Microsoft Forces Steve Ballmer to Resign

Officially he’s “retiring within the next 12 months”, but that’s just framing to allow Ballmer and Microsoft itself to save some face. This is the axe, and it was long overdue. Ballmer has been a successful steward growing profits from the franchises he inherited from the Gates era — Windows and Office. But he’s been an abject failure at developing anything new. Under his watch Windows has been supplanted by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Mobile is the industry’s growth area, and Microsoft is barely a player.

Here’s the hitch though: Ballmer has chased all potential successors out of the company — Ray Ozzie, Robbie Bach, J Allard, and most recently, Steven Sinofsky.

★ Friday, 23 August 2013