Steve Balmer has been fired!
The media are being very polite about this but the message is clear …
Balmer is leaving because of a failure to lead. He may be a wonderful business man .. probably would be good as the boss at IBM, Oracle, or SAP… but Microsoft is in competition with Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, and Google.
These companies, including Microsoft under Bill Gates and Apple under Steve Jobs, were led … not run .. by CEOs with properties Balmer lacks:
1. Immense credibility as technological innovators. Bezos may even be able to sell newspapers, Marissa Mayer brings tech credit to creamy old Yahoo. Gates needs a successor with that sort of credibility.
2. Stage presence. Only a malevolent Hollywood producer would cast Balmer in his role.
Before stepping down as CEO, Bill Gates seemed to be setting the stage for his retirement by bringing Ray Ozzie on as Microsoft’s chief software architect … Gates’ own role in the Gates-Balmer team. Balmer’s role was to make the business work. Ozzie’s is one of the key innovators in software …. responsible for Lotus Notes and Groove. Groove, us an amazing alternative to browsers.Groove allowed you to use desktop and web together without the clumsy two worlds today’s desktops still have. Groove also ran on any PC without needing a corporate backbone such as Lotus Notes. Microsoft (Balmer!) killed Groove probably because it was a challenge to Microsoft’s own corporate “SharePoint.”
CEO Balmer made a business decision.
Sadly, if Ozzie had anything more to do with leading Microsoft, the leadership was well hidden from public view. Truly new ideas … like the Windows 8 interface or the Surface tablets, are hard to sell when your spokesman comes across as a ruthless Hollywood CEO rather than a visionary. Even Kinect would be a much bigger success if a Jobs like figure was selling the thing, I also suspect that Kinect, under a Jobs or Ozzie, would have a already found a home in the business world … likely as a way of controlling PCs functioning in point of sales, smart TV, etc.
So, if anyone cares, here are my thoughts about the kind of person who should succeed Bill Gates now that the Balmer interregnum is over:
First, the new person should have great credibility in tech. This is more important than credibility in management or even fiscal affairs. Only a tech visionary can override the short term interests of business managers.
Second, she needs to be willing to share credit. Even Apple’s ego tainted Jobs shined glory on his colleagues…. John Ives, Andy Hirtzfeld, and even Scully!
Third, she needs to be able to lead the business team .. using them to get things done over ten years rather than obsessing over short term markets. Jeff Bezos’ role in building Amazon is THE best example,
Is “she” the right pronoun? Other than PR, I doubt that gender matters. PR is, however, a real issue. Look at how Yahoo s Melissa Myers’ Yahoo has played CEO as a role model.
I also think she needs to be seen as an “American.”. MS is too imbedded in “America” to be headed by a Hindu or Chinese leader. I suspect part of Michael Spindler’s problems at Apple were the image of a very German CEO leading a canonical American firm.
Here are five names that I do think of:
Ray Ozzie … Bring him back
Ed Lazowska …Visionary former chair UW Comp Sci
Shirley Tilghman … former President of Princeton, revolutionized the school’s stodgy curriculum, molecular biologist,
Daphne Koller Stranford prof, leader in artificial intelligence and innovator in online education. MS has huge and underutilized resources in both areas.
- Me
As for Balmer’s future, other than boards, there are two intriguing rumors:
A. Philanthropy … The Balmers have been very ungiving wealthy types till now. I do not see him just adding to the Gates Foundation. There has been a long held rumor among some that Balmer might want to endow the UW School of Medicine. The Balmer School of Medicine?
B. Politics … The rumor is that Balmer is a traditional corporatist Republican. With his personality he could not run, but his money could buy him influence that might rebuild the GOP’s residual rational wing. The Balmer Foundation for Progress in America?