14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Ballmer shocked everyone on Friday when he announced that he was leaving Microsoft, but some analysts across the world believe that such news should have come a long time ago.
Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research, said in a statement for The Telegraph that Steve Ballmer failed to earn the respect of software developers and engineers, even though the company struggled to get closer to them in the last few years.
“To be successful in a technology company, first and foremost, you need to earn the respect of software developers and engineers. And Ballmer failed to do that in the past 15 years. Ballmer should have left Microsoft at least 8 years back,” the analyst said.
“Never buy the argument 'we have 100,000 people in the company there is a huge depth of management talent. There more 100,000 in Dell, HP, Apple, and has there been any executive close to the likes of Gates or Jobs?”
As far as the next CEO is concerned, Chowdhry claims that Vic Gundotra from Google would be a great leader for the Redmond-based technology, not only because he previously worked for Microsoft, but also thanks to the fact that he would bring a whole new set of fresh ideas from the search company.
“A good CEO would be Vic Gundotra at Google. He left Microsoft for Google. He has the most respect of the engineers and developers both at Microsoft and Google. Vic is probably the only executive, who can bring the much-needed fresh perspective to Microsoft, while still having a deep understanding of Microsoft Culture,” he continued.
“He is a perfect blend of being a Microsoft Insider and bringing a fresh perspective from Google.”
Sources familiar with the matter hinted that Steve Ballmer was forced to leave by ValueAct Capital, the investing firm that purchased a $2 billion (€1.5 billion) Microsoft stake in April. Ballmer quickly denied these rumors, but refused to provide more details on his decision to leave.