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Ballmer's billion-dollar blunders: When he gambled Microsoft's money and lost

Nokia is the biggest write-off yet, but it wasn't the first

Postmortem of an era

Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft in February 2014, after holding the position for 14 years. In August 2014 he also resigned his seat on Redmond's board to concentrate on his new role as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball franchise. He remains Microsoft's largest individual shareholder.

During his time in Redmond, Ballmer oversaw numerous projects and initiatives. Many succeeded. He preserved Windows' position as the dominant desktop operating system and Office as the leading productivity suite. He built Microsoft's enterprise business and he brought the company, at long last, into the cloud.

You might ask why some of the other missteps aren't on the above list. Where are Windows ME and Windows Vista? What about Microsoft Bob? But before Windows XP there was Windows ME; after Vista was Windows 7. Bob, meanwhile, may have been silly, but it didn't even make a blip on the financial radar.

In hindsight, however, one thing the major errors – the costly ones – have in common is that they are often the result of reactive management, where Ballmer sought to chase down one of Microsoft's competitors when it reached into a market that Redmond hadn't already conquered.

Apple makes money from iPhones? Microsoft should make its own phones. Google makes money from ads? Microsoft should be an ad business, never mind software. Apple makes iPods and iPads? Microsoft should be in media players and slabs that don't run Windows.

So in that sense, it's probably a good thing that Nadella has had the courage to euthanize what's left of the Nokia phones business, rather than putting it on life support. There's something to be said for sticking to what you're good at. And with any luck, Nadella – who oversaw Microsoft's Azure cloud business before being named CEO – may be the man to keep it on the right path from now on. ®

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