Former Microsoft Exec: ‘No real technical leadership inside the company’
SEATTLE – A former high level Microsoft executive has written a rare tell-all book in which he questions CEO Steve Ballmer’s leadership.
KOMO 4 News Reporter Matt Markovich sat down with Joachim Kempin for a revealing interview recently and asked him directly about Ballmer.
“I think he's a great COO,” said Kempin. “As CEO I think he needs to have more of a technical vision."
Kempin's book 'Resolve and Fortitude: Microsoft's "secret power broker" breaks his silence' was published earlier this year.
When Kempin started at Microsoft the company had just 400 employees. When Kempin left there were 50,000 and he says times have certainly changed along with leaders.
“Bill Gates was ‘let’s go and get this done,’” said Kempin. “There is no real technical leader inside the company [now].”
Ballmer is betting big that the Xbox gaming system and the new Surface tablet will be profit centers.
“But Kempin, who knows the PC market extremely well, tells me it's a bad bet,” said KOMO 4 News Reporter Matt Markovich.
Watch KOMO 4 News tonight at 11pm to see Markovich’s full interview with Joachim Kempin. Find out why he thinks hardware is the wrong strategy and how Microsoft may already be too far behind to catch up to leading social media innovators.
worthless news story. I think everyone at my work and every work everywhere has opinions about how things are run. Seems like Microsoft has a few things figured out.
No s**t Dick Tracy.Ballmer is worthless.He is totally out of date and terrified of anyone who could possibly be coming on line to challenge him.The problem is that MS is so big that it could be dead for years before it finally imploded.Donât know when it will happen, but if they donât come around soon they are going to crash.
It's been pretty obvious for some years now. Ever since Bill left. Ballmer has been worthless.
I have been there 10 years and I have never heard of this guy...
We can't beat that idea so how much can be buy it for. Hey we are the only option you have so you will do it our way. What, build it right the first time? No lets just get something out on the market now. We can fix our mistakes later and call them upgrades that we will make people pay top dollar for. With vision like this it's a wonder the big M has remained relevant for this long. With the continuing meteoric rise of the smart phone market, the now exploding tablet market coupled with the shrinking laptop and desktop market the relevance of Microsoft is going to quickly end if they don't get with  what the market demands. Oh and Microsoft's idea of charging $50 per year for Office online cloud computing while Google's version is free is going help hasten the irrelevance factor. Come on Microsoft  pull your head out and start acting like a successful company, not like a company riding the coat tails of previous success.Â
Bring Bill Gates III back !
That is the new business model these days...put someone in charge of everything when they know nothing about anything; guess they havent' figured it out that it doesn't work.
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I am not a technological savvy person by any means and use my laptop that runs on vista well enough for what I need. It was similar enough to xp for me and we bought a new laptop last year that runs windows 7 and that seems to be easy enough as well. My mother has a dinosaur for a computer so when I flew out to Cali last month I bought her a new laptop. I mainly was going for inexpensive considering she doesn't use it for anything other than checking her email, Facebook, playing some slot machines etc...So I go in to Best Buy and spend $300 on an Hp(always had luck with Hp). I go to set it up for her and am dumbfounded to see it had Windows 8 on it. I didn't even know there was a Windows 8 and I tell you all I HATE IT!!! I didn't have the energy or patience to learn it all but was able to basically set it up for my mom to use. She calls me every few days asking a question and I have to tell her that I don't know anything about it without first spending at least a week figuring it out. I was going to buy myself a new laptop but not if they only come with 8 on them. Yes, I probably could still buy one and just install whatever operating system I want but I will just wait until I HAVE to. Reading everyone talk about computer lingo baffles me mostly but I also have to say I HATE internet explorer as well. As soon as we get computers, we download a new browser and push the IE off to the side and leave it alone.
Intel and Microsoft are in the same situation,both need some more insights and good leadership.
@scychanYou're right about Intel. The only real innovation in processors in the last decade came from either AMD (multi-core, x64) or ARM (mobile, low watts). I think it's amazing how screwed AMD got with that Dell OEM lock-out thing. How can a company with a market capitalization 1/60 the size of intel provide 90% of the industry innovation? As a result I only buy AMD systems.
Why is this a shock? Come on people Bill, and company have always stolen their stuff from other companies like Apple.
@Exiled_Patriot And Apple stole from Xerox which stole from Douglas Englebart
@m9078jk3You mean what Apple bought from Xerox?
