鲍尔默下台，微软甩掉160亿美元天价大包袱

    时至今日，我们很难对史蒂夫•鲍尔默无动于衷。一方面是因为他终于决定放弃对微软公司（Microsoft）的掌控，在担任微软CEO的13年里，鲍尔默的种种举措令投资者们感到失望；另一方面，投资者的失望最终量化成了一个具体的数字，虽然这个数字可能有些武断。事实证明，鲍尔默这么多年来一直是微软肩上一个价值高达160亿美元的大包袱。

    周五上午，微软宣布鲍尔默退休的消息后不久，公司股票便暴涨约3美元，当日收盘价比前一日的32.39美元上涨了2美元，涨幅约为6%——当天标准普尔500指数仅有小幅上涨。微软公司已发行股票为83亿股，这对投资者意味着超过160亿美元的涨幅。（值得注意的是，倍感失落的鲍尔默所得到的安慰奖可不容小视：鲍尔默名下有3.33亿股微软股票，这意味着当天他便净赚大约6.66亿美元。）

    这些并不令人感到意外。多年以来，投资者们一直对鲍尔默心怀不满，而且一直以来要求他让位的呼声也越来越高。但有两个因素使鲍尔默得以继续执掌微软。一个原因是微软联合创始人兼董事长、最大股东比尔•盖茨一直力挺鲍尔默。其次，微软公司并还没有明确的接班人。

    鲍尔默将在一年内离职，据公司方面称，这完全是鲍尔默自己的决定。鲍尔默在新闻发布会上说：“这种类型的转型永远不会有一个完美的时间节点，现在就是最佳时机。”他表示，这家软件业巨头正在努力向“设备与服务”公司转型，他希望在转型的过程中退休。不过他说：“我们需要一位能够长期执行新策略的CEO。”

    微软公司成立了一个由四人组成的特别委员会，寻找鲍尔默的继任者。作为委员会成员之一的盖茨说：“我们很幸运，史蒂夫将坚守岗位一直到新继任者上任。”

    不过，虽然盖茨和微软董事会有足够的时间来考虑微软在后鲍尔默时代的发展，但这家公司依然没有明确的继承人。今年早些时候，鲍尔默刚刚完成对公司的一次重大重组，很大程度上是希望结束公司内部各自为政的局面，或者正如鲍尔默自己所说：“将一盘散沙的微软变成同一个微软”。此次重组产生了几位有潜力的内部候选人——如负责设备与工作室部门的Windows系统元老朱莉•拉森-格林，原Skype负责人、现在负责业务开发的托尼•贝茨，以及云与企业工程部负责人萨蒂亚•纳德拉——要想参与公司最高职务的角逐，他们之间或许先要一决雌雄。

    目前还看不出微软外部谁有能力接受微软的挑战。正如梅格•惠特曼在惠普（HP）所面临的困境一样，这家行业巨头已经错过了向移动计算领域进行结构性转变的最佳时机，如今想要将其带入正轨并非易事。微软一直在努力追赶苹果（Apple）和谷歌（Google）等公司，但结果并不尽如人意。就在上个月，微软因其Surface RT损失了9亿美元。这款设备最初的目的是与iPad进行竞争，结果却未能如愿。

    微软还有时间吗？两年前，《财富》杂志（Fortune）曾发表过一篇文章，详细描写了投资者对鲍尔默时代的种种失望，其中就曾提出过这个问题。虽然微软在企业销售方面依然强劲，也有Xbox等热门消费者产品，但投资者的失望却越来越多，如今提出这个问题，显然更加尖锐。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓   

    It's hard not to feel a little bit bad for Steve Ballmer today. Not because he's finally giving up the reins at Microsoft, where his 13-year tenure as CEO has been a string of disappointments for investors, but because there's finally a figure -- arbitrary as it may be -- to measure that disappointment. Ballmer, as it turns out, has been a $16 billion drag on Microsoft.

    Shortly after Microsoft (MSFT) announced his retirement Friday morning, shares surged by nearly $3, before settling at about $2 higher than the previous close of $32.39, a roughly 6% gain -- on a day when the S&P 500 (SPX) index is barely up. With 8.3 billion shares outstanding, that represents a surge of more than $16 billion for investors. (Mind you, the consolation prize for a bruised ego is nothing to sneeze at: Ballmer, with some 333 million Microsoft shares to his name, will net about $666 million for the day.)

    None of this comes as a surprise. Investors have been unhappy with Ballmer for years and have agitated for his removal with growing frequency. Two things stood in the way. Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, chairman, and largest shareholder, stood by him. And there was no obvious successor.

    Ballmer's departure, which will become effective in the next 12 months, was voluntary, according to Microsoft. "There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time," Ballmer said in a press release. The software giant, he said, is attempting to transform itself into a "devices and services" company, and he had hoped to retire when Microsoft would be further along in that transformation. But, he said: "We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction."

    Gates, who is part of the four-member committee that will search for a replacement, said: "We're fortunate to have Steve in his role until the new CEO assumes these duties."

    But while Gates and Microsoft's board have had ample time to think about a post-Ballmer world, there is still no obvious successor. Earlier this year, Ballmer engineered a major reorganizationdesigned in part to end the company's warring fiefdoms, or as Ballmer himself put it, "to move from multiple Microsofts to one Microsoft." The reorg left a handful of potential internal candidates -- among them, Julie Larson-Green, a Windows veteran who heads devices and studio, Tony Bates, the former Skype head who is in charge of business development, and Satya Nadella, who heads cloud and enterprise -- who may have to duke it out among themselves for a shot at the top job.

    On the outside, it's not clear who has the chops to take on the challenge. As Meg Whitman's ongoing struggles at HP (HPQ) show, righting the course of an industry giant that largely missed the tectonic shift to mobile computing will not be easy. Microsoft has been trying to play catch-up to the likes of Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) for some time, but it has little to show for it. Just last month, the company took a $900 million charge on its Surface RT, a device designed to compete with the iPad that failed to deliver.

    Is it too late for Microsoft? Fortune asked that question more than two years ago in a story that detailed the disappointments of the Ballmer era. While Microsoft remains strong in enterprise sales and has a hit consumer product in the Xbox, the list of disappointments has only grown longer, and the question is more poignant than ever.