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Microsoft Updates: Office 365, More Ballmer Rumors
Posted on | June 30, 2011 | Comments Off
Microsoft (MSFT) has been in the news plenty this week as leadership debuted the cloud version of their productivity software, Office 365. This is a logical evolution of their dominant software suite. I like the move and it shows further evidence that Microsoft is indeed moving forward with their important product lines. It’s worth noting that the Office software product brings in more profits than even Windows for the company. A $20 billion business, it brings in a roughly 60% pre-tax margin. Incredible.
This is a logical extension and should help the small business penetration for Microsoft.
Also of note was a few days ago, at the close of the market, a rumor came out that Ballmer was stepping down as CEO. The stock shot up 2-3% in the last hour. It was another example that Ballmer’s departure would indeed be worth a nice short term bounce in the stock price.
Ballmer is sort of known as an operations guy and has indeed done well maintaining a profitable company. His problem is that he isn’t really the visionary that a tech company might need at the helm. The best example of this is Steve Jobs. While there probably isn’t another Steve Jobs, someone with more vision is probably best to be leading the company. I’m now for the replacement of Ballmer as CEO.