Steve Ballmer tops Forbes list of five CEOs who should have already been fired

Well this has got to be great news for Microsoft, their CEO Steve Ballmer is the worst CEO of any large publicly traded American company, if you believe Forbes. The executive sits atop of a list that contains the CEOs of other large companies such as Cisco, General Electric, Walmart and Sears.

Forbes writes:

Not only has he singlehandedly steered Microsoft out of some of the fastest growing and most lucrative tech markets (mobile music, handsets and tablets) but in the process he has sacrificed the growth and profits of not only his company but “ecosystem” companies such as Dell, Hewlett Packard and even Nokia. The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value – and jobs.

Quite frankly you just can’t argue with the facts, in 2000 Microsoft stock was being sold at $60 a pop, now they barely scrape past the $30 mark. According to Forbes this is mainly due to the delayed rollouts and lousy products, including the notorious Windows Vista flop, and the unexciting Microsoft 7 and Office 2012.

Forbes contributor Adam Hartung adds:

“So today Microsoft, after dumping Zune, dumping its tablet, dumping Windows CE and other mobile products, is still the same company Mr. Ballmer took control over a decade ago. Microsoft is PC company, nothing more, as demand for PCs shifts to mobile”

Hartung strongly feels that all of this could have been avoided had the “Microsoft Board replaced Mr. Ballmer years ago with a CEO that understands the fast pace of technology shifts and would have kept Microsoft current with market trends.”

In the end of the article Hartung concludes that it would be best if Ballmer “retired to enjoy his fortune rather than deprive investors and employees of building theirs.”

What do you think? Is Ballmer to blame for the trouble Microsoft is currently in?