14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer will indeed leave the company within the next 12 months, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that he should stop praising his Redmond-based empire.
This time, Ballmer rolled out proof that he wasn’t such a bad CEO as some people claim during the company’s meeting with financial analysts, explaining that Microsoft has actually made more money than any other large tech company out there.
During his keynote, the outgoing CEO presented a slide which revealed that Microsoft had a $220 billion (€162 billion) profit in the last 10 years, which is more than Google, Apple, Oracle, IBM, Amazon, or Salesforce.
“If you take a look at some of the numbers, I'm proud that we made more money than anybody on this list in the last 10 years. If you take a look at the last five years, it is a great reminder that there is huge profitability in our industry in the devices business. Not everybody may make it, but it is a huge source of our profitability through Windows,” Ballmer explained.
“But you take a look and you say, okay, how have we done? We've done pretty well in profit, very well in profit, in fact. Even if you look at just the last year with the exception of Apple, we're the most profitable company on the list.”
While no clear reason has been provided for Ballmer’s departure, people close to the matter indicate that the CEO decided to leave because ValueAct Capital, a new company investor that recently purchased a $2 billion (€1.5 billion) stake, didn’t agree with his new vision.
Ballmer was quick to deny such rumors, explaining that his reorganization plan would allow Microsoft to compete in both the consumer market and the enterprise business, thus fully embracing the devices and services approach he talked about so much lately.