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Jason Stamper's Blog
Sorry Business 2.0, but Schwartz and Ballmer still matter
July 19, 2006
Business 2.0 magazine just published a list of "10 people who don’t matter", including Sun's relatively new CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, as well as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. We couldn't help but smile, seeing as a couple of weeks back we published our annual 'CBR 10 Special Report' in print and online, which among other lists includes a ranking of the 10 Most Influential Movers and Shakers. Guess what -- we put Schwartz at number one, and Ballmer at number four.
The US business and economics academic Louis Boone once said, "Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things." It was in that vein that CBR produced its first 'CBR 10 Special Report' four years ago - published to coincide with the magazine's tenth anniversary.
That marked the first time that instead of ranking technology vendors objectively by quantitative metrics alone such as revenue or profitability, we instead ranked them subjectively, picking the vendors and personalities that our writers believed held the most influence in their various sectors at that time.
We clearly have a very different set of criteria to Business 2.0, and you can see our full list of the 10 Most Influential Movers & Shakers here, as well as our justification for the rankings.
But we'd also be happy to hear what you have to say on the matter -- who is nearer to the mark in your opinion, CBR or Business 2.0? Hit the comment button below…
Comments
Hi Jason - not been over for a while... busy bee. Anyway - yes - the whole things was pretty tasteless. Who said the media was about taste though?
I will say that Ballmer has been demonstrating a long streak of cluelessness re: business apps recently. Out of touch? Does that equate to relevance? It does if you believe the software game is a fashion industry for geeky boys.
Hi Dennis
Hear! Hear! [and thanks to the reader who pointed out previous typo ;-)]
Regarding Ballmer my take is that he is more of an implementer of strategy than the guy with the big vision of where the company should be headed from a technology perspective. That was/is Bill's role as far as I can work out, so if there have been technology mistakes they belong at Bill's door. But if you look simply at the financials, you get the distinct impression that Ballmer is still quite good at running a company, in my view....
I agree that the enterprise apps fiasco has been embarassing - I think I wrote in a recent report something along the lines of, "Only recently has its enterprise applications business had even a semblance of cohesion". Interestingly we interviewed Great Plains' CEO each year after his company was acquired, and each time when we asked whether there would be integration between his and the other enterprise apps businesses or other Microsoft technology he had to keep saying "not yet, but soon". We got the impression he was frustrated at the lack of attention paid to that side of the company's business.
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