To: Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

From: Mark Anderson, CEO, Strategic News Service

Dear Steve,

I am writing this first Open Letter to you for two reasons: First, I may have a higher regard for your job performance to date than anyone else, and the reasons for this should be clearly stated. Second, your job, your own view of your job, and how you manage your time and your company, are all about to go through a radical change, and it is a change which I think may deserve more thought than you've planned.

Let's start with your performance to date. Sure, the stock has been too quiet, but here is what I believe are your major accomplishments as CEO:

1) Microsoft was headed directly for the Justice Department grinder, with a near-certainty of being cut into pieces or otherwise legally hobbled, as you took control. It was not unlike someone driving a car at 100 mph toward a brick wall, and handing you the wheel at the last possible moment.

Not only did you do a masterful job of handling the federal antitrust suit, but you also settled the daunting number of state and civil cases brought in its wake. Even the European Court of First Instance seems, at last, to be on its way to satisfaction.

2) When you took over, the company desperately needed three jobs done, and done well: Settle the Justice Department complaints, re-position the company from legal miscreant to world citizen, and re-brand Microsoft with these more positive attributes.

Having done the first, which was hard, you pulled off the second, which was much harder. You have managed to improve relations with every level of customer and alliance partner. Countries know that you will do business fairly with them. Instead of fearing to invest in your shadow, venture capitalists now do it on purpose, knowing you would rather buy out a potential competitor than cut them into unrecognizable bits.

And re-branding Microsoft -- the largest re-branding task in history -- I thought would be almost impossible. How do you take a brand that, in my opinion, had acquired a long list of negative attributes, mostly hinging on fear and mistrust, and re-cast it as an ethics-positive, trusted partner?

3) I suggested at the time that this would be a ten-year project. You are about half done, but I don't think anyone could have done it faster.

Your time in office, however, has been almost uniquely constrained. You happened to follow Bill Gates, arguably the best technology market strategist alive (a skill set which often gets hidden behind tales of technical prowess). To date, you have been almost a CEO-in-waiting on the technology side, first with Bill as Software Architect, and then with Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie in his place(s).

4) You have told your own staff that visits, during this period, should be restricted to Customers, Employees, and Alliance Partners, and the results have been predictable and spectacular: great sales in existing products, good operations management, and a rapidly expanding world of alliance partners. And almost no input outside these areas.