Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Gives Farewell Speech

Ballmer hinted in the memo for his abrupt leaving announcement, and in subsequent interviews, that the timing for his exit wasn't his choice. Asked if it was a sudden decision in an interview with ZDNet, Ballmer said: "I would say for me, yeah, I've thought about it for a long time, but the timing became more clear to me over the course of the last few months."

Picking (I've Had) The Time of My Life as his sign-off song, Ballmer choked back the tears to tell the equally emotional audience, "Microsoft is like a fourth child for me. Children leave the home, but I guess in this case I'm leaving the home."

His emotional reaction and speech again suggest that Ballmer's Microsoft exit isn't of his own volition, although this isn't the first time Ballmer has had emotional outpourings on stage.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer To Retire Within 12 Months

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plans to retire some time in the next 12 months, said the company. Microsoft's board has formed a special committee to begin a search for a successor to Ballmer, who has led the company since January 2000. Once a successor is chosen, Ballmer will step down. "There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time," said Ballmer. "We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction." Microsoft's business has changed radically during Ballmer's tenure, as computing has moved away from traditional desktop and laptops to more mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones.


Source: Microsoft

RIM Could Open Up BlackBerry Network To Others

The Q1 earnings news from RIM of layoffs and a delay in its next generation of handsets has unsurprisingly led to some rumors from the usual "people familiar with the situation," according to Reuters. The options reportedly being considered by the board probably also won't shock you, like the possibility of following former co-CEO Jim Balsillie's plan to open up its network to others and / or sell it outright. 


An alternative path comes from Microsoft and Steve Ballmer, who has reportedly been putting a full court press on the folks in Waterloo to pull a Nokia and bring their arms to the Windows OS camp. That choice is reportedly less attractive because it would mean giving up technology independence, but we'll see how long that feeling lasts if future earnings projections remain similarly dismal.

Microsoft Yammer Acquisition Gets Official

The rumors were true: Microsoft is indeed buying business-centric social networking site Yammer for $1.2 billion, or $200 million more than early rumors indicated. A presumably pleased Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a prepared statement that “the acquisition of Yammer underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love” and that “Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of complementary cloud services.” Buying Yammer gives Microsoft a strong social networking component to its ubiquitous Office suite since Microsoft now inherits more than 5 million Yammer users across more than 200,000 different companies. In fact, Microsoft is strongly touting Yammer’s ability to mesh with its other services, noting that it “plans to accelerate Yammer’s adoption alongside complementary offerings from Microsoft SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics and Skype.”