Microsoft: What’s Next After CEO Ballmer Retires?

Company executives come and go, and as with the case of Microsoft‘s CEO Steve Ballmer, the retirement is slightly unexpected or too early. Ballmer has been at the helm of Microsoft for the last 13 years and has made a lot of changes for Microsoft.

Just as the biggest leaps & reorganizations are happening, his retirement is announced to happen in the next 12 months. Within that time frame, we’re also expecting huge efforts for their products, especially in the smartphone and tablet market.

Microsoft Windows might be the product to inject hope in the company that’s facing a lot of competition. The 8.1 ‘Blue’ update is coming very soon (which brings a lot of improvements), but the rest just makes everyone doubt the company right now; manufacturers & customers are moving away from Windows RT, Nokia’s the only thing keeping Windows Phone alive, and the Xbox One didn’t have the most marvelous launch either.

So what’s the future for Microsoft? We all know it has been very shaky (*cough* Vista *cough*), but what’s next? In fact, we don’t even know who the next CEO will be. It’s dark. And mysterious.

With that mystery however, it leaves us wondering; what could Microsoft possibly do next? What if you were the one to decide for the Redmond company? What would you do? They’ve changed their logos & their products dramatically already and whether that would work is yet to be seen in future numbers.

The said elements aren’t the major things that keep the company alive though. Microsoft gets most of its income from its business and server divisions; Windows Phone & Surface tablets won’t make the biggest differences whether if they fail or not… at least not yet.

“Microsoft is running late in a race that needs to be won.”

The tech industry is now focusing on mobile computing, whether you call it the Post-PC era or not, it still bares the same essence – we’re going mobile, and we’re going cloud.

That doesn’t mean to say though that we’re leaving our big stationary desktops. What I’m saying is that Microsoft is running late in a race that needs to be won – which is most likely why Windows Phone needs to be that 3rd OS option as it goes against BlackBerry, why Microsoft won’t give on RT just that easily and why they want YOU to be in their ecosystem (Bing, IE, Windows, SkyDrive, Office & so on).

“The company needs to get better at mobile, and it needs a brighter future.”

Would a notification center for Windows Phone help? Should they abandon RT? Should they create more new product lines like smartwatches & glasses? What would you do to attract more developers?

There are a lot of questions for the tech giant right now, and the struggle for relevance in the tech industry is tight. If Microsoft doesn’t do anything worth applauding to compliment their visions now and improve their hold on the mobile industry, the future will only get more uncertain.

You may also want to read “Can Android take over the desktop space?“.

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