Developer may refer to:

Software developer, one who programs computers or designs the system to match the requirements of a systems analyst

Game developer, a person or business involved in game development, the process of designing and creating games

In real estate development, one who builds on land or alters the use of an existing building for some new purpose

Photographic developer, a chemical, often a mixture of metol and hydroquinone, which converts the latent silver halide image in the exposed photograph material into reduced, opaque, black silver metal

''Developer'' (album), the fifth album by Indie rock band Silkworm

de:Entwickler ko:개발자 nl:Ontwikkelaar ja:デベロッパー ru:Девелопер uk:Девелопер

Name	Steve Ballmer|image Steve_Ballmer_at_CES_2010_cropped.jpg
Birth date	March 24, 1956
Birth place	Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Residence	Hunts Point, Washington. U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University (A.B.)Stanford University (Dropout)
Occupation	CEO of Microsoft
Home town	Farmington Hills, Michigan, U.S.
Salary	$1,351,121 (2010)
Net worth	US$15.7 billion (2012)
Awards	Legion of Honour
Website	}}

Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$15.7 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.

Early life

Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to a Swiss American father and a Jewish American mother. He grew up in the community of Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1973, he attended college prep and engineering classes at Lawrence Technