, Columnist
Don't Blame Ballmer for Microsoft's Misery
Microsoft's troubles can be traced back to a decision made long before Steve Ballmer was in charge.
This article is for subscribers only.
Outgoing Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has endured a lot of criticism for falling behind competitors such as Apple and Google. The technology juggernaut's problems, though, stem in part from a decision made long before Ballmer was in charge.
In the early 1980s, Microsoft and Apple defied the expectations of industry experts by choosing to build proprietary operating systems for personal computers, rather than relying on Unix, a system initially developed in 1969 at Bell Labs. The extremely flexible Unix, which could be adapted to any hardware, became the domain of open-source geeks. They tweaked it to produce Linux, a free operating system popular largely among network administrators and Web developers.