Face it: Steve Ballmer is doing a great job

I don't agree. He might be ok comparing to disaster in Yahoo! or HP but not comparing to, for example, Oracle, Apple, etc.

First, I would like to say that 'earning/revenue' graphs as a proof that somebody is a good CEO can be very misleading because it does not include how that revenue is achieved (tell that to Leman Brothers investors)

Steve Ballmer job as a CEO is to lead and to ensure that Miscrosoft will be there forever. I'm not convinced he is doing a good job on that part: yes he optimized the current business model to the maximum, but I really don't see how MSFT will be able to grow or at least stay of same size as today.

For example, lets take his comment about Oracle. Larry has a clear vision to make Oracle one-stop-shop for all enterprise software and hardware. And he is succeeding in that. Oracle is buying companies. Oracle is building products like ExaData (they are selling these things like hot-cases... 1M a piece). So you can see future of Oracle.

On other hand, what is his vision of MSFT? Where is money going to come? Mobile... they are 3rd. Internet? Loosing money. The only good thing going on is XBox - but that cannot cover revenue when MS Office dies down. In other words, MS Windows and Office licences (60% of revenue) will dry out. What then?

"He" might not be doing that great job himself. If anything he's doing a great job by staying out of the way of other employees like Steve Sinofsky, and so on.

And it remains to be seen if Windows 8 will actually be a successful product. It's not as clear cut was it was for Windows 7.

*compared to most other pc company ceos