Video: Ballmer's wild entrance at Microsoft's company meeting

Update Looks like the person who posted this publicly had second thoughts after it started to be viewed publicly (funny how that happens), and switched it to allow only private viewing on YouTube. We'll let you know if it resurfaces elsewhere.

Is Steve Ballmer admirably enthusiastic, or is his cheerleading too much following the company's unprecedented layoffs and cutbacks?

Whatever your opinion, there's no disputing that he can still make a big entrance. The video above shows the 53-year-old Microsoft CEO making his way to the stage at the company's private meeting Thursday at Safeco Field in Seattle -- sprinting around the infield, pumping his arms, slapping hands, and generally whooping it up as thousands of the company's employees cheer him on from the stands.

This particular video doesn't show the iPhone incident -- we're still hoping to get our hands on a video clip of that -- but it does provide a sense for the tone leading up to that now-infamous encounter.

It would be interesting to hear from Microsoft employees: Is this kind of entrance by Ballmer inspiring, embarrassing, or something else?

Also see a recap of the meeting from Mini-Microsoft, the anonymous employee blogger who had been hoping for a "serious wrap-up" from the Microsoft CEO.

About Todd Bishop

Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle.

READ FULL BIOGRAPHY

206-876-5466

@toddbishop

Recent Sponsor Posts

Seattle University Software Engineering

Chinwe Okeke (MSE’08) pursued her graduate degree while working as a developer and technical analyst for the Boeing Company. She picked the SU-MSE program for small class sizes and real world learning opportunities offered through the academic service-learning and capstone projects.

The MSE program at Seattle University is geared for working professionals with classes offered in the evenings. The program builds upon the computing experience of its students and offers courses in a variety of technical and management areas of software engineering, with an emphasis on teamwork and a disciplined approach to problem solving.

MORE INFORMATION

Marchex is Hiring!

Marchex is one of Seattle’s largest ad technology companies with 300+ employees providing call and click based performance marketing products, and managing over $100m in ad budget for tens of thousands of advertisers. Our customers range from local businesses to the Fortune 500.

Our talented and creative product engineering group is hiring.

If you are an innovative software design engineer interested in solving difficult problems at scale, across a wide array of technologies from Lucene to Hadoop to Asterisk and SIP then we’d love to hear from you!

Apply now.

MORE INFORMATION

Technology Tax Planning – Did You Take The Deduction?

Technology companies require professional advisors who can assist in all aspects of the business. The BDO Technology Practice provides a full range of services tailored to help address the changing needs of domestic and international companies. In addition to core audit and tax services, BDO professionals can assist technology companies with:

· Revenue recognition

· Business combination accounting

· R&D tax credits

· Compensation and benefits

· Business valuations

Backed by 38 national offices and an international network in 110 countries, we have the domestic and global footprint to serve growing technology companies. Contact sphilpott@bdo.com (audit partner), mreeves@bdo.com (audit partner), psmith@bdo.com (tax partner), tzambito@bdovaluation.us.com (valuation), tfiscus@bdo.com, Director, 206.624.2020

MORE INFORMATION