Analyst suggests that Ballmer has done a great job in enterprise

Jul 25, 2013 09:39 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft’s latest quarterly earnings caused a share drop of 11.4 percent on Friday and many analysts and experts around the world were quick to attack the company’s big boss Steve Ballmer.

The CEO, on the other hand, seems very confident that his new vision which pushes Microsoft towards a devices and services concept could save the company and get it back on track on the long term, especially because lots of new products are on their way.

Brent Thill, software analyst at UBS, told the Financial Times in an interview that Steve Ballmer is the one responsible for everything right now, including the Surface RT $900 million (€680 million) write-down needed to adjust inventory for the company’s first-ever tablet.

“It’s [Steve] Ballmer’s issue: the buck stops there,” he was quoted as saying, while also adding that the company’s CEO has managed to do “a phenomenal job on the enterprise side.”

But Steve Ballmer’s problems do not end here. Word is that ValueAct Capital, an investing firm that recently purchased a $2 billion (€1.5 billion) stake in the software giant, is trying to get a seat in the company’s board in order to introduce even more changes.

Word is that the man behind ValueAct, founder Jeffrey Ubben, isn’t quite the biggest fan of Steve Ballmer, so in case the company is indeed granted a seat in the board, the CEO might be on thin ice once again.

And this isn’t the only bad news for Microsoft’s current leader. Even though Bill Gates repeatedly said that he had no intention to return to Microsoft in an executive role, rumor has it that the company’s co-founder could actually consider such an option in case his beloved empire doesn’t get back on track.

Ballmer, on the other hand, hopes that his restructuring plan would actually speed up Microsoft’s revival, with all the new projects that are about to be released to serve as the foundation for this comeback.

Windows 8.1, the first major makeover will soon go live, while both the Surface RT and the Pro tablets are projected to receive updates in the next 12 months.