed with Jason is that many of them are the first to seize an opportunity or market share (a la Microsoft) and are hailed by the world as visionaries, but then turn out to be transactional opportunists without the capacity to rise above their "deal minded" myopia to see, much less execute a vision. John Sculley turned out to be no Steve jobs (part 1) and Steve Ballmer is turning out to be no Bill Gates.

With some deep listening and a little prodding, such founders and entreprenuers have often revealed their paranoid fears to me of being exposed as an opportunist/deal makers in visionary/successful businessman's clothing. The more anxious they become that they can't repeat that first success, the more often they become hostile, difficult to work with, "terrors" at work and then are barely able to contain their anxiety out in the investment world where they're trying to court new capital.

What's fascinating is that once they share this all too common fear, they exhale -- physically, psychologically and emotionally. It is as if a huge monkey is lifted off their backs. It is also as if their minds were overloaded modems that have been disconnected, powered down, rested, powered up and then rebooted. Suddenly they have new bandwidth and begin to see other possibilities and they start visualizing. They also realize that even if they were the original visionary or opportunist or whatever, they don't have to be the sole visionary anymore.

Jason Calacanis spoke about this in our interview when he explained how visions can be culled from all kinds of places by just listening and observing and having your people listen and observe what's out there in the market place and what's really on your customers and clients' minds and in their hearts, their deepest fears, their greatest dreams and beyond their imagination.

* I have been appropriately called to task by my good friend, astute coach and NPR host, Marty Nemko, for bad mouthing the many entrepreneurs who have made this country great as "grabby" and opportunistic. I love entrepreneurs. My fellow psychiatrists see me as an entrepreneur. I don't have an issue with the true entrepreneurs who see themselves as entrepreneurs. The people I have issue with are those entrepreneurs who are seen as visionaries when they really aren't, and like that moniker. It's as if they are much smarter than they are bright and want the world to think of them as brighter than they really are. (And many of them think of themselves as smart, when in reality they were luckier than smart) Then they begin to act badly out of the fear of being exposed as merely smart rather than bright.

Fake Steve Jobs: Why IBM Is Getting Heat From the Antitrust Police

2009-10-10T13:37:50Z

People keep asking me, Hey Steve, do you think Microsoft is behind this government inquiry into IBM over antitrust issues? The answer is, of course they are. For 20 years Microsoft has been trying -- and failing -- to pry customers away from those fugly old mainframes. So now they're turning to the government to fight this battle for them.

Thing is, the government may have a case.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of Microsoft. In fact I hate both of these companies, Microsoft and IBM, about the same amount. And for pretty much the same reasons. A love of mediocrity, treating customers like dirt, stamping out competition. If there were some way that the government's case could end up with both Microsoft and IBM being nuked off the planet, I'd call that a step in the right direction. Alas, probably not.

But yes, IBM is incredibly abusive to its customers. They drove everyone else out of the mainframe market, and as soon as they were the only game in town they began to squeeze their customers on pricing, not just for the hardware itself, but for software and maintenance too. And they've made sure that it is so painful to migrate off a mainframe that it's practically impossible. Basically, they've got you by the you-know-whats.

That's why all of our big banks in the U.S. are still running mainframes. They can't get off. It's ridiculous. It's as if all the major airlines were still using planes from the 1960s. Meanwhile new banks all around the world are all on newer, less expensive platforms, which also happen to be more flexible and adaptable to change. Same is true for airlines -- the old ones still rely on big expensive mainframes, while the new ones, like Jet Blue, run new-age systems and save loads of money.

Once IBM drove all the other hardware companies out of the mainframe business, they set about consolidating the software business too. Consider the case of Compuware, a big mainframe software company. IBM created a knock-off of Compuware's program and started selling it cheap, practically giving it away. Compuware sued, alleging IBM stole its code. IBM dragged the case out for years, during which time Compuware almost went out of business, because how could they sell their product when their only customers were IBM mainframe users and those guys were getting a clone of their product for nothing, or almost nothing? Finally, with Compuware on its deathbed, IBM settled the lawsuit for pennies.

