The problem with Microsoft...
No one questions CEO Steve Ballmer's drive or intentions - but is his devotion to the company and its Windows business hurting its ability to innovate?
To some longtime Microsoft veterans, Ballmer's swift termination of Courier symbolizes a shortsightedness that has plagued the company's top management in recent years -- and has left the company eating Apple's dust. (And Google's. And Amazon's (AMZN).) Ballmer, a preternaturally optimistic man not inclined to second-guess himself, has been forced to publicly acknowledge many of the company's biggest misses. The Vista operating system frustrated users. The MP3 player, the Zune, has proved a dud. And then there's Microsoft's costliest blunder, its also-ran status on the device that is emerging as the personal computer of the 21st century, the mobile phone. "We were ahead of this game, and now we find ourselves No. 5 in the market," Ballmer said at a tech conference in June. "We missed a whole cycle." Or two. Or three.
But the root of Microsoft's paralysis seems to be Ballmer himself. Interviews with a range of former Microsoft employees -- from ex--vice presidents still on good terms with their former boss to middle managers and engineers who helped build the company -- paint a picture of an executive determined to protect the legacy (and legacy businesses) he inherited from founder and friend Bill Gates...