@Exiled_Patriot
Exiled_Patriot As little love as I have for Microsoft, I did not know that Apple offers Servers, gaming consoles, an office productivity suite, a collaboration platform, a cable TV channel (up to a year ago), a best-in-class mapping solution (didn't Apple just join that party and fall on its face), project management software, point of service embedded systems, embedded operating systems in ATM machines, hospital equipment, military applications, an enterprise grade database system, the defacto standard client side e-mail server system...I mean gee, all those products that got copied that Apple doesn't even make.
@Howard Bealehe said "like" Apple, not necessary Apple.
@Howard Beale @Exiled_Patriot Apple actually does offer servers. Occasionally they even sell one.Â
@Exiled_Patriot I think you replied to the wrong article.
Two rumors about the next generation of the Xbox are that it will not allow or play used games, and also it will require an always on internet connection. Â If even one of those ends up being true it will be the end of the Xbox franchise.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates was a geek in control a big techie company, that's why it worked so well for him. Ballmer is not a geek, but he's trying to lead a company full of them. Â
@Landshark I'm also noticing that the next XBox ( 720!? Infinity?! Xbox 8?!) ..whatever the f--- they call it has very close rumored hardware specs to the Playstation 4. They both have AMD Fusion based APU's with 8GB of RAM so start with.
@Landshark
Don't know on either. The Sony PS4 will not play PS2 or PS3 games - that's an awful big gamble.
Requirement for an always on connection, Microsoft would easily have the data to know if that is feasible. More users use their Xbox for digital media than gaming now, and spend a frightening amount of time watching videos, TV, listening to music versus gaming. Gaming is becoming secondary.
Can't play used games? Seems utterly impossible to enforce unless they too are abandoning backwards compatibility with Xbox and XBox 360. There is no GUID associated with current XBOX game discs, unless there is specific downloadable content, so tracking ownership is basically impossible. It would make rental impossible, killing several companies along the way. Won't play used games? Sounds like FUD to me
@Landshark I agree with your Xbox statement. If Microsoft pulls that stunt, this Xbox fanboy is jumping ship.
I agree that the technical vision is lacking, but the problem facing Microsoft is a huge one. Their day is ending--pc sales are dropping, not rising. Cloud computing is based on Linux, not Windows. Departmental servers are disappearing slowly as internet services replace cranky and expensive departmental servers.Â
The PC will not end any more than the IBM mainframes have ended. But they will remain an unimportant backwater technologically for the next generation or two of computing. The same with server products like SQL Server and Exchange. Fewer and fewer people build web services using .Net and all of us hate (HATE!) Internet Explorer.Â
Microsoft has a ways farther to fall before their board becomes frightened enough to take any real chances. Even if they let Steve go, the next CEO will probably be some soulless corporate drone who will merely re-arrange some deck chairs as the ship slowly goes down. It won't be until after that drone is fired that Microsoft will be ready to take some chances.
@Iconoclast I can't even believe that people really still use IE. About the only time I use it is to download firefox on a new system build, and then never again. IE is so mired with security problems and integrated so closely to the OS, that using it is like going into combat in your undies.
@Duncan Construction I was speaking more from a developer's point of view. IE is so non-standard that developers just hate it.
@Iconoclast No they are running out of companies to steal from. All they need is a company that has a great Idea and never heard of bill, and ballmer then they can swoop in and steal some fresh ideas.
@Exiled_Patriot A bag of unrelated ideas without a unifying vision is nearly worthless. That was part of Bill's genius (and Steve Job's). They might steal ideas as well, but which ones should they steal?
No, Microsoft is in deep, deep trouble.Â
I worked under Mr. Kempin for some time and I can't say I'm enamored with him either. But on this point he is correct. Balmer is, in my opinion, not taking the company where it needs to go. He also blows his credibility every time he opens his mouth. He predicted all sorts of things like the failure of the iphone, ipad, etc but they went on to be wildly successful. He needs to learn to lead and to keep his mouth shut.
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@al_wa @SeattleJoe Indeed, wouldn't that be something but then again I'd bet its more common than one thinks. Look at Zuck and crew heading up Facebook. He's clueless and doesn't know it. He's been in training mode since day one and will be for decades.
I am perplexed beyond words why Ballmer has not been fired by now. What's it going to take for their Board to dump him?
I've been questioning it ever since I got Windows 7...
@Willow Windows 7 is a great product.
@Jalharad @Willow Win 7 was ok, especially after Vista, but really sort of a downgrade from Win XP x64 which had all the advantages of 64-bit computing without all the bloat of vista. More stable too since it shared the same kernel with a very stable server-grade OS.
@Jalharad @Willow both of you are wrong. Windows98 was the best operating system in the history of the world