We can guess what Steve Ballmer thinks of Steve Ballmer’s tenure as Microsoft CEO, as he says his firm is doing just fine. “We’re a company that will make $26 billion pre-tax [this year], so I’m not going to be apologetic for our financial results,” Ballmer told the audience at a speech in London this week.

And we have a pretty clear picture what his own board feels, after it awarded him only half of his possible bonus. While that still puts an extra $670,000 in his pocket, the board chastised the CEO for his failings in the mobile space.

But what do those actually working at Microsoft think of Ballmer? Website Glassdoor lets employees rate their companies, giving advice for would-be workers on whether it’s a good idea to work there.

Of the 1,116 ratings on Glassdoor (out of 91,000 Microsoft workers worldwide), only 50% approve of Ballmer’s efforts. Of course, it’s probably biased: angry people head to the web to rant, not happy ones.

However, Apple’s Steve Jobs has a 97% approval rating from his workers. Google’s Eric Schmidt, who certainly doesn’t have Jobs dedicated fan base, has a 96% rating. Even Oracle’s Larry Ellison manages a 78% approval score.

The intriguing bit is that, overall, Microsoft employees rate themselves “satisfied” working at the company – just like Google and Apple workers (Oracle gets an “ok” rating). So it’s not Microsoft that’s the problem, it’s Ballmer.

Here it is, in the words of Microsoft managers, engineers and others:

* “Ballmer must resign or get his act together.”
* “Aren’t we done with Ballmer yet?”
* “Get rid of Ballmer, he’s a poor CEO. Get some visionary who actually has ideas about where the company should be headed, not a number crunching follower.”
* “Resign and let someone take over who knows what they’re doing.”

And that’s from people who like Microsoft.

What to do?

Some of the other comments sum up nicely what employees think Microsoft needs to do to turn things around – other than just sacking Ballmer. Admittedly, they’re anecdotal and I’m picking the more interesting ones out of the raft of “middle management sucks” and “more money please” and “Seattle rains too much” (Really? That’s Microsoft’s fault?).

* “There needs to a fundamental change to the environment at Microsoft. It really is very corporate.”
* “Stop responding to what all of the competitors are doing. Pick a direction and go with it.”
* “Really identify the markets where Microsoft is strong and go after them. Don’t worry so much about being in every market, such as phones.”
* “Go back to being an innovator. Quit being a ‘manufacturer’ of software. Require ‘delight customers’ as a commitment for all senior leadership.”
* “This company needs to move quickly or we are going to become like IBM. Right now it’s like moving the Titanic. We need to be more agile, more hungry and get strategic. Tomorrow’s not going to be the same as yesterday.”
* “Management is paranoid about affecting the sacred cows of Windows and Office. This means that we don’t even try anything that might threaten those businesses – and let our competitors take the leadership in new businesses.”
* “Don’t give up on ideas so quickly. We were first in smartphones and tablets, but somehow find ourselves trailing. Keep at it.”

And one last one: “Listen to employees more.” You really should Steve, they’ve got some good ideas.

Read more: What Microsoft employees think of Steve Ballmer | PC Pro blog http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/10/06 ... z11yq66VOB

Thoughts?

The problem is that as Ballmer does what the shareholders want in terms of returns he is stifling long term development of its products, which will come back to bite the company badly. The problem is that it will take a while before the weaknesses are apparent and it could be too late for the company. Many talented people will have left taking their ideas with them, to start up new businesses to fill the gap that Microsoft ignored because of its obsession with financial targets. One of the issues is that bosses are motivated by short term interests such as stock options so only really plan for the short term to maximise their immediate benefit.

Going out on a limb here, but could that possibly be because Microsoft is a corporation? Let's face it, Google's workplace is the one out-of-step with the rest of the world, not Microsoft's (and the fact Google collect so much information on employees and can somehow decide when you'll be ill and your level of loyalty is just scary).



If you don't expand, where's the growth going to come from?

Eh?

Thanks for those

Sounds scary (and probably is), but it actually strikes me as potentially more realistic and useful than a 'team building' day and an utter bullsh1t APR... The question, as ever with Google, is how far they take it