Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer got some good news and bad news in this year’s annual proxy filing with the SEC: On the one hand, his company’s board commended him for posting record revenues for fiscal 2010; on the other, the board was less sanguine about the ill-fated Kin and Microsoft’s failure to compete with “new form factors” (i.e. tablets like the iPad). For the former, he earned half his maximum bonus, but for the latter he lost the other half.
“For fiscal year 2010,” the company said in its filing, “Mr. Ballmer’s Incentive Plan award was $670,000, which was 100% of his target award.” The filing stipulates that his maximum bonus is 200% of his base salary — in other words, he was awarded $1.34 million out of a maximum of $2.01 million.
Mr. Ballmer is not given stock options, and he already owns 4.75% of Microsoft, some 408 million shares valued at more than $10 billion, according to Reuters.
Microsoft offered Mr. Ballmer kudos for several aspects of the company’s operations, listing: Mr. Ballmer’s performance against his individual commitments; the strong financial year in which Microsoft reported a record $62.5 billion in revenue and $24.1 billion in operating income.”
The company also mentioned Mr. Ballmer’s fiscal responsibility, and the successful launches of Windows 7, Office 2010, Bing, Windows Server, and SQL Server, as well as unspecified products that are “under way.”
On the negative side, Mr. Ballmer was dinged for, “the unsuccessful launch of the Kin phone; loss of market share in the company’s mobile phone business; and the need for the Company to pursue innovations to take advantage of new form factors.”
Shares in Microsoft edged lower Friday, closing at $24.38, down $0.110 (-0.45%), on moderately strong volume of 62.6 million shares trading hands.