‘Microsoft Needs a Swift Kick in the Ass.’

Ben Brooks makes the case that Microsoft should fire Steve Ballmer.

I agree — and even talked about this a few days ago on this week’s The Talk Show — but I don’t think it’s going to happen. My guess is that it’s a pride thing. Gates controls the board, and Ballmer is Gates’s man. Acknowledging that Ballmer is a failure as CEO would amount to a tacit acknowledgement that Gates has failed as well. And so a once great company withers on the vine, milking (admittedly massive) profits from the same two products as they did a decade ago: Windows and Office.

★ Friday, 13 May 2011