Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has barely left the stage after his barnstorming farewell performance and uppity shareholders are already demanding that his erstwhile boss Bill Gates follow him off the stage. According to a report in Reuters, three of the top 20 investors in Microsoft are lobbying the company’s board to get Gates to step down as chairman.
Reuters claims the (unnamed) investors are worried that it will be harder for Microsoft to adopt new strategies with Gates still on the board and he could limit the power of a new chief executive to make substantial changes. They also believe Gates wields far more influence than his shareholding entitles him to.
There are good arguments in their favour. Yes, it’s true Gates made Microsoft what it is today but that should also include the failures as well as the triumphs. And the problem is that for all those triumphs, Microsoft has appeared ill-prepared for a mobile and tablet-based ‘post PC’ (or ‘PC plus’) future.
Ballmer has tended to take all the flak for dismissing the influence and impact of smartphones and tablets, usually because he’s made disparaging public comments about Apple products that have come back to haunt him, but I don’t believe that Gates’ initial reaction to the iPhone and iPad were any different. If you were in Gates’ position, for instance, you might want to find out why those products were successful, but this is a man who has even banned his children from using Apple products .
Too often, Gates and Ballmer have given the impression of men who view everything through Windows-coloured glasses. Worse still, they often appeared shielded in complacency, believing the bulk of the home and corporate market would be content to wait until Microsoft produced its own version of an MP3 player, smartphone or tablet.
A growing number of pundits seem to agree Microsoft will have to change its approach if it wants to maintain a position of influence in the post-PC (and possibly post-Windows) world. Microsoft has partly endorsed their view with plans for a corporate restructure and reorganisation. But it’s perhaps understandable some investors are wondering whether Gates will be able to change with it and whole-heartedly endorse new strategies or act as a brake on them.
In any event, it’s unlikely the company board will ask Gates to step down. And as for his influence being out of proportion to his shareholding, that’s not really a coherent argument because Gates’ influence comes from his track record and its significance to Microsoft, not how many shares he owns in the company. The rebel investors are likely to be disappointed but the bigger (unanswerable) question is whether the ambitions and plans of the person chosen to replace Ballmer as CEO suffer similar disappointment because of Gates’ continuing presence at Microsoft.
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