Steve Ballmer Airs Complaints At Microsoft's Shareholder Meeting

A recent Bloomberg Business article reported former Microsoft Corporation MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer was verbally critical at Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting.

Nondisclosure Issues

Citing Microsoft's nondisclosure of key metrics, he further criticized the company’s lack of key applications and the plan to allow developers to write universal apps that work on Microsoft's devices.

According to the Bloomberg report, “'They should report the revenue, not the run rate,' he (Ballmer) said. Margin – a measure of profitability – is important because while gross margins for software are very high, they are far lower for things like hardware and cloud services.”

Related Link: Microsoft Holds Annual Shareholder Meeting

Application Issues

Ballmer suggested instead, that Microsoft “needs to enable Windows Phones ‘to run Android apps.’”

Many popular iPhone applications are nonexistent on Windows phones, causing investors, including Steve Ballmer, to question Microsoft’s strategy. Ballmer reiterated that Microsoft should focus on developing Android applications to increase demand for the software and devices, as companies have become highly integrated with smartphone applications in the past few years. Furthermore, Ballmer says Microsoft should be more transparent in the company’s performance, particularly with regards to sales numbers of hardware and cloud services.

Microsoft closed Wednesday at $55.21, down 0.02 percent.