Oh, these are not nice people, my droogies.

Then there are the clone upstarts -- like Platform Systems, which came up with an emulator that would run apps that were created for the IBM mainframe OS. In other words, they gave you a migration path off the mainframe. IBM sued for patent infringement (just to mess them up) and then eventually bought them -- and they were never heard from again.

Another cloner is T3, which is also in a legal hassle with IBM, and is partly funded by Microsoft. The Borg won't admit this, but they put money into T3 so they could pick this fight with IBM and draw them into an antitrust trap. Which now they've done.

The real story here is that this is about Microsoft trying to crack the glass house. They covet the billions that IBM makes with mainframes and have believed since the 1980s that they would one day take that business away from IBM.

You have to hand it to IBM -- they've done a brilliant job of defending the fortress. They have to do this, because without mainframes, IBM is done. A huge part of their services business revolves around servicing these big expensive mainframes. The mainframe is to IBM what Windows is to Microsoft -- it's the cornerstone of their business. Which is why Microsoft wants to destroy it.

So Ballmer is going nuts. He's looking at all that money and he believes it should be his. He should be running the data centers for banks and airlines. It's a fat market and Microsoft wants it. People think Ballmer is obsessed with Google. But this business, the glass house, is the real white whale.

IBM will defend itself by showing how much the cost of MIPS (millions of instructions per second, a measure of compute power) has come down over the past N years. But the cost of MIPS statistic is misleading, because while the cost comes down, IBM keeps shoving more and more MIPS down the throats of its customers.

How do they do it? Well, they roll out a new "update" of the OS, and it's super MIPS hungry. They discontinue support for the old OS, so you have to buy the new one, but the new OS forces you to buy 2x or 3x the MIPS you had before, even though you're just running the same workload. In other words, this whole "update" is just a tax from IBM.

To rub a little salt in the wound, IBM will put out a press release saying how they shipped a record number of MIPS this quarter, as if the world is all eagerly embracing the mainframe again, when really they just jammed those MIPS into customer sites.

This is what mainframe customers have been screaming about for years.

So why don't these aggrieved customers just switch if they're so unhappy? Well, that's kind of tricky when IBM either sues or buys up anyone that comes along with a migration path.

Also, you can't just up and move the whole data center. You need to do it in pieces. Guess what IBM does to you if you tell IBM you're going to start moving parts of your data center off the mainframe? What do you think happens to pricing on the stuff that's still on the IBM mainframe?

Also, thanks to the magic of the big outsourcing craze from a few years ago, in many cases IBM Global Services is running the mainframes and data centers for its customers. In a lot of cases IBM even owns those data centers.

And if you do decide to migrate, well, they'll make sure that migration is painful as hell. Like, gee whiz, wouldn't it be awful if during that migration your data center went down for 24 hours? Or 48? Maybe you ought to just stick with that good old reliable mainframe. Sure it's expensive, but it's a small price to pay for peace of mind.

This is how IBM operates -- just like Tony Soprano. And that is how the mainframe still exists in 2009.

True confession: Way down deep, I secretly admire them. We all do. Ballmer, Gates, McNealy, all of us who came after IBM -- we've studied them, and learned from them, and copied them.

They're pioneers, really. And in a twisted way, they're still the best at what they do. Not the tech. They suck at tech. But at the other stuff? No one can touch them.

Steve Ballmer: Microsoft CEO's French Language Wows Crowd

2009-10-07T15:44:59Z

If Steve Ballmer ever tires of Redmond, Washington, he'll always have Paris.

The Microsoft chief executive wowed an audience of hundreds of company executives and government ministers by giving a 10-minute speech in French at the opening late Tuesday of the software giant's new corporate headquarters and research center just outside the French capital.

Microsoft's Top Executives Get A Paycut: Compensation Slashed

2009-09-30T09:19:48Z

All of Microsoft's top executives had their direct compensation packages -- which include base salary, cash incentive payments, and stock awards -- slashed.

