鲍尔默留给微软的烙印

    史蒂夫•鲍尔默担任微软（Microsoft）总裁已经十几年。期间，他的形象并不总能反映现实情况，而在他的卸任前夕，这一点体现得前所未有的明显。

    任何看过他在会议上讲话【或电视屏幕上的形象：他在今年的动画连续剧《南方公园》（South Park）中以漫画形象出场】的人都知道，鲍尔默是一位有着传奇色彩的人物。在公众眼中，他傲慢、无理，有时候近乎粗鲁。对大多数人而言，他的言行举止比他的管理水平更加出名。

    不过细看之下，你会发现真正的史蒂夫•鲍尔默在就任微软首席执行官期间做出了一系列不为人知的战略决定。他的接班人入主这家位于华盛顿州雷德蒙德的公司之后的很长一段时间内，这些决定依然会对这家公司和这个行业产生影响。

    比如，是鲍尔默在2000年1月就任时总裁决定优先处理公司面对的数百起反垄断、集体诉讼和其他法律诉讼。是鲍尔默在2001年力挺微软进军用户的客厅，推动Xbox游戏主机业务的开展。鲍尔默是让微软蜕变为企业服务公司的关键人物，他很早就意识到了招徕IT工程师在财务和战略上的重要性。鲍尔默还把微软公司的严谨作风带到了一个新的高度，砍掉了大量无法证实自身盈利能力的产品和业务部门。

    公平地说，鲍尔默也在公开场合多次承认他对Longhorn项目监管不力。这个工程项目拖延数载，最终以Windows Vista操作系统的形式登场，结果却饱受诟病。不过在最近接受《财富》采访时，他坚称在任职总裁的13年间，他所做出的正确决策要多于错误的判断。

    我们不妨先来算算金钱帐：在鲍尔默的领导下，微软的利润实现翻番，而收入达到了之前的三倍。鲍尔默最近在他雷德蒙德的办公室跟我座谈、同时也有可能是他作为首席执行官的最后一次采访时说：“过去的五年中，苹果（Apple）也许比我们赚得更多。但在过去的13年中，我打赌我们赚的钱比这个星球上的任何人都要多。坦白地说，这是我引以为豪的资本。”

    微软在盈利过程中也碰到过挫折。比如，微软在2007年以60亿美元的价格收购了在线广告公司aQuantive。五年后，由于无法利用其产品和服务，微软不得不进行62亿美元的非现金资产减记。此外，微软在2008年收购了移动服务公司Danger，然而借此开发的微软Kin系列手机在市场上只存活了很短的时间。

    还有几次差点达成的收购。比如微软于2008年出价450亿美元收购雅虎（Yahoo），最终交易并未达成。但是也有几次交易确实获得了成功。比如微软2008年以12亿美元收购了FAST Search & Transfer，并将其技术与微软盈利颇丰的SharePoint的企业搜索技术进行了整合。另一个案例是微软2002年以15亿美元收购了Navision，最终把它变成了如今蒸蒸日上的企业资源规划业务Dynamics ERP的核心产品。

    鲍尔默问道：“我们的收购决定大部分是不是都不错？答案是肯定的。我们的收购决定大部分确实都很好。我们在FAST上花了十亿，赚了不少钱。我们在Dynamics上进行了两笔收购，每一笔花费刚过十亿——相信我，它们看起来真的不错。其中一些收购花了稍微长一点的时间才开始起到效果。收购aQuantive呢？显然那不是一次成功的收购。但是它在微软内部反响还行，因为它不只是关于收购成本和价格，还达到了收购的战略目的。这方面我们一直做得很好。”  

    On the eve of his exit as chief executive officer of Microsoft, after more than a decade on the job, it is more evident than ever that Steve Ballmer's image does not always reflect reality.

    As anyone who has ever seen him speak at a conference (or portrayed on television, as he was in cartoon form on the animated series South Park this year) knows, Ballmer is a larger-than-life kind of guy. His public persona is brash, bombastic, and, at times, bordering on boorish. To most people, he is known more for his manner than his management.

    But look closely, and you'll notice that the real Steve Ballmer is responsible for making a handful of largely unsung strategic decisions during his tenure as CEO of Microsoft (MSFT) that will continue to affect the company and industry long after a new leader takes the helm of the Redmond, Wash.-based company.

    For example, it was Ballmer who made it a priority to settle the hundreds of antitrust, class-action, and other lawsuits facing the company when he was appointed chief executive in January 2000. It was Ballmer who championed Microsoft's foray into the living room, starting in 2001 with the Xbox gaming console. Ballmer was key to Microsoft evolving into an enterprise powerhouse, grasping early the financial and strategic importance of courting IT professionals. Ballmer also brought a new level of business rigor to the company, which led to it shedding a number of products and business units that couldn't demonstrate their "monetizability."

    To be fair, Ballmer has admitted publicly and repeatedly that he goofed badly with managing and overseeing Longhorn, the delayed engineering project which ultimately debuted as the ill-received Windows Vista operating system. But in a recent interview with Fortune, he adamantly insisted he got more right than wrong during the 13 years he ran Microsoft.

    Starting with money: Under Ballmer, Microsoft's profits doubled, revenues tripled. "In the last five years, probably Apple (AAPL) has made more money than we have," Ballmer says during a sit-down in his office in Redmond, in what's expected to be his final press interview as CEO. "But in the last 13 years, I bet we've made more money than almost anybody on the planet. And that, frankly, is a great source of pride to me."

    There have been missteps along the way to those profits. Like Microsoft's $6 billion acquisition in 2007 of the online ad firm aQuantive, on which the company took a $6.2 billion write-down five years later after failing to capitalize on its products and services. Or the purchase of mobile services company Danger in 2008, which spawned the short-lived Microsoft Kin family of mobile phones.

    There were some close calls, too, such as Microsoft's scrapped purchase of Yahoo (YHOO) for $45 billion in 2008. But there have been several decisions that did pan out. One of those was FAST Search & Transfer, which Microsoft bought in 2008 for $1.2 billion and integrated into the enterprise search technology at the heart of Microsoft's very profitable SharePoint family. Another was Navision a/s, which the company bought in 2002 for $1.5 billion and ultimately turned into the heart of its now thriving Dynamics ERP business.

    "Have we made mostly good acquisitions?" Ballmer asks, rhetorically. "The answer is yes. We really have made mostly good acquisitions. We spent a billion dollars on FAST; we make good money. Dynamics, we did two acquisitions, each just over a billion -- believe you me, they look really good. Some of them take a little longer to kick in. The aQuantive acquisition? Obviously not a good acquisition. But in the company we were, it's about acquiring in addition to managing costs and getting price. And we have been very good at that."