《财富》经典回顾（2004）：鲍尔默往事（节选）

    史蒂夫•鲍尔默一直名声在外。他身材魁梧，总爱夸夸其谈，一直都是典型的“煽动型”领袖，极富传奇色彩。鲍尔默与他的好朋友——书生气的比尔•盖茨——简直是绝配。在公司活动上，他通过夸张的滑稽动作调动微软（Microsoft）员工士气的故事举不胜举：几年前，他曾在一次销售会议上表演过蹩脚的猴子舞。事后，难以置信的微软反对者们纷纷将他跳舞的视频发到了网上；他还曾因为喊口号太用力而把嗓子喊破，最终不得不接受声带修复手术；为了让大家发笑、畅所欲言，鲍尔默还曾扮演过一名草裙舞女和二手车销售员。鲍尔默会一边对跟在身后的助手咆哮着发布命令，一边拍手。在微软总部，只要突然响起断断续续的拍手声，人们就能知道鲍尔默就在附近。而且，他是第一个承认“拍桌官”这个称呼非常适合自己的人。

    在超过20年时间里，鲍尔默一直是比尔•盖茨面前的红人。不论是在上世纪80年代担任Windows软件开发团队的负责人，90年代作为全球销售与营销部门负责人，还是担任总裁期间，他这种聒噪的性格对他自己和微软都产生了良好的效果。微软在崛起的过程中形成了“不留活口”的企业文化，鲍尔默在其中发挥了重要作用。随着微软的崛起，鲍尔默多次成为亿万富翁。从盖茨任命鲍尔默为公司CEO以来，鲍尔默在这四年时间里的表现出人意料。你肯定预想过更煽动人心的表现，而且鲍尔默也确实有这样的一面。但与此同时，是鲍尔默带领微软度过了科技泡沫破灭（互联网泡沫破灭三个月前，盖茨完成了与鲍尔默的交接，真是完美的时机）。虽然其他IT公司纷纷收缩，微软却持续增长，经营利润始终保持在惊人的35%以上。

    更重要的是，鲍尔默给微软打上了自己的烙印。经过第一年的尝试之后，他启动了一项系统活动，彻底重新编写了微软公司的“操作系统”。他所接手的公司一直靠着比尔•盖茨自己摸索着前进，公司过度集中，笨拙不堪。于是，鲍尔默将微软分成七个经营部门，将决策与责任分给不同的部门——每个部门都有自己的损益表。与此同时，他个人则负责监督公司流程的制定，从产品开发到战略规划，再到员工和管理层评估，以及公司使命与价值观等软性事务，将微软的所有工作系统化。他彻底修改了公司的薪酬方案，去年更是取消了股票期权，令整个科技界为之震惊。他还下令启动应急项目，以应对互联网安全和垃圾邮件。这些工作都在进行当中，但在公司下决心彻底改革的两年以后，微软那群咋咋呼呼、桀骜不驯的天才们也发生了变化，他们的行事风格变得更成熟稳重。

    如今，要说微软还需要什么，那就是钢铁般的纪律。最近几个月，公司收益增长速度减缓到个位数；虽然2003年纳斯达克总体上涨49%，但微软股票却依旧表现平平。这家公司面临史上最激烈的竞争挑战。Linux操作系统和其他所谓的开源软件（鲍尔默喜欢将它们统称为“免费软件”）不仅威胁到微软的统治地位，同时压低了所有软件的价格。与此同时，IBM正在推广这样一种理念，即世界级的信息系统需要大量的照料和维护，形式便是软件集成与定制、咨询和外包服务。作为Linux和IT服务价值的最大支持者，IBM肯定想修改游戏规则，打破微软在软件界的统治地位。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Steve Ballmer is a man whose reputation exceeds him. Barrel- chested and bombastic, he's always been the quintessential, larger-than-life, rah-rah leader, and the perfect foil for his geeky and erudite best buddy, Bill Gates. Stories abound of his over-the-top antics rallying Microsoft's troops at corporate events: There was the infamous Monkey-Boy dance he performed at a sales meeting a few years ago, which prompted dozens of incredulous Microsoft bashers to post choppy videoclips of his cavortings on the web; or the surgery he endured to repair blown-out vocal cords resulting from a bout of unrestrained cheerleading; or the outlandish hula-girl and used-car-salesman costumes he gleefully donned to get a laugh and make a point. On the Microsoft campus, you can always tell he's approaching by his sharp, punctuating claps as he barks orders to a subordinate trailing behind. And he's the first to admit that in his case, "table pounder" is literally apt.

    That noisy behavior served Ballmer--and Microsoft--quite well over more than two decades as Bill's go-to guy, whether it was as leader of the Windows software development team in the 1980s, as chief of worldwide sales and marketing in the 1990s, or in his stint as president. Ballmer had a big hand in shaping Microsoft's take-no-prisoners corporate culture during its meteoric rise, which made him a billionaire several times over. The surprise is what he's done in the four years since Gates made him CEO. You'd have expected more rabble-rousing, and there's been plenty of that. Yet at the same time Ballmer has steered Microsoft through the tech bust (Gates, with impeccable timing, made the handoff just three months before the dot-com bubble burst). Even as the rest of IT shrank, Microsoft continued to grow and to maintain prodigious operating profits of more than 35%.

    More important, Ballmer has put his stamp on the company. After an admittedly tentative first year as CEO, he embarked on a methodical campaign to rewrite Microsoft's corporate "operating system" from top to bottom. He's taken an unwieldy, overcentralized company that flew by the seat of Bill Gates' pants, and broken it into seven operating divisions to push decision-making and accountability out into the organization--each unit has its own P&L. At the same time, he has personally overseen the creation of a playbook of procedures to systematize everything Microsoft does, from product development to strategic planning to employee and management evaluation, as well as softer things like the company's mission and values. He has completely revamped the compensation plan, and last year eliminated stock options altogether in a move that stunned the tech world. He has ordered up crash projects to tackle Internet security and spam. It's all a work in progress, but two years after the overhaul began in earnest, Microsoft is beginning to behave like a grownup company instead of a raucous, runaway Mensa meeting.

    And if there's one thing Microsoft needs now, it's steely discipline. In recent months revenue growth has slowed to single digits; despite the Nasdaq's 49% run-up in 2003, Microsoft stock stayed flat. The company is facing its biggest competitive challenge ever. The Linux operating system and other so-called open-source programs--Ballmer prefers to call them "free software"--threaten not only to make inroads into Microsoft's dominance but also to drive down the prices of all software. IBM, meanwhile, is doing everything it can to advance the perception that world-class information systems require lots of care and feeding, in the form of software integration and customization, consulting, and outsourced services. As the chief proponent both of Linux and of the value of IT services, Big Blue would like nothing better than to change the rules of the game and relegate Microsoft to being just another software company.