Jonathan Cohen wrote:

You are forgetting Sharepoint, Skype to [Ballmer's] credit.

I'm not sure Sharepoint is anything to brag about, at least not as a development platform, which is how Microsoft markets it. And Skype was bought by Microsoft in 2011 for several billion dollars. Anyone can write a cheque.

You are forgetting also that his main "failures" were due to the rise of two giants: Google and Apple.

Ask yourself why they rose as the did. They were driven by innovation. What comparable things was Microsoft innovating at the time?

I doubt that even a leader with a brain combined of Einstein, Gates and Lincoln could have fended off Google and Apple.

True. It would have simply required some brains like Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, or Marissa Mayer.