Rating: 
Summary: Extrodinary
Review: I hadn't heard of this book until I read a New York TImes Magazine piece by the author, about how he was investigated by the Secret Service while writing the book. The author has a fine sense of humor as he relays the story of how Ballmer became a multibillionaire and possible the highest paid employee in American history. Most important, he researched the story at over fifteen libraries and archives nationwide. There's even a chapter about my town, Birmingha, Michigan, where Ballmer went to high school.
Rating: 
Summary: I want my money back
Review: I was looking forward to read the book since the subject matter is very interesting to me. Sadly, the author (Fredric Alan Maxwell ) sounded way too bitter and way too biased. After reading the book I had these questions: Did the author proof read his book? The author did not even know how to spell Bellevue, WA in his book. Did he just do a search on the Internet and selected what appealed to him? Why is the author very bitter? My suggestion to the author:
- Try to present facts and have the reader come up with the conclusion wither Steve Ballmer is a 'Bad Boy' or not!!!
- Try to sound a little less bitter. That would sell more books!!! If you just want anti Microsoft material, just read it off the net and don't waste your money on the book!!! I feel I wasted my time and money on this book :-(
Rating: 
Summary: way overhyped
Review: In general, I got the feeling that there wasnt a huge amount of research done for the book. I felt that the writer basically did a Lexus Nexus search, and took out what he wanted to find. I am neither for or against Microsoft - just didnt get that much out of the book. A few facts here and there were pretty interesting, but overall, I felt the book was really skimming the surface on many things.
Rating:
Summary: A Robber Barron In Our Midst
Review: In the nineteenth century, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt founded and built entire industries. In the first half of the twentieth century, Edison and Ford did it. Then Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer turned Microsoft into a household word and one of the richest companies in the history of business. They didn't pump oil or haul freight, light the world or put a car in every driveway; they just sold computer software. Their accomplishments coined the term "intellectual property" and transformed the world from the industrial age to the age of information. There have been a number of books by and about Bill Gates. Fredric Alan Maxwell in "Bad Boy Ballmer: The Man Who Rules Microsoft" tells the story of Gates' loyal friend and second in command, Steve Ballmer. After the creation of the income tax in 1913, not only to raise revenue but also to prevent the creation of an American aristocracy, it was thought impossible to ever again amass fortunes on the scale of the nineteenth century robber barons. Steve Ballmer grew up from humble beginnings in suburban Detroit to become a multi-billionaire and the fourth richest man in America, but only the third richest in the county where he now resides outside Seattle. Great wealth inspires great curiosity. In the case of Microsoft where the products are full of bugs and don't work too well ... great wealth can also inspire great loathing. Ballmer is a leader, a doer, a tremendously effective executive, and Maxwell tells us his story. Ballmer could spend a million dollars a day every day for the rest of his life and still have many billions left over. If Gates and Ballmer just walked away from Microsoft and started all over again with, say, a measly billion dollars each, they'd find a way to make another personal computer operating system and give their former company a run for the money. Ballmer, the only billionaire who got rich working for someone else, is a great business talent and competition addict. It's not the excellence of the software that created the alleged "monopoly," it's the skill at business strategy. Ballmer got the right people working on the right things. But it's also his personal ability to intimidate and dominate. Everybody ... except Fred Maxwell. Maxwell's initial approach to do an authorized biography was rebuffed by Ballmer and the public relations department at Microsoft. To get the story, he had to do it the hard way. Through meticulous research and countless interviews, Maxwell turns out this business biography with wit and humor. When Ballmer went to work for his friend from Harvard he joined the nascent Microsoft as the 24th employee. They've built the company up to where they now have 50,000 employees, and more cash in the bank than any company in the world. A hundred years from now, their names will still be on people's lips, like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt.
Rating:
Summary: BH Maxwell
Review: Is this a vanity publication?
Of course, only Mr. Maxwell would give this book 5 stars! (not to mention complain in his own review about bad reviews- that's the price of a bad book- bad reviews) I really tried to get my money back- being a poorly written book wasn't reason enough for a refund... So I threw this book in the garbage. PLEASE
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!
Rating:
Summary: Life could have been so different for Steve>
Review: Lots of really good details about his life prior to joining MicroSoft many of which explain how he came to be the type of person he is today. Robin Williams was a classmate, Glida Radner a relative... if Steve hadn't met Bill... we might having been looking at his name on the credits to Saturday Night Live and there might not be a MircoSoft (at least not as you know it today). Well worth the read, makes you realize that everything you do in your life is important. MicroSoft and Steve's relationship could VERY EASILY have never taken place but for a fluke few minutes.
Rating:
Summary: Just Bad
Review: The author's dislike (if not an outright hatred) for Microsoft, Gates, and Ballmer is more than evident. He constantly compares Gates to Hitler and almost gives you an impression that the fall of the stock market, and the events of 9-11 were planned by the "diabolical duo". The book constists primarily of retelling what bad things the author read or heard about Microsoft with the only genuine piece being the description of how the author visited the stockholder meeting and Gates glared at him, generously spiced by passages about what big liers Gates and Ballmer are. ......
