14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO who was recently replaced by Satya Nadella at the helm of the search giant, said during an event at the Oxford University that he’s not sure whether WhatsApp is worth the $19 billion (€13.8 billion) price tag that Facebook spent for the acquisition.
Ballmer explained that the number of users isn’t necessarily an indication for the overall value of a company, but rather a decisive factor that could help the owners sell the firm.
“Sometimes, having a lot of people sign up represents usage, but it's a false metric [of value],” Ballmer explained according to The Telegraph.
“Let's take WhatsApp. If you're goal was to sell the company they had the right goalset. Is it a fad, well probably not. I don't know if it will be successful or not. Will those 450m people ever generate enough revenue? Mark Zuckerberg [Facebook chief executive] believes so and [I have] no reason to doubt.”
Facebook has announced the acquisition of WhatsApp a few days ago, but the social networking company has promised to keep the application untouched for the time being, which means that no major updates would be implemented.
Of course, app developers have quickly noticed the big opportunity to replace WhatsApp if Facebook decides to implement features that would hurt the app, so alternative apps reached the web in the last couple of weeks on both iOS and Android.
Steve Ballmer was officially replaced at the helm of Microsoft by Satya Nadella last month, but the software giant’s second CEO in history (after Bill Gates) will remain with the company, as he still owns a considerable share of a firm that’s hoping to become a leader in the devices and services business.
Ballmer himself started a major transformation plan last year to push the software empire towards devices and services, trying to help Microsoft focus on some other products beside software, such as Windows and Office.
As a result, Microsoft is now paying much more attention to products such as Surface and Xbox and services like the OneDrive cloud-based storage system and Office 365.
Of course, the new Satya Nadella has promised to continue the transformation plan in this tenure at the helm of the company, which doesn’t mean that Microsoft will abandon Windows and Office, but rather try to focus on a wider array of products that could generate more profits on the long term and thus launch several new devices and services.