Management Toolkit

Five years of Ballmer, and still no verdict

Ina Fried and Matt Hines CNET News

Published: 14 Jan 2005 15:40 GMT

Trying to measure the success of the Ballmer era is tricky. Since the announcement, Microsoft has seen its fortunes fluctuate. Sales have grown from just less than $23bn in fiscal 2000 to $36.8bn in fiscal 2004, and the company's cash balance has more than tripled. At the same time, Microsoft' stock has foundered, dropping from $47.80 on the day Gates announced his plans to around $27 a share.

Many of the issues, though, that Microsoft has faced in recent years -- security issues, slowing tech spending and the rising popularity of open source software, are things that any Microsoft CEO would have had to face.

"It's a little hard to separate the changes that would have happened anyway from the changes that happened specifically from Ballmer becoming CEO," Rosoff said. "There's a lot of stuff that would have happened anyway that Microsoft would have had to react to regardless of who was CEO."

One of the busiest areas for Microsoft during the Ballmer tenure has been the legal front. When Gates first detailed his new career plans, Microsoft was dealing with news that the US Department of Justice was considering a proposal to break up the software maker to resolve the antitrust case pending against it. A trial judge ordered such a break-up, but Microsoft had that overruled on appeal and eventually worked out a landmark settlement with the Department of Justice.

Since then, Ballmer and general counsel Brad Smith have been working to resolve many of the company's legal headaches, settling with rivals such as Sun and AOL Time Warner and reaching deals to settle a number of consumer class-action lawsuits.

"It's sort of a way to minimize risk rather than fighting things to the end and ending up with some sort of catastrophic decision," Rosoff said.

Rosoff sees the settlements as part of a broader trend that has marked the Ballmer years. "Under Ballmer, the company has become a little more conservative," Rosoff said.