Microsoft CEO Interview: Steve Ballmer On 'Starting From Scratch,' 'Moving The Needle' (VIDEO)

2009-09-28T09:45:29Z

Microsoft generates around $20 billion a year in pre-tax profit, and spends nearly $10 billion on research and development. When Microsoft thinks about increasing (or sustaining) those profits, they have to think big. And they have to think long term.

Ballmer says he thinks about new business opportunities in three buckets: expanding current businesses (short run), building things from scratch (long run), and big aquisitions (short cuts).

WATCH:

Andy Borowitz: Microsoft Launches Oral Sex Search Engine

2009-06-10T12:44:37Z

In a move that is expected to alter the playing field of the competitive world of search utilities, Microsoft today launched a new search engine dedicated to finding depictions of oral sex on the Web.

In a conference call with industry analysts, CEO Steve Ballmer explained the rationale behind the new search engine, which is called Bang.

"Our research shows that 99% of all searches on the Internet begin with the user typing in the words 'oral sex,' 'blow job,' and the like," Mr. Ballmer said. "This new search tool is a real step-saver."

Mr. Ballmer said that Bang could positively impact productivity in the workplace, where studies show that over 75% of employees' time is currently occupied searching for instances of oral sex on the 'net.

In a related story, a new study commissioned by the University of Minnesota shows that articles with the words "oral sex" in the headline are three times as likely to be clicked on as those without.

"Readers who normally don't read academic studies will give them a look if they feature the words 'oral sex,'" said Minnesota's Davis Logsdon. "Oral sex, oral sex, oral sex. Blow job."
Read more here.

Best Quotes From D7 Conference: Cuban, Huffington, Bartz, Ballmer & More

2009-05-29T14:01:39Z

This year's D conference, as did last year's--has had its share of memorable lines. A selection of some of the better ones below:

"He drew arrows everywhere. It looked like a Dilbert cartoon."

-- Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the org chart that company co-founder Jerry Yang drew for her while wooing her for the CEO job

Unless you are selling porn, and weird porn, it's not worth going the subscription route.

-- Arianna Huffington

WATCH: Steve Ballmer Unveils 'Bing' Microsoft's New Search Engine

2009-05-28T17:34:04Z

CARLSBAD, Calif.--Microsoft Corp. Thursday unveiled a major overhaul to its Internet search engine, as it enters a new chapter in its rivalry with Google Inc.

Read, the Wall Street Journal's story or watch their video below:

Steve Ballmer To Be Named Media Person Of The Year At Cannes

2009-03-30T08:29:43Z

Steve Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, will be named media person of the year at the Cannes International Advertising festival in June.

Ballmer, who took control of the direction of the world's largest software company following founder Bill Gates's retirement last summer, follows in the footsteps of previous recipients such as Sir Anthony O'Reilly, the former chief executive of Independent News & Media; Lachlan Murdoch; Viacom chairman and chief executive Sumner Redstone; and Italian prime minister and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi.

Shelly Palmer: Obama Supports DTV Delay: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer January 9, 2009

2009-01-09T09:52:16Z

President-elect Barack Obama has joined the Consumers Union in asking congress to delay the digital television transition. Obama noted "inadequate funding" for the program as a prime reason to delay the transition, which is scheduled to happen 28 days after he steps into office. In addition, the big four networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) support a move to delay the transition.

In a speech yesterday at George Mason University, Barack Obama noted broadband expansion as a key part of his economic recovery plan. Obama is quoted as saying there is a need to expand "broadband across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world." The President-elect is also confident that despite the fact that 2 milion Americans lost their job in 2008, we will be able to create 3 million new jobs during his term in office.

Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer told a crowd at CES that 90% of Sony products will be able to connect to the Internet by 2011. Sony is moving quickly on its initiative, with a CyberShot camera capable of sending pictures online already on the market. The move is a logical step in preparing Sony for a networked world where all devices are connected to the web.

Digital Entertainment Group is reporting that DVD sales fell 9% in 2008, while the entire home video market decreased 5.5% over 2007, with total sales at $22.4 billion. The decline is the largest the group has ever recorded. However, while dvd sales fell, Blu-ray spending increased threefold to roughly $750 million.

