鲍尔默留给微软的烙印

    然而，鲍尔默并不是完全只专注于企业市场。就任首席执行官后，他的首批重要决策之一，是微软是否应当借Xbox进入游戏市场。盖茨完全赞同，但鲍尔默表示他对这个产品的批准是他作为新任总裁树立威信的转折点。

    使用Xbox进军顾客的客厅？鲍尔默表示，那“是我的决定，我的责任。我相信责任。我已经入戏了，我有责任感。我会让它成功的——我并不是一定得这么做——但这一路确实并不平坦。而我要保持责任感、保持耐心、坚信我们做出的决定，这一点很重要。”

    微软娱乐和设备部门的前主管、自2001年Xbox发布首款产品便担任Xbox部门主管的罗比•巴赫回忆道，在让整个团队开始行动前，鲍尔默花了六个月时间进行彻底的业务回顾，来确定该领域对微软来说是否真的存在商机。他花了一个月时间来学习这个新角色。

    巴赫说：“他愿意闯进一个微软从未进入过的领域，看看商业模式。然后说，我们得尝试一下。”

    2000年起，微软投入了数十亿美元的资金，打算打入消费者的客厅，然后逐渐占领它。充当先锋的是一台Xbox，使用的是全新编写的非Windows型操作系统。但最后它却成为了市场领先的产品，也打开了微软进军联网电视生态系统的通道。即便当这款产品遭遇障碍——与索尼（Sony）展开价格战，导致微软的第一代产品遭遇损失；面对“三红死机”问题，微软的第二代产品在2008年亏损达10亿美元——鲍尔默依然支持团队所走的每一步，巴赫说。

    曾担任微软战略专家的技术投资家查尔斯•菲茨杰拉德表示：“Xbox曾经亏损了数十亿美元，固然令人惋惜。不过如果大家把它看作防止索尼或其他游戏主机厂商侵蚀微软在Windows个人电脑上的利益的保护手段的话，它与Windows那时获得的数千亿利润相比，不过是九牛一毛。”  

    Ballmer wasn't all business-focused, however. One of his first major decisions as CEO was whether or not Microsoft should enter the gaming market with the Xbox. Gates was all-in, but Ballmer says he considered his approval of the device to be a turning point for him to establish himself as the new chief executive.

    Getting into the living room with the Xbox? That "was my decision, my accountability," Ballmer says. "I believe in accountability. I'm in. I'm accountable. I'll make this work -- not that I had to drive it -- but we had some bumps on the road. And it was important that I stay accountable, stay patient, and stay behind the decision that we made."

    Robbie Bach, the former head of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division and head of Xbox from the launch of the original Xbox in 2001, remembers Ballmer spending six months conducting a thorough business review to determine whether there was actually opportunity for Microsoft before giving the team the go-ahead. He made the call one month into his new role.

    "He was willing to step out into a space that Microsoft had never been in, look at a business model, and say, This is something we need to try," Bach says.

    Since 2000, Microsoft has spent billions to expand in a market that has evolved to encompass the entire living room. What began as a device that used a non-Windows operating system written almost entirely from scratch has become a dominant console and entry point in the growing connected television ecosystem. Even when the console hit speed bumps -- competing on price against Sony (SNE), Microsoft took a loss on the first generation; faced with "red ring of death" console glitches, Microsoft took a billion-dollar write-off in 2008 against the second generation -- Ballmer backed the team every step of the way, Bach says.

    "It is easy to bemoan billions spent on Xbox," says Charles Fitzgerald, a former Microsoft strategist and current tech investor, "but when you look at it as a hedge to keep Sony or any game console from undermining the Windows PC, it is chump change compared to the hundreds of billions in Windows profits banked during that time."