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There is a saying in Argentina that we have forty million soccer coaches because everyone talks like an expert while watching a soccer match.
There is a saying in Russia that if you aren't satisfied with what government officials do, go and sue them.
Well, at least someone is willing to defend Ballmer in public. Microsoft's revenue and profit increased tremendously over Ballmer's tenure. But that still doesn't make Ballmer a good CEO. The profit was mostly from continuation of monopoly products that existed before Ballmer became CEO.

What follows is a rant that I posted on the linked website:

You have neglected to discuss the many many failures Uncle Fester was responsible for.

Here’s a simple failure: Zune, the brown bar of turd. Born purely from Apple envy. Even my pre-teen children knew it was destined for failure, why couldn’t Fester figure it out? Did he surround himself with toadies who were afraid to give him honest advice? The posters at Mini-Msft seem to think so.

But it’s not just Zune, it’s obvious to the most casual observer that Microsoft can’t be trusted (in the Zune arena or in any other). Why did they abandon PlaysForSure when they introduced Zune? How could they be trusted again after doing something that stupid? Microsoft has been stabbing customers and partners in the back for decades. It continues with how Surface just stabbed all their hardware partners in the back. And still failed. To me that’s long-term failure, nothing to be proud of.

And then there’s stack ranking. Which means Microsoft can’t ever put together a team of ten star people to achieve something more than mediocrity. Because in six months only one or two of those ten will be considered a star, seven will be “meh”, and one will be in the process of being pushed out the door. What a brilliant plan for long term success. Stack ranking is almost universally despised within Microsoft, and yet Fester still thinks it’s a great idea. That’s not being tone deaf, that’s gross stupidity.

I don’t blame Fester for failing at big things, such as missing mobile. That’s something that the visionary Steve Jobs got right, but many others failed at. I blame Fester for failing at simple things that even teenagers know are stupid.

"You have neglected to discuss the many many failures Uncle Fester was responsible for....Even my pre-teen children knew it was destined for failure..."

Sure, even your pre-teen children and other arm-chair analysts would have grown revenue and earnings like Ballmer did. It's easy to say "revenue and profit increased tremendously over Ballmer's tenure" but find a thing here and there. How about wondering how bad Microsoft might have been under a different CEO? Ballmer's Microsoft might have screwed up a few things (who hasn't!) but a nice $25 Billion profit a year allows room for that.

P.S. These writers get paid to write and attract clicks : Ballmer is in the news so I am gonna fill my quota with Ballmer today.