¿Sabías que la Microsoft se llamaba al principio Micro-Soft?
El genio de marketing que tiene la ya famosa empresa del estado de Washington, Steve Ballmer, que baila la "salsa" como un oso ruso, sin gracia ninguna, es en realidad la pieza clave en esta empresa. Sin él, la Microsoft se hubiera llamado Micro-Soft, que fue como la bautizaron Paul Allen y Bill Gates. Nombre que llevaba en esta variedad del mismo, la debilidad de sus productos.
El Ballmer, o como yo le llamo, "el calvo de la Microsoft", al graduarse de Harvard, en donde conoció a Gates, quien no se graduó, fue a trabajar durante cuatro años a la prestigiosa empresa internacional Procter & Gamble, de jefe de ventas. Luego, su amigo universitario de Business School, Gates, lo llamó para que formara parte del equipo Allen-Gates y les ayudara a vender los pocos productos que en el 1980 Micro-Soft producía. Para mi, Ballmer, siempre será el que le puede vender hielo a los esquimales, y el que para él la tecnología no es más fascinante que una pastilla de jabón Palmolive de las que el vendía en toneladas métricas con contratos restrictivos para sus clientes preferidos, de precios garantizados con suministrador exclusivo, de igual esquema a los que siguió haciendo con Gates, y prueba de lo cual, ahí está la historia de la enormidad de juicios en contra de Microsoft por violación de la ley enmienda antimonopolio de los EE.UU.
He aquí, lo que otro piensa sobre este insigne hombre del siglo XX-XXI.
Si por si acaso la CRN elimina el html link, les copio el artículo aquí debajo.
Llamarle Patton, el general estadounidense de la segunda guerra mundial, a Ballmer, es igual que llamarle Atila El Huno. Por donde pisaba el caballo de Atila, no volvía a crecer la yerba.
Por donde aplastaban los tanques de Patton, no quedaba alemán nazi vivo.
Y por donde Ballmer pasaba la aplanadora de sus contratos de software en bulto exclusivistas a la Dell y demás camaradas del negocio de la ordenadora personal del tipo IBM, no podía competir nadie más. Así de brutal es este hombre genial. Para él la guerra del mercado, es la guerra. punto.
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General Patton of Software"[Steve Ballmer is] the marketing genius behind that company"
--Jeffrey Tarter, editor, Softletter
Nobody livens up a room like Steve Ballmer.
For one thing, he is loud. And animated. And insightful. And technically proficient. He pounds the table. He wreaks havoc with the whiteboard. He is a reporter's dream, because--as they say in the business--he is "a good quote man."
The loudness became an issue when he blew out his vocal chords a few years back, prompting surgery and an extended period of enforced silence. He seems back in fine fettle now, though.
Ballmer, executive vice president of sales and support for software behemoth Microsoft Corp., is known for his ability to work up a lather on many subjects. He has been dubbed Bill Gates' enforcer and "the General Patton of Software."
Gates may grace the cover of every magazine these days, but Ballmer is the one credited with spearheading Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft's move into the value-added channel and for coming up with most of the branding and pricing strategies that have made Microsoft the software kingpin it is today.
He has been likened--in these very pages--to Albert Einstein, Elmer Gantry and the Tasmanian Devil. There are many stories about the terror and inspiration he has wrought with his schpiels.
At the recent The Robinson-Humphrey Co. Inc./CRN conference just two months ago, channel and vendor executives had droned on ad nauseum about the need to get to build-to-order. But it was Ballmer who had the audience in stitches with his summation that went something like this: "Channel assembly, blah, blah, blah. Re-engineering the supply chain, blah, blah, blah. Build-to-order, blah, blah, blah."
He started the presentation with three slides. At the end, he was still on the first--a refreshing break from the other executives who seem tied with psychic umbilical chords to their canned presentations, their foils.
The energy is inspirational, or daunting, depending on the beholder. "There are people who think of him as Darth Vader," says Jeffrey Tarter, editor of SoftLetter, a Watertown, Mass.-based newsletter. Many of these are competitors. Or woebegone Microsoft employees after a particularly painful session.
Ballmer has deflated many a product group by insisting they stick to the real issues, not the marketing blather they often come in with. One source close to Microsoft says Ballmer is known for encouraging, or forcing "push back."
He's the epitome of a Marine Corps drill sergeant. Except that he wants the subject of his tirade to fight back. To justify, to push further.
Forbes pegs his wealth at about $3.7 billion, and he's been on its list of the "400 Richest People in America" for seven years. And yet, in one meeting with the media, reporters couldn't help but notice, as he put his feet on his desk, the holes in the soles of his shoes. "He doesn't care about stuff like that, which is really kind of admirable," said one of the journalists.
In Ballmer's case, success derives both from inspiration and perspiration. No one gets as energized as Ballmer. He is famous for his high-decibel, content-rich meetings. He also is noted for his self-described "spongelike" ability to gather information, synthesize and make use of it.
He was also "Mr. Windows."
"Steve really was the guy behind Windows. He was on the Windows 1 team and was also the chief keeper of the IBM [Corp.] relationship, which he called 'dancing with the bear,' " says one source close to Microsoft who has known Ballmer for years.
Ballmer is credited with building Microsoft's sales organization and with laying the groundwork for its seemingly invincible Windows franchise.
Many remember the mock commercial Ballmer made for the early Windows release. There he was dressed in a cheesy sports coat, touting Windows in Ronco Popeil pocket fisherman mode. As in: "It includes a graphical interface! Now how much would you pay? Don't answer. . . ." That commercial message was perfectly suited to Ballmer's infectious energy and drive, say friends and enemies.
Ballmer, back in the days when Microsoft had a few hundred employees--it now has more than 20,000--charged up and motivated the beleaguered Windows effort. In the Windows 1 days, the team was very late on delivery and Ballmer moved in with the Interactive Systems Group, where the developers were hard at work, says Paul Davis, a team member at the time and now with WRQ Inc., the connectivity software maker in Seattle.
Davis remembers the day Ballmer taped the famous mock Windows commercial, pieces of which were shown at the August 1995 Windows 95 launch. It was a Saturday morning, and the team had to be at the studio early, very early. "I was so astonished to see that Steve could pump out that much energy, that much enthusiasm, when I could barely carry my coffee," Davis says.
Many in and close to Microsoft credit Ballmer with being an important reality check and a gatherer of information. Gates, they say, relies heavily on both the data Ballmer gathers, and his opinion. It is clear from conversations with Gates that Ballmer is more than a colleague. In fact, in contentious interviews, Gates visibly relaxes, even beams, when asked about his old friend. The two attended Harvard together back in the late '70s. Ballmer graduated. Gates did not--he left to start a business with Paul Allen.
Gates clearly understood early on that a company has to build an industry around its products and create opportunities for third parties to get them on the bandwagon, says the insider. This was a huge leap from the old IBM model, where the company thrived on its direct-sales force.
Former Microsoft vice president Scott Oki gets credit for establishing the Microsoft retail beachhead and for building its international presence. But Ballmer made the jump to value-added opportunities.
Ballmer is sometimes pigeonholed as "the sales guy," and he does spend a lot of his time on the road, doing his self-proclaimed "shtick." But he does a lot more. Remember, this was the guy who got Windows 1 out the door. "The notion that Ballmer is the rah-rah king of Microsoft really underestimates his role," says Tarter. "He's the marketing genius behind that company. [He comes up with] the branding, the pricing, These are things Bill Gates neither knows or cares about."
The vigor with which Ballmer throws himself into projects is legendary.
A few years ago, he decided he wanted to "get close to VARs" and in so doing see what channel opportunities were going untapped. To do so, Ballmer started commuting to Phoenix to work with the field office there. Out of that gig emerged Microsoft's recent DirectAccess program, aimed at finding and identifying a new segment of the channel, now dubbed Value Added Providers, and ensuring that the company tailored a program for them. That offering became Microsoft's Small Business Server, an amalgam of Windows NT, BackOffice applications, plus modem pooling and fax serving capabilities.
Ballmer attacked the problem with characteristic zeal, flying to Phoenix often, overseeing the creation of a database of the so-called VAPs, by advertising in the local paper, merging "every list we could find." With equally characteristic color, Ballmer adds: "We hemorrhaged for that database."
Friends and foes often mention Ballmer's ability to listen, to take in information.
Doug Hamilton, president of Hamilton Laboratories, a Sudbury, Mass.-based ISV, can attest to that. He was a one-person shop, specializing in Unix and OS/2 tools at the time, but starting to work on a Windows NT version. A few years back at Comdex, Hamilton encountered Ballmer off the show floor where the latter was working on a presentation.
"I said hello and expected he'd just nod. But he said hello to me by name, invited me to chat. He knew my product, knew where I was. He knew all about me." Hamilton, a one-man operation, was shocked. Especially since he'd been doing OS/2 work for years, and the IBM executives had no idea who he was.
"That's the stark contrast between the companies. IBM always conveyed that they couldn't be bothered with me and at the other end, Ballmer knew all about me because they make it their business. People say Microsoft is so successful because it's predatory or evil. It's not that at all. It's just that these people work really, really hard," he said.
And no one at the software giant, or so it appears, works harder than Steve Ballmer.
Este es mi primer blog en castellano que hago público.
