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Comment by gridlockd | Hacker News Reader

Steve Ballmer wasn't a bad CEO. People keep talking about how he dropped the ball on mobile, but so what? So did Blackberry, Motorola and Nokia and those companies had mobile as their core business. To think a "better" CEO could've pulled it all off is delusional.

Under Ballmer, Microsoft focused on core business and reached into cloud - successfully. As a result, Microsoft is now stronger than Apple. Microsoft doesn't depend on people buying luxury cellphones, a market which is reaching saturation.

That's not a "sexy" story, but it's the truth. A more "proactive" CEO would've just blown more money on Zunes and Kinects to fail in the market.

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Steve also managed to keep the company intact at a time when they were very close to get cut-up due to antitrust lawsuits. Also, Steve was probably the only one that could lead Microsoft post Gates as Bill remained in a decisive position pulling strings for quite some time (which in some sense is understandable, but not many could have faced such a situation).

> Steve also managed to keep the company intact at a time when they were very close to get cut-up due to antitrust lawsuits.

That was the change in administration. "Microsoft is a monopoly" came under judges appointed by Clinton. "The punishment is Microsoft has to give free Windows licenses to schools" was under judges appointed by the GW Bush administration.

Microsoft's failure in mobile lies squarely with Bill. He lead their mobile and pen computing initiatives as personal pet projects.

Nokia dropped the ball on mobile, then Ballmer bought Nokia. Also MS reached into the cloud thanks to Nadella, not tanks to Ballmer.

When Satya Nadella became CEO Microsoft Azure was four years old.

As old timer insiders said to me prior to that time “You wouldn’t believe just how committed Microsoft is on this. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

(But Satya has made it really work.)

I think the parent is saying that Nadella led the charge into the cloud inside MS under Ballmer, which is a big reason he was considered for the CEO position after Ballmer.

Could be, could be. I hadn’t thought of that.

wasn't Satya part of the Azure platforms from day 1?

From what I've read, Nokia had some issues where certain departments wanted to stick with Symbian, and others were working in a new OS. The Nokia N9 was the last phone they released with the new OS (Meego).

I believe they would have been fine if they focused on the European and Asian markets instead of the US.

Even at the time of the Microsoft deal in 2011, Nokia hadn't been US-focused for at least 5 years. US carriers weren't carrying any Nokias beyond the $50 dumbphones you could get anywhere. Unlike the rest of the world where people bought phones at more or less full price, the US market had mostly carrier subsidized pricing, and carriers ran the ad campaigns, not manufacturers (except Apple).

Back when the iPhone, HTC G1 and Motorola Droid ads were saturating TV around 2008/9, I couldn't recall seeing a single ad for Nokia. Nokia's only real sales outlet were 3(!) retail stores in the entire US. And even those shuttered well before 2011.

The idea that focusing away from the US might have saved them as an independent entity doesn't hold up because their average selling price (ASP) was falling due to low-end models selling better than their more expensive smartphone line. Eventually it reached a turning point where the brand was more closely associated with super-durable and super cheap "burner" phones than upscale smartphones.

Finally, their smartphone line was a mess because like Windows Mobile 6.x, the OS appeared on a variety of screens, both touch and non-touch. The Ovi app store was deeply fragmented as a result, because old apps scaled badly on larger touch devices, and newer apps didn't work at all on the non-touch phones.

> The idea that focusing away from the US might have saved them as an independent entity doesn't hold up because their average selling price (ASP) was falling due to low-end models selling better than their more expensive smartphone line.

How much per unit profit were they making with their low-end models compared to the expensive smartphone models? As I recall, I spent roughly $300 to $350 per phone when I purchased models like the N95 8GB, N8, N9, and 808 (which isn't that expensive compared to certain smartphone models).

Most people I know/knew, before they switched to Android and iPhone, were using the higher end model Nokia and Blackberry phones. In fact, they had features that early models of the iPhone lacked (IIRC, the ability to copy and paste text).

> Also MS reached into the cloud thanks to Nadella, not tanks to Ballmer.

So if Microsoft fails in one market segment it's his fault, but if Microsoft succeeds, it's solely the success of the people doing the work?

That's not how it works when you're CEO. You might have a point if Nadella pushed for cloud against Ballmer, but that wasn't the case. To the contrary. In any event, Ballmer ultimately called those shots, not Nadella. That's his job as a CEO.

> reached into cloud

As much of a problem I might have with some of Ballmer's ideas and actions, this is simply amazing. It completely saved the whole company.

This was entirely reactionary.

Microsoft looked at what AWS was doing and realized they were getting left in the dust and they are still playing catch up, albeit in very good shape.

Nadella discusses having to catch up to AWS in his book.

Ballmer's major contribution was finally allowing the company to follow Amazon's playbook.

> So did Blackberry, Motorola and Nokia and those companies had mobile as their core business.

I think one difference is that BB, Motorola and Nokia dropped the ball technically; Microsoft had a technical solution that was ahead of its time, but failed on the business side.

> reached into cloud

Belatedly. I mean, they’re the largest software vendor on Earth, and they’re still miles behind a book retailer.

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