Before Ballmer, Microsoft was a company that had accomplished the incredible, world-changing feat of democratizing computing, bringing a PC into every household and on every office desk, and generally changing the way people think about using computers in their daily lives.

After Ballmer, Microsoft is yet another directionless corporate shitshow that has found out that selling enterprise shlockware to enterprise clients is a good short term revenue model.

This is exactly what Microsoft did to IBM 25 years ago. In this round however, Microsoft is playing the role of IBM.