What new product categories did Nadella built that Ballmer didn't start?. Azure was started and then prioritized under Ballmer. Office for iOS was built under Ballmer but not announced to give Nadella a quick win on his start. Ballmer set his replacement very well on so many levels.
> Ballmer is a good used car salesman.
Ballmer was a very very good salesman. The reason Azure or all these new shiny MSFT products (e.g. teams) have a leg is because Ballmer already sold AD to almost every corp out there. Microsoft went from being 0 in enterprise to bigger than anyone else and that is now the main money printer and also the future of the company.
One thing everyone forgets is Nadella was nowhere to be found few years before becoming CEO. Ballmer made a very very good successor choice elevating Nadella quickly in few years.
> WSL, becoming again a Java vendor, adoption of Rust, FOSS culture on DevDiv, VSCode eating VS licenses...
These are all nice things for developers, but I don't think they are actually good for Microsoft in the long-term or their bottom line in the short term. At least not the way they've been executed.
If anything, the treatment of Microsoft's older cash cows under Nadella has been disastrous, essentially throwing goodwill and money away - e.g., the quality of and feature development in Windows.
Were you involved with the project? I worked at msft back then and distinctly remember the office ipad team. I think ballmer actually let them release just the OneNote standalone app in 2013 iirc.
> Ballmer is a good used car salesman.
Ballmer was a very very good salesman. The reason Azure or all these new shiny MSFT products (e.g. teams) have a leg is because Ballmer already sold AD to almost every corp out there. Microsoft went from being 0 in enterprise to bigger than anyone else and that is now the main money printer and also the future of the company.
One thing everyone forgets is Nadella was nowhere to be found few years before becoming CEO. Ballmer made a very very good successor choice elevating Nadella quickly in few years.