Rating: 
Summary: Ballmer's Got Balls
Review: The book does a disservice to those who want to understand Ballmer or Microsoft. To start off, the cover photo of the book I bought appears to have been reversed: Ballmer's wedding ring is on his right hand in the picture, and the inimitable Ballmer sizing-up countenance has the smiling side of his face and the rational side of his face reversed. (Note that the photo I'm describing here differs from the photo shown in the Amazon promo). I mention this, because Maxwell seems to have reversed the reality of Microsoft and Ballmer in a lot of ways throughout the book. To start off, Maxwell pushes a Nazi leit motif throughout the book. This makes as much sense as comparing opera to dog food. Playing hardball with competitors differs in kind from killing people. Maxwell's comparison is insulting, silly, and more to the point, tone deaf. Maxwell gets a lot of the historical Microsoft background right from a variety of sources, although misspelling Bellevue repeatedly gnaws. What's most lacking are any interviews with principals. Where are Maritz, Letwin, Cutler, Silverberg, Murray, Snyder, Glaser, Maples, Yee, Brodie, Simonyi, Klunder (to name a dozen of about a couple of hundred) when you need them? Instead, we get a lot of rehashed stuff from media sources that is either histrionic, hysterical, or hissy. What is presented is largely P.R.-and-news-account factual, but glosses over the reality of the guy, and gets details wrong about various incidents and doesn't corroborate some facts. For example, the balls-in-the-office incident occurred, but it was bouncy balls and not nerf balls. Still, I've got to admit that in many ways the book is well researched, particularly the Detroit years. Ballmer is a brilliant businessman and a brilliant leader, but he pushes people and his company sometimes to the extreme, like a race car driver who can push his car too hard, or an over-zealous parent who may expect and demand too much from a child. Nevertheless, Ballmer's ability to discipline the company, its people, his direct reports, the business model, Bill, customers, and himself is a huge lesson for anyone who chooses to observe. I was looking for the details of this discipline, and the logic and rationale of the Ballmer mind in Maxwell's account, but never found them. Ballmer once famously said "Don't use reason, when force will do," which I'm sure Maxwell would've turned into a Nazi screed. The message here isn't that we we should literally kill the opposition, but that when making certain decisions--for example personnel decisions or strategic decisions--if you have the power, exercise it. Don't waste your time futzing around trying to convince people you're right if you're going to make a decision anyway. Ballmer also once said "I'm not financially driven," which seems at first glance to be one of those "If they say it isn't the money, it's the money," sort of statements. But the point here was that he cares first about the long-term life of the company and not about short-term financial results. This has been a truism that started with Gates from day one. There's also the implication throughout that Microsoft does lousy software and has gained its position unethically. This is one of those amorphous condemnations--if you've grown up trying to make decent software for millions and millions of people--that tends to grate. Microsoft has spent enormous resources in testing, developing quality-control programs, and developing customer service and feedback sysems, all of them fully backed by Steve Ballmer. Ballmer understood that these "touchy-feely" characteristics could be quanitified and fully incorporated into the business model. Windows and Office have succeeded because of many of these quality initiatives and not in spite of them. Doing quality software is hard. Microsoft's sales have been hard earned, with many competitors whose companies and products have lost battles and wars to what ultimately became the Microsoft monopoly. Placing bounds on that monopoly is appropriate. Punishing people for their success is sour grapes. Maxwell fails to distinguish between the two. My main point here would be that Maxwell doesn't bring out that Ballmer's emotions are extreme and extraordinarily useful to the company. They mirror and embody the importance and impact of the actions of an enormous software company. Similarly, his mathematical and business brilliance occurs in real time. He prefers informed action to analysis. He's a salesman who knows his customers, who knows his numbers, who knows his strategy, who knows his goals, and who knows his principles. His methods are at times raw, brutal, unfiltered, extreme. Some people are scared of him and operate in fear of him. But that's not his intent. His intent is to convey the seriousness, the impact, the passion, and emotion that's inherent in the life of the business. Occassionally, legal disputes arise from the behaviors of the company. Gates onces said, not quite in these words, "I get sued every day, so I don't sit around all day worrying about getting sued." Microsoft has hundreds of lawyers who vet the thousands of contracts and deals they do every year. Obeying and living within the law is not a trivial thing for a large international company with thousands of employees. Maxwell may argue that Microsoft operates as if its above the law, but the rich history of thousands of mutually beneficial contracts with customers, employees and vendors is significant evidence that there's another side to the Microsoft legal story. There would be a lot to learn from a study of Steve Ballmer and how he thinks, and why he does what he does, and what his guiding principles are. A lot of people inside and outside could benefit from such a book. Unfortunately, this book ain't it.
Rating:
Summary: Not enough materials to make it BAD!
Review: The materials on Microsoft Corporation and Bill Gates were written many times, in the past 10 years. Steve Ballmer lives in the shadow of Bill Gates. He befriended Bill, works for Bill and makes Billions $$$ from the Microsoft stocks. Had him work for Proctor and Gamble, he would be just another so-so manager. What makes it bad? The fact he is Jewish, tall and cursing all the time, is not enough to make him a BAD boy. I believe "BAD BOY" is just a marketing tool to sell the books.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly researched and factually inaccurate
Review: The subject matter of this book is fascinating, but Mr. Maxwell manages to render it tedious and unbearable due to his poor writing and complete lack of facts. The author seems to lack the knowledge of technology required to even be writing about any matter related to computing -- he actually calls Internet Explorer a search engine! I won't even go into the numerous spelling and grammatical errors found in the book, or I would be here all day. Avoid this book at all costs.
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