Steve Ballmer’s report card: “Could do better”
Steve Ballmer received only half the potential bonus he stood to make in Microsoft’s latest fiscal year, though the pay-out was still in line with the “target bonus” the company had set for him.
The message from the Microsoft board: despite successes like the Kinect and a breakthrough deal with Nokia, under Mr Ballmer’s leadership the company is still falling short in the all-important smartphone and tablet markets.
Is the US ready for a Chinese Yahoo?
A leading US online media and communications firm owned and controlled from mainland China?
That spectre was raised on Friday by Jack Ma, head of Alibaba, as he announced his interest in buying Yahoo. After all the angst caused by US internet companies venturing into China in recent years, his declaration raises the possibility of an interesting reversal.
Counting the cost of the last HP CEO
Hewlett-Packard is getting more stingy with its CEO pay and benefits, according to a regulatory filing made late on Thursday. Given what it has just cost the company for 11 months’ service from Léo Apotheker – up to $33m, by our calculations – this should come as some relief for its long-suffering shareholders.
Autonomy’s Mike Lynch gets the Oracle treatment
You have to hand it to Oracle, it never misses a chance to humiliate its rivals in public.
On Wednesday it was the turn of Mike Lynch, the founder of Autonomy. His provocation? To have publicly denied that he tried to “shop” his company to Oracle before eventually selling to Hewlett-Packard. (This has now turned into a “he said, she said” – see updates, below)
iPhone 5, minus the master
How important has Steve Jobs’ famous reality distortion field been to Apple’s ability to shape perceptions of its new products – and persuade avid buyers to line up round the block to get their hands on them?
With next week’s unveiling of the iPhone 5, which has just been confirmed, we will get the first chance to see what a big Apple product launch feels like without the company’s guiding spirit.
HP’s board puts leadership back on the agenda
Hewlett-Packard’s executive suite looks like it’s in line for another upheaval: as the FT’s Joseph Menn reports, the company is considering showing CEO Léo Apotheker the door after less than a year.
But with all the comings and goings at the top, the company’s boardroom might be a better place to look to if the cycle of dysfunction is to end.
Google cleans house
A quiet Friday afternoon at the end of summer is the perfect time to kill off a batch of under-performing internet services: with any luck, most users won’t even notice.
Late last Friday, Facebook dispatched its daily deals service and Google shut down most of the applications it acquired with Slide. Now Google is at it again, throwing ten more failed experiments onto the junk heap of internet history.
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