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January 22nd, 2013, 08:08 GMT · By

Former Microsoft Employee Says Ballmer Should Go [Reuters]

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Ballmer is accused of firing everyone that may snatch his CEO role
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Even though a recent research indicated that most employees still find Steve Ballmer the perfect leader for Redmond-based tech giant Microsoft, former executives and analysts continue to criticize the CEO for some of its recent decisions.

Joachim Kempin, a Microsoft executive between 1983 and 2002, will release a book titled “Resolve and Fortitude: Microsoft's ‘secret power broker’ breaks his silence” to discuss some of the issues he noticed in the time he worked for the software giant.

One of the main topics of the book is Steve Ballmer, the one who’s still in charge with the Microsoft business in the entire world and the man who reportedly fires everyone who has a chance to replace him at the helm of the company.

Kempin told Reuters in an interview that ever since 2000, Ballmer had been ousting every single person that’s considered a potential CEO in the future, starting with Richard Belluzzo, a former Microsoft COO, and ending with Steven Sinofsky, the one in charge with the Windows division until November.

“For Microsoft to really get back in the game seriously, you need a big change in management. As much as I respect Steve Ballmer, he may be part of that in the end,” Kempin was quoted as saying by Reuters.

“Steve is a very good business guy, but make him a chief operating officer, not a CEO, and your business is going to go gangbusters. I respect that guy (Ballmer), but there are some limitations in what he can and can't do and maybe he hasn't realized them himself.”

This isn’t the first time when Steve Ballmer is attacked this week, as Adam Hartung, a Forbes analyst and managing partner at consulting firm Spark Partners, said in a blog post that Microsoft’s CEO was completely ruining the software company’s business.

“Game over. Ballmer loses. And if you keep your money invested in Microsoft it will disappear along with the company,” Hartund said, while predicting that Microsoft would fire thousands of workers in the upcoming years.


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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Xi on 22 Jan 2013, 12:36 UTC reply to this comment

MS must serve the people not the Govts. Ballmer & Devs team is not even heeding to a single suggestion/complaint from users/fans even PC manufacturers. But serving to military/govt oriented companies & offices. Its dead end for Ballmer in MS.


Comment #2 by: Shodan816 on 22 Jan 2013, 12:38 UTC reply to this comment

I worked for MS for a number of years in the '90s and into the '00s, and this doesn't surprise me one bit. Having come from many years in the customer AND employee relations environment of a large computer manufacturer, MS and what they expect of their employees was a shock, at best. At that time, they had the 'pick of the litter' for each and every job opening. Hence, the ability to get away with demanding whatever they pleased from their workforce. In Software Support, I personally averaged just over 70 hours per week. Not because I loved my job, but out of sheer necessity to keep up with the workload and reading and replying to over 200 e-mails per day, on average.

Comment #2.1 by: Xi on 22 Jan 2013, 20:31 GMT

Its your personal problem.

But during your time with MS, the overload work was onto a release of a better product with better GUI for every user and more features. But now its the worst product of MS, which Ballmer said as more work done than any projects in MS ever done is Windows 8. And even did cruel thing to devs. Releasing another new OS within months and closing down Windows 8 Apps.


Comment #3 by: EuroScept1C on 22 Jan 2013, 14:07 UTC reply to this comment

C'mon, even if the research is anonymous, what would you expect? It' totally normal the results being positive in relation to Ballmer.

And then, even when for any reason leave the company, still is difficult to start saying what you really think. Simply because you've to find a new job, but if some high profile dudes mark you as "black sheep" just because you made your opinion public, well...

This guy has truly guts.

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