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Microsoft and the PC industry 微软和个人电脑业 UNTIL August 23rd few people would have described Steve Ballmer as retiring. Microsoftschief executive has played both tiger and Tigger: snarling atApples gadgets; and bouncing, with a whoop, onto conference stages to extol hiscompanys wares. But retiring he is, within a year. 在8月23日之前很少人会想到史蒂夫鲍尔默会退休。微软的首席执行官即使老虎也是跳跳虎，与苹果的产品叫板，但是结果却没什么威胁，在发布会上吹嘘其产品。但是他将会在一年之内退休。 Mr Ballmers departure is a surprise. He had announced a reorganisation of the companyonly in July and had hoped to oversee much of the change. Some celebrated his going:Microsofts share price went up by 7.3% on the day the news broke. Mr Ballmer has plenty ofcritics, although Microsofts revenues have trebled on his 13-year watch, to $77.8 billion inthe year to June, and profits have grown similarly, to $21.9 billion. The critics point at the riseof Apple and Google, and say Microsoft should have done betteror handed some of its $77billion of cash to shareholders. In an interview with the Seattle Times, Mr Ballmer deniedthat pressure from ValueAct, a fund with a small stake in the firm, helped push him out. 鲍尔默的离职是一个意外。就在七月他还宣布了公司的重组，希望能看到改变。一些人为他的离开叫好，微软的股价在鲍尔默退休消息传出的一天内上涨了7.3%。尽管微软的营收在鲍尔默的13年掌舵期间翻了三倍，达到了219亿美元，但是他还是饱受批评。批评者瞄向苹果和谷歌的崛起，表示微软应该比现在做的更好，或者将其770亿现金部分返给股东。在一次来自西雅图时报的采访中，鲍尔默否认了其迫于拥有微软小部分股份的基金ValueAct而离开的说法。 | 
