Well, he has a dozen years experience doing it. He brought about the IPO. He's been the business partner for thirty years. Who would be more qualified?
Well, if majority shareholders put in a crony that hurts the company as a whole but benefits those few shareholders personally (as could be argued to maybe be the Ballmer case) - then that is currently illegal and can be attacked in court by any minority shareholder.
I'll give you he's not the most incompetent CEO out there, but turning the Microsoft he received from Gates into something that's "still afloat" is not that much impressive.
Microsoft is losing the new operating system war in a big, BIG way. Just because the boat is still afloat doesn't mean it's not rotting below the water line.
Sure but they have their R&D arm and they easily have enough cash to acquire upcoming companies. Granted of course, they will need to be smart enough to spin money out of those things but they aren't in a dreadful position like Kodak was.
I would not be so sure about that. I know a lot of people who like Windows 8 and others eager to get a Windows 8 tablet Pro(Intel). The one OS across different devices could turn out to be a powerful choice.
My experience is the opposite. The reaction I see to Win8 is a lot more negative than the reaction to Vista. They are all power users though, or former power users considering that none of us can figure out how to do basic tasks in Win8.
Being a college buddy of one of the founders hardly qualifies someone to run a multibillion dollar company.