鲍尔默留给微软的烙印

    众所周知，鲍尔默性格外向，这也帮助微软达成了许多笔交易。他早期从事销售，这段经历在他开展公司谈判，尤其是任职初期解决微软面临的大量诉讼时起到了很大作用。

    鲍尔默接任首席执行官时，微软正面临美国政府和20个州激烈的反垄断起诉。多年来，盖茨的态度表明他要斗争到底，绝不和解。取代盖茨后，鲍尔默把尽快解决这些案件作为公司的头等大事。

    他说，这不是钱的问题，而是关系到公众的看法。

    鲍尔默说：“变成诉讼的靶子或被政府投诉非常尴尬，非常不舒服。它充满了负面影响。人们会认为如果政府都开始投诉你，那你肯定是有问题的。这时候你要还说‘我们公司很好、很正派、充满道德感’就很难站住脚。真的很难，就算你认为自己真的没错也无济于事。”

    把这种情况放大数倍，大家就能理解鲍尔默上任后的处境。微软的法律总顾问布拉德•史密斯回忆道，公司面临着其他20个国家的反垄断调查，加上美国40个州和哥伦比亚地区的206起集体诉讼。此外还有包括太阳微系统公司（Sun Microsystems）、美国在线（AOL）和IBM在内的12家竞争对手的一系列投诉。他说，显然，那时候公司需要分出很大一部分精力应对这些问题。

    史密斯说：“我只想说，那可能是1990年到2010年这20年间，所有大型公司需要应对的法律危机中最严峻的一次。”

    史密斯说，微软最后付出了50亿到60亿美元的和解费用（到了2005年，大多数官司都已经了结。）鲍尔默的务实观念、交际能力和冷静态度——对，你没看错——是解决这个问题的关键。

    史密斯说：“史蒂夫有着高超的人际交往能力。我认为他总是有能力与他人交往，倾听别人的想法。我认为，在领导微软销售团队的那些年，他的这些技能得到了充分的磨练。因此，在就任首席执行官的第一年，他就凭借这种独一无二的能力，经受住了这样的考验。”  

    Ballmer's notoriously outgoing personality also helped Microsoft strike deals. His early career experience in sales translated well during corporate negotiations, particularly in assisting the company to settle the numerous lawsuits that faced the company early in his tenure.

    When Ballmer took over as CEO, Microsoft was in the midst of fighting a bitter antitrust complaint brought against the company in 1998 by the U.S. government and 20 states. For several years, Gates' attitude suggested that he would rather fight the claims than settle; upon replacing Gates, Ballmer made it a top priority for the company to put the cases behind it as quickly as possible.

    It was less about the cost and more about public perception, he says.

    "Being the object of a lawsuit, effectively, or a complaint from your government is a very awkward, uncomfortable position to be in," Ballmer says. "It just has all downside. People assume if the government brought a complaint that there's really a problem, and your ability to say we're a good, proper, moral place is tough. It's actually tough, even though you feel that way about yourselves."

    Multiply that several times over and you get a sense of what Ballmer inherited. Brad Smith, Microsoft's General Counsel, recalls that the company was facing antitrust investigations in 20 other countries, plus 206 additional class-action lawsuits against Microsoft in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Add to that another set of complaints pending from 12 competitors, including Sun Microsystems, AOL (AOL) and IBM (IBM), and it's clear that the company had a major distraction on its hands, he said.

    "I would just say it was probably the biggest sort of legal overhang that any major company really had to address between say probably 1990 and 2010, in that 20-year period," Smith says.

    Settling the cases ended up costing Microsoft between $5 billion and $6 billion, Smith says. (By 2005, most of the settlements were finalized.) Ballmer's pragmatism, his relationship-building skills and his sense of calm -- yes, you read that correctly -- were all key to getting it done, Smith says.

    "Steve has great interpersonal skills," Smith says. "I think he's always had this ability to connect with other people, to listen to other people, and I think those skills were well-honed in the years that he led the sales force for Microsoft. And so he was able to bring a unique set of skills that were put to the test as CEO in his first year of doing this."