steve ballmer - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• Top tech stories of 2013: Big Brother, wearables, and the struggles of aging tech giants

  Politics collided with the world of technology this year as stories about U.S. government spying stirred angst both among the country's citizens and foreign governments, and the flawed HeathCare.gov site got American health-care reform off to a rocky start. Meanwhile, the post-PC era put aging tech giants under pressure to reinvent themselves. Here in no particular order are IDG News Service's picks for the top 10 tech stories of the year.

• Why Microsoft's next CEO will fail

  Steve Ballmer isn't necessarily a bad CEO. After all, Microsoft's on strong financial footing. But Ballmer made enough bad product decisions - Zune, Kin, Vista and perhaps Surface - to suggest that Microsoft employees, swayed by a forced-ranking employee rating system, told him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear. If that culture doesn't change, Ballmer's replacement will fare even worse than he did.

• Steve Ballmer's Departure From Microsoft Isn't News, But Timing Is

  Microsoft observers knew CEO Steve Ballmer was due to step down soon, but announcing his impending retirement weeks after an executive reorganization seems odd. With that in mind, CIO.com contributor Jonathan Hassell examines the triumphs and missteps of Ballmer's 13-year tenure in Microsoft's corner office.

• 2012: The year in quotes

  Some of the most memorable IT-related quotes were uttered in courtrooms this year, which involved a steady stream of legal challenges about intellectual property. In no particular order, these are some of the comments that stuck with us as 2012 winds to a close.

• MS Round-Up: Ballmer on Cloud 9, Office 2010 Upgrades, More

  The big news this week out of Redmondland was CEO Steve Ballmer's Cloud Manifesto at the University of Washington. Big Steve was explicit in his remarks: Microsoft is betting its future on cloud computing.