Kewney: Searching for Ballmer

Here’s something you couldn’t do five years ago: go to Google News, type “Ballmer” and get “Your search – Ballmer – did not match any documents”.

The story on our front page half a decade ago quoted the Microsoft chief executive on the subject of licensing on .Net Server. Certainly “Microsoft licensing” is much in the news, but where is Steve?

Last time I caught a glimpse of him on the web, he was shouting “developers, developers, developers” ad nauseam and sweating heavily – not what you’d call significant industry or technical news.

Some things don’t change. The top story that week was about privacy rights – Facebook has kept that one popular. Linux was in the headlines – no change there, either. Back page, I was writing about beer and Wi-Fi, and they’re both still popular, too.

The de-Ballmerisation of Microsoft is years away, but his non-newsworthiness shows how Microsoft has changed in the past five years from an organisation that courted the media, to one that is almost exclusively focused on lobbying.

When Bill or Steve arrives in London, they pop straight into 10 Downing Street, not into a big hall with thousands of hacks waiting to write their scripts down.

These days, no news about Microsoft is good news. So don’t tell anybody, eh Steve?