I love the man:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=206853
Mind you, I think he did a pretty good job considering what he had to start with.
When he started to take over in the mid-90s and became CEO in 200, Microsoft was like apple, a heavily consumer focused company, nearly 100% dependent on one product, windows, that was on the verge of getting broken apart by anti-trust laws.
Now, they are a heavily diversified enterprise focused technology company putting up record quarter after record quarter.
In my opinion, Ballmer's greatest successes are:
1. Their stranglehold on the enterprise.
Lets be honest here, Microsoft dominates the enterprise. Under Ballmer, they were able to squeeze out Novell, seriously damage IBM, deal heavy blows to Oracle. The enterprise market is infinitely better than the consumer market, because "product loyalty" goes further, and it isn't fad-driven.
2. Their entry into gaming.
Before Ballmer became CEO, under Gates, the Microsoft gaming division was actually a mess. Ballmer really solidified their position, and pushed out the Xbox 360. Now they are a major force in gaming, a huge publisher (arguably one of the biggest), and they were able to be create the first (and currently only) non-Japanese console.
3. The Elop Trojan horse.
Look, I know this is a controversial topic bordering on conspiracy theory, but I kind of believe in it. Nokia was the biggest "anti Microsoft" force for years. People even thought Symbian was going to destroy windows at a time. Yet Elop, the ex-microsoftie took over, and became Microsoft's No. 1 supporter. Now look at Nokia, they are practically Microsoft's mobile division.
Ballmer's greatest failures:
1. Poor corporate structure.
The next 2 biggest failures can all be attributed to Microsoft's biggest Ballmer era failure, their corporate structure. Microsoft is huge, and the different divisions are run like practically separate companies. The different division heads run their departments completely separate, with almost no-cooperation. This is what really doomed multiple Microsoft efforts to failure.
2. Zune and kin
The classic Microsoft fiefdom. Zune was run nearly completely independent of the rest of the company. It had no support from the plays4sure group (the guys who made mp3 software for mp3 players), windows media player group (hell, they had to make a separate zune player), the windows mobile group (they didn't integrate zune with windows phone until 2010). The whole thing was a ticking time bomb on day one. Also, who thought it would be a good idea to release your new mp3 player in one color, s*** brown?
Kin is actually the same thing. It was an acquired company that released a competing product with one of their own products. The two divisions competed amongst themselves. Because of inner competition (the windows group forced the kin team to use CE instead of their modified version of Symbian), Kin was released late and overpriced, and thus killed Microsoft's relationship with Verizon, a critical blow to early windows phones.
3. their whole mobile strategy
People often attribute the troubles of Microsoft in mobile to the iPhone. I would disagree.
For years, Microsoft's mobile efforts lagged behind palm, nokia, and blackberry. Mobile was always a bastard son within Microsoft. The windows team always hated them, and gave them barely any support. Hell, the previous windows head (Sinofsky) was forced out probably because of this. Even today, the windows phone team is seriously understaffed, and has extremely poor synergy with the rest of the company (seriously, Skype on iPhone has more features than Skype on Windows Phone?!)
@Skybird
Now I know you dislike windows 8, but it would be incorrect to label it as a failure. in the last quarter, the whole PC industry declined, yet windows revenue stayed stable.
You might argue that windows 8 did not stop the decline of the PC industry at a whole, yet I would say this is inevitable. Unlike the mobile industry, there is no 2-year forced upgrade cycle (a la contract phones). I would say that PCs simply became too saturated, people didn't need new ones, and nearly everyone already has one.
I can easily prove my argument, because if Windows 8 was a disaster as you might believe, than the argument goes that Apple must than drastically increase market share. This did not happen, because Apple's numbers support my argument. Apple's Mac sales actually declined MORE than the sales of windows computers, their market share did not increase, it decreased.
I like Ballmer, because from everything you see, you can see just how passionate he is. He is arguably the most passionate tech CEO. Unlike other CEOs, with their "image control specialists" and their carefully scripted interviews and presentations, Ballmer is unafraid to embarrass himself for his company and to have some fun. Ballmer shows that he is extremely dedicated to the company, unlike some other CEOs that are simply in it for the money.
He hasn't left yet (staying for the next year), and we don't know his successor. If I was a major Microsoft shareholder, I would hope that its someone from the servers and tools division. Microsoft should transition into an enterprise company with consumers on the side, like what IBM did.