Plus, today's consulting question, "Is a Microsoft, Yahoo deal back on?" Shelly has the answer on today's MediaBytes.

Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net

Shelly Palmer: Intel Q4 Revenue Down 23%: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer January 8, 2009

2009-01-08T09:59:54Z

Intel's revenue for the fourth quarter fell 23% over last year. Intel had warned investors that revenue for the fourth quarter would be down, however, the chip manufacturer still fell short of its predicted forecast of $8.7-9.3 billion, down from an earlier prediction of $10.1-10.9 billion.

The Consumers Union has asked the House Energy and Commerce Committee to delay February 17 deadline for the digital television transition. A letter to soon-to-be head of the committee Henry Waxman asked to delay the transition "until a plan is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV signals, particularly by fixing the flaws in the federal coupon program created to offset the cost of this transition." The letter came on news that thousands of converter box coupon recipients would be added to a waiting list due to a lack of funding.

Time Warner will record a $25 billion impairment charge for the fourth quarter. The loss stems from a decrease in value of Time Warner Cable, AOL, and its publishing division. The write off is expected to result in Time Warner taking a net loss for 2008.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that Windows 7 may come before the end of the year. Microsoft released a test version of Windows 7 to developers yesterday, with other interested parties expected to get the beta version on Friday.

Earlier this week Oprah confessed that she was depressed and had been over eating. Her sentiment resonated with viewers and scored a 5.7 rating with a 13 share. The confessional was the third highest rated episode this season.

Plus, today's consulting question, "Why are you picking on Jeremy Piven. Mercury poisoning is very serious?" Shelly has the answer on today's MediaBytes.

Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net

Tech Billionaires Losing Tons In Financial Crisis

2008-12-16T08:42:02Z

The tech industry has been brimming with billionaires over the last decade, especially since the birth of Web 2.0. But these are dark times, and the richest of the rich are certainly feeling it.

Don't feel too sorry for them, obviously (They're still billionaires.) But they've lost a lot more than you have.

Welcome to The Biggest Losers: Tech Edition. It's a quick summary of how much we estimate your favorite moguls have lost, ranked from least to first. Advance the slides using the 'Next' button in upper right corner of each slide.

Ron Galloway: Steve Ballmer Is Carnac The Magnificent

2008-12-07T19:46:27Z

18 months ago in a USA Today interview, Steve Ballmer, head of Microsoft, proclaimed the following when asked about the iPhone: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."

This week Gartner Reseach released a report on Smartphone Operating System market share. Symbian has a 49% share of the OS market, RIMM has 16%, Mac OSX (iPhone) has 13%, and Microsoft Windows Mobile has 11% market share.

What's especially notable is the percentage yearly growth of each OS on smartphones. Symbian is down 12%. RIMM is up 87%. Microsoft is down 3%.

Mac OSX (iPhone) is up 327%.

Doh! Maybe there is a chance the iPhone will get "significant market share."

The phrase "cognitive dissonance" comes to mind when you compare Ballmer's remarks with the reality of the market. Combine this with his cheerleading for the rousing failure that is Vista OS (Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer says Vista could be one of the company's "all-time most successful products"), and his denial of the reality of the Google threat ("Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards"), and you can understand why the company is floundering. Microsoft has, ironically, turned into IBM circa 1980. And we wonder why Bill Gates retired.

Ten years ago Microsoft stock was $33 per share. Today it is $19. That's a return to shareholders of -40%. Ten years ago Apple stock was $8. Today it is $91. That's a return, um, higher than -40%.

One last Ballmer quote, "I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team." If it is, Mr. Ballmer, then after decimating shareholder wealth as you have, the honorable thing to do is clear. Just please don't go to work at an American car company.

Shelly Palmer: Microsoft Still Not Interested in Acquiring Yahoo: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer November 7, 2008

2008-11-07T10:19:39Z

Steve Ballmer noted that Microsoft is not interested in acquiring Yahoo. Ballmer is quoted as saying "We made an offer, we made another offer.. We moved on." However, Ballmer did not rule out the possibility of a potential search ads deal.

