Ballmer was as bad as Gates (and seemed completely unhinged at times to boot), Nadella only looks good next to Ballmer but has done plenty of stuff that should have never ever happened.

All of them were present at MS when they pulled their 'millions of lines of code' bullshit in an attempt to kill Linux and harm FOSS.

As a long-time Linux user, the Nadella era looks far better. Back in the earlier eras, MS was my clear and present enemy: they did a lot of stuff to me, personally, to make my life hard because I didn't want to use their software, and tried to force me to be their customer with various tactics.

These days, that's all gone. I don't feel any pressure to use Windows, and I don't see MS doing various legal shenanigans to try to destroy Linux. I'm able to do what I want and not worry about MS much at all. It's very different from the earlier eras that way.

Instead, the difference these days seems to be that MS is the enemy of its own customers (or should I say "users"?). If you use Windows, MS will make your life hard with all this built-in malware and advertising. But if you're like me and you simply don't use Windows, you never see this stuff, except when people complain about it on forums like this, or if you have the misfortune of having to deal with a relative's PC.

Personally, I like this new era much better. I'm able to easily opt out of MS's shenanigans by simply installing Linux. When other people gripe and complain about that stuff, it falls on deaf ears here. ("but but but... I need to play $game on my PC!!!") I feel the same way as when sports fans complain about how much they're getting raped by the media companies so they can follow their favorite team.

That's a good point. Almost everything you need to do works on Linux now.

It is probably extend era

Lot of people like to troll Ballmer for his "Developers! Developers! Developers!" act, but then again you can't really get any better than being developer centric and by consequence enthusiast, power users, and professional centric.

By contrast, Gates was "Embrace! Extend! Extinguish!" and Nadella is "Data! Data! Data!"

I miss Ballmer.

I don't. All three of them were/are terrible. They just each have their own personality about it.

And yet under Nadella Windows is way more developer-centric than it ever was under previous leadership.

But under Nadella, Microsoft is far more contemptuous of users than it ever was before.

I see the Nadella era rather as the triumph of PM culture, adapted/stolen from the seemingly more competitive Google and Facebook. It's all about demonstrating increased "engagement" and the ubiquitous A/B testing because new product deltas get you promoted. It's never about maintaining 'old' stuff or providing real value - only gimmicks to catch the eye of your half-wit leadership.

If you're referring to Program Management and not Project Management... Microsoft actually created the "PM" role and popularized it.

"The PM role is unique to Microsoft and was actually created in response to developing software that is more usable and at the same time pushes the state of the art of technology. So when we talk about PM at Microsoft, we're talking from a perspective of creating and evolving the role over the lifetime of the PC industry."

https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~xwangsd/courses/w23/readings/PM%...