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Ballmer agrees with most of Microsoft’s cunning plans

by on09 February 2016


So it is almost certainly doomed


The shy and retiring Micrososft CEO Steve “sounds of silence” Ballmer has quietly put forward his modest opinion that Microsoft's hardware—Surface, HoloLens, and Xbox—is "absolutely essential" to its future.

Ballmer whispered to a Business Insider hack that there was an interrelationship between devices and the cloud because so many devices were supported by and dependent on cloud software.

He thinks that the company needs to participate both on the cloud side and on the device side.

However Ballmer has not given up on his idea that mobile was part of this cunning plan – despite the fact that buying Nokia turned out to be one of his more sillier moves.

He insists meekly that he "put the company on a path" toward having its own mobile devices and platform but that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has "certainly changed that" by firing most Nokia staff and scaling back Microsoft's phone-building.

The lack of mobile vision becomes obvious with Nadella's "mobile first, cloud first" slogan, which Ballmer said that Nadella had done a "brilliant job" promoting. Ballmer is sure Nadella will get there... but he's not there yet.

He says that he meets with Nadella "four or five times a year," both to "brainstorm" and fling the odd chair for old time’s sake. True Nadella is sometimes in a different building, or another town when Steve sounds off, but he is pretty certain he is heard after all dead people have often complained about hearing Steve in Hades.

Steve speaks positively of “fantastic" Azure and Office 365 but is frustrated at the way Microsoft reports its financial performance in the cloud, previously calling the numbers offered "bullshit."

It is fair to say we miss Ballmer... Microsoft is colourless without him.

Last modified on 09 February 2016
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