Microsoft is trying to sign a mobile search and advertising deal with Verizon. Currently, Verizon is in talks with Google, however, Microsoft is offering Verizon a more generous revenue sharing plan and a higher guarantee. Microsoft sees a mobile search and ad deal with Verizon as a way to significantly increase its reach for mobile search.

Craigslist has reached a deal with 40 state attorneys to curb its "erotic services" listings. Craigslist, which is notorious for catering to sex-oriented businesses, now makes erotic service advertisers provide a phone number, which is called by an automate service for verification. The Internet classifieds site will also charge a small fee of between $5-10 for all erotic services ads.

Samsung has overtaken Motorola as the leading vendor of handsets in the U.S.. Samsung owns a 22.4% share of the market, compared with Motorola's 21.1% and LG's 20.5%. Samsung has increased sales by offering high end touch-screen phones, as well as lower-end phones given free to consumers who sign up for a new plan.

All My Children star, and notorious Emmy nominee (and one time winner), Susan Lucci was voted off ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Despite Lucci's "doble paso" being a hit with judges, Lucci and partner, Tony Dovolani, did not make the final five contestants.

Plus, today's consulting question, "What is white space?" Shelly has the answer on today's MediaBytes.

Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net

Ballmer Nixes Yahoo Deal Revival: "We've Moved On"

2008-11-07T09:44:23Z

Steve Ballmer dismisses the idea of a Yahoo acquisition...but leaves open the possibility of a search partnership:

"We made an offer, we made another offer ... We moved on," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told a business luncheon in Sydney on Friday when asked for the firm's plans after a partnership between Yahoo and Google Inc fell through this week.

Microsoft Not Interested In Acquiring Yahoo!

2008-10-16T16:56:02Z

Hours after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer tantalized investors with the possibility of putting a deal with Yahoo back on the tracks, the company issued a one-sentence statement shooting down the prospect of a merger and saying there were no talks of any kind between the companies at this time.

"Our position hasn't changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo!; there are no discussions between the companies," the company said.

Ballmer himself didn't suggest any interest in acquiring Yahoo, suggesting only that there might be "... continuing opportunities to"' talk about a search partnership in the future, he said.

But that was enough to send depressed Yahoo shares soaring as much as 14%. They remain up 10% even now because ... well, investors believe what they want to believe, I guess. On the other hand, 10% is just a dollar and change at this level: Yahoo is about 10% above its 52-week low, and 62% off its 52-week high.

David Einhorn, Famed Hedge Fund Manager, Done With Microsoft, Ballmer

2008-10-07T16:40:31Z

Famed hedge-fund manager David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital), the man who shorted Lehman Brothers, has been clobbered along with other Wall Street stars over the past few months. In his "I'm sorry about our awful performance" letter for the third quarter, however, Einhorn did include one nugget that a lot of Microsoft investors can probably relate to:

We wanted to share some thoughts on Microsoft (MSFT), which we closed during the quarter. We believe that we purchased the shares at an attractive time, and for a good while the investment worked nicely. As has been our habit of late, we overstayed our welcome as the shares peaked after the company announced a very good September 2007 quarter.

Dave Burdick: Steve Ballmer Pictures And Video: A Visual Guide To The Microsoft CEO

2008-09-29T18:09:48Z

Why don't people recognize a really rich, important, wacky guy in charge of a huge, modern corporation, and who can be counted on to take a great, weird photograph?

Only one of Microsoft's early honchos had any business experience at all, and while Bill Gates and Paul Allen made the most the fastest, the third guy, Gates' old roommate, made himself useful enough that he stuck around and ultimately became Microsoft's CEO.

Who is this guy? Most readers of the Huffington Post's business vertical already know, surely, that it's Steve Ballmer.

Let's step back into the past, all the way to the debut of Windows 1.0. This was a major step for Microsoft, obviously, but it signaled to consumers that personal computing would get easier, and it signaled to the business world that Microsoft would continue to outmaneuver IBM, which was trying to stem Microsoft's growth with its OS/2, designed to compete with MS-DOS.

Well, still the token businessman, Ballmer was tapped to pitch Windows to consumers and, years later, we thank Microsoft from the bottom of our hearts for this little time capsule:

But for whatever reason, in the transition of power from Gates to Ballmer, a lot of people missed learning the new guy's name and face. It's a tragedy, really, and one close to my heart; as business editor, I am tasked with pairing photos with stories every day, and it saddens me to know that if I put up one of the many gloriously expressive Ballmer photographs from the AP archive, some readers won't know who it is.

So I'm making the effort here and now to present you with the visual guide to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Before we close up, maybe you haven't had enough Ballmer videos. Let's enjoy a few more together, shall we?

Developers, developers

Get pumped up

Selling Windows XP

Another Microsoft Reorganization, Circling The Wagons 'Round Windows

2008-07-24T08:28:28Z

The head of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Business (which includes the online business), Kevin Johnson, is headed to Juniper Networks.

Microsoft is also splitting its online business in half:

* Windows Live (Internet Explorer, Hotmail, Microsoft Messenger, Spaces) will now live within the Windows division.
* The ad and media assets (aQuantive, ad-serving, search, MSN) will stay in a separate online services division.

A source close to Microsoft says the changes were driven by two factors

Read the full story here

-OR-

Check out the Huffington Post's Microsoft big news page for a snapshot of the company's news earlier this month and year.

Yahoo Gains Support Of Major Shareholder In Proxy Fight

2008-07-21T07:41:37Z

With its annual meeting looming in just two weeks, Yahoo is ratcheting up its defense against Carl Icahn's proxy fight with an energy critics wish they'd seen for the past few years of Yahoo's gradual decline. The fight for control of Yahoo always looked like a close call amid all the shareholder anger directed at Yahoo's board and cofounder and CEO Jerry Yang as they rejected one Microsoft overture after another. But as I wrote last week, momentum has turned Yahoo's way. Now, amazingly, it looks like Yahoo could actually win this thing.

Today, Yahoo got at least one high-profile backer, one who may be enough to turn the tide: Bill Miller, chairman and chief investment officer of Legg Mason Capital Management, Yahoo's second-largest shareholder. Miller released a statement today in support of Yahoo's current board.

Read the full story here

-OR-

Read what Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget has to say about Yahoo's use of ad space in the fight in his post "Yahoo Management: We're So Scared We're Going To Get Fired That We're Using Our Best Ad Inventory To Fight Carl Icahn"

Microsoft's Real Problem: Steve Jobs

2008-07-18T17:42:41Z

As Microsoft (MSFT) continues to waste time and resources figuring out how to win a sideline game it has already lost--Internet media--its shareholders have bigger things to worry about. Namely, the future of the Windows and Office cash cows.

It has been so long since Microsoft had anything real to worry about in these businesses that it's easy to take their perpetual domination for granted. Don't.

Yahoo, At Long Last, Will Pay Shareholders To Love It

2008-07-17T08:56:21Z

Useful thought by Team Yahoo: Why trust the WSJ, the NYT CNBC or anybody else when you can just go directly to shareholders? Hence this memo released this morning. We're parsing it now, and at first glance this seems like a more nuanced (and well-argued) version of arguments we've heard before from Yahoo: Carl has no plan, Microsoft hasn't been serious about buying us. Meanwhile:

* We'll sell the company for $33, if someone makes us a real offer, and
* Wel'll sell search, too, if someone makes us a real offer.

Yahoo also says it's willing to spin-off or sell its Asia assets and pay out a dividend to shareholders, both arguments we don't think we've heard before. Why is that important? Because "These are steps Yahoo! could take, if we determine they are feasible and in our stockholders' best interests, without any "help" from Microsoft or Mr. Icahn."

Yahoo, Microsoft Mull Buying AOL: Report

2008-07-16T13:15:38Z

Following our report that a Time Warner team is talking to Microsoft about an AOL deal, a source tells Reuters that TWX is talking to Jerry Yang and company, too. Or more accurately, said source reminds Reuters that Time Warner has been trying to offload AOL to either company for some time.

We are going to go out on a limb here and guess that said source may work for Time Warner, which wants everyone to know there are multiple bidders here.