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AnchorDesk Staff
MORE NEWS: Why Ballmer's 'monkey boy' dance was a tour de force

AnchorDesk Staff
ZDNet AnchorDesk
Friday, August 24, 2001
TalkBack!Add your opinion
There he was, Steve Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, up on stage in all his resplendent glory, skipping around like a certifiable nut job.

"Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Come on, get up, get up...come onnnnn! Whooo, Whoo!" Ballmer screamed to the Microsoft faithful, working himself into a frenzy as Gloria Estefan's "Get on Your Feet" blared over the loudspeakers. "Come on, give it up for me...whooo, whooo!"

AFTER 40 SECONDS of jumping around, Ballmer finally wound up his monkey dance and settled behind the lectern to catch his staggered breath.

"I have four words for ya," he said, breathing heavily. (I thought he was about to say, "Get me a doctor!") But ever the inspirational leader, he gave the audience what it wanted.

"I...love...this...company...yessssssss!"

Wild applause.

THAT CLIP made for some interesting watercooler talk in cubicles up and down Silicon Valley as it circulated around the Internet. Even the CNBC television network picked it up, surely leading some investors to inquire whether really potent ganja was being smoked by certain denizens of the Redmond, Wash., region.

A few days later, another clip of Ballmer made its way through cyberspace, this time showing him addressing a developers conference.

Clapping his hands in rhythm, Ballmer, drenched in sweat, strutted back and forth to an increasingly throaty reception from the audience:

"Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers," he repeated, working himself into near catatonia "Yes!!!"

NOW, IT'S EASY for armchair wisenheimers to shake their heads and cluck on about whether it's fitting for the CEO of the world's largest independent software company to conduct himself in public like a cheerleader stuck in perennial hyperdrive.

He's not well.

They're all a bunch of Moonies.

My CEO wouldn't do that.

Yeah, well, that's the point. Your CEO wouldn't do that, and that's probably one reason why your company's stock price is plummeting to new lows while yet another round of layoffs is in the works. Mock Ballmer all you want, but the passion of Microsoft's CEO hints at a larger truth about the software maker.

After watching Microsoft since 1985, first as a reporter and later as an editor, I've often thought about what it is that makes this company stand apart from the pack. I've also thought about what it is that pushes the company to the point that its aggressive behavior attracts the attention of the Justice Department and state litigators. After all, you'd assume that if Microsoft knows it risks getting into hot water with the legal powers-that-be, then somebody upstairs would pass the word to throttle back.

BUT THE GENIUS OF MICROSOFT is that it doesn't throttle back, that its leadership is so driven by a flat-out, win-all-the-marbles mentality, that this is not just software. It's about a lot more than that. For Ballmer and his boss, Bill Gates, it's surely about more than the money. Hell, after you pass the $1 billion point in net worth--something both execs did years ago--how many more cars do you want to collect? How much better can you eat? How many other houses do you want to buy?

This is about securing their place in history. In the same way that biographers and economic historians have devoted their attentions to John D. Rockefeller and the amazing oil trust he built by the turn of the last century, future scholars will do the same when they examine this part of the history of the computer industry and the role played by Microsoft.

I recall being amused by a lot of the commentary after the breakup order handed down by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson last year, suggesting that Microsoft had now been permanently neutered. Somebody obviously forgot to tell Gates and Ballmer, because in the past 12 months, Microsoft has boldly continued laying the groundwork for its biggest gambit ever.

ON FRIDAY, Microsoft will deliver Windows XP to PC makers, daring government critics to make good on their sotto voce threat to stop the company from aggregating even more goodies into the operating system. All this against the backdrop of the rollout of .Net and (sometime down the road) HailStorm, which, if successful, will put untold power into Microsoft's hands.

It's an ambitious program. It's still too early to predict whether Microsoft will succeed. Surely, IBM and Sun Microsystems, among others, will have something to say about how best to deliver Web services. And maybe the government will intercede after all and block XP from its scheduled Oct. 25 debut unless Microsoft decouples certain features from the OS.

But like Microsoft or not, the unsated appetite of this company is a testament to the ability and drive of the folks running the show. In business, like in war, half-measures don't make it. And when you go into battle, it helps if the true believers are in command.

What do you think of Ballmer's antics? Inspirational, or just plain nutty? TalkBack to me.

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