Retire! Retire! Retire!
|Love him or not, if you haven’t heard yet (and you’re hearing from us first? We’re flattered!), today Steve Ballmer announced his retirement within 12 months. You can read his letter to MS employees at zdnet.com.
There seems to be little middle ground when it comes to opinions about Ballmer. Personally, I LIKE the intensity he brought to his presentations – you FELT his passion for his company, his products, his work. I will take that over standing still and reading a script any day.
If you own Microsoft (MSFT) shares, you’ve gained 8% so far. But the day is young.
Here’s a few of my favorite Twitter comments so far:
One Comment
I fall decidedly in the company that felt he was a very good CEO. Yes he made mistakes, big ones, but he also has helped steer the company to the tune of more billion dollar businesses than any corporation we can think of. He’s also the CEO who has managed to wrangle enough patent revenue out of Android OEMs to create a billion dollar business.
The problem is that salesman on the floor of big box retailers and carriers aren’t showing the same enthusiasm as Ballmer shows for Microsoft products. Whomever replaces him has to run a behemoth and that will be no easy job.