By Nigel (Chief News Junkie)

While losing the Yahoo deal may actually be good for Microsoft (and will most probably give a boost to its stock price) it certainly doesn’t look good for the architect, Steve Ballmer. TechCrunch asks the question “Does Ballmer Need To Go?” stating that after the disaster that was Vista, Ballmer needed to redeem himself in the eyes of board. Now that Yahoo has fallen through his fingers he doesn’t look like he has much of a strategy.

‘Leave to pursue other opportunities’ 

To be honest, I think it is very unlikely that Ballmer will get the boot (sorry, ‘leave to pursue other opportunities’) because of this deal. Yahoo didn’t really put up much of a defense beyond a belief that they are worth more. Nothing that they have done in the last 3 months has given me the impression they are really going to turn the business around never mind seriously compete with Google. So if Yahoo are likely to continue to flounder then Microsoft may as well bide their time and pick them up later at a lower price. Ballmer didn’t make the one mistake that that CEOs always make which is to over-pay.

Prediction time

My prediction is Ballmer is safe until the end of the year at least. The market is currently forecasting an 80% chance that he will be there. Don’t agree, get on here: Will Steve Ballmer still be CEO of Microsoft at the end of 2008?

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