As a Bloomberg
West presenter pointed out on 26 August, the share price of Microsoft when
Steve Ballmer became CEO was higher than when he announced his departure. It was clear from the many guest commentators
that he didn’t get it and as one said, “The ships have sailed without them on”.
This blog writes
about sailing pointing out successful launches (Net-a-porter, Salesforce.com,
Red Hat) analysing how they did it, applying unique ‘rules’ of doing business
on the internet wave. Microsoft being
the poster child of an era past (passing), the exit of Ballmer finally draws
attention to the end of the PC-LAN cycle which probably peaked some 10 to 15
years back. Industry insiders already
know this but this announcement may be the clarion call to the rest of the
industry to that fact. In software, open
source, the software of the internet, is making inroads though still a
challenge in Asia. It will enter
mainstream soon aided by news of the jump of 9% in Microsoft’s share price on
the day of the announcement. This is the
era of the internet.
The analysts further commented that
Microsoft misjudged tech trends, struggled in tablets, smart
phones and was late in the Cloud and Search
but these are really internet-driven devices and internet services. Microsoft, they say must transform; the
culture needs a reboot, the traditionalists need to be rotated out and fresh
blood, presumably those in tune with market needs and tech trends of today
brought in. Change as we all know is a
most difficult endeavour. While I am not
a great fan of Private Equity, it is time to call them in. They can catalyse such a drastic change
of.dna.
And in my opinion, the next CEO must come
from the internet industry.
©Chen Thet Ngian,
internetbusinessmodelasia.blogspot.com (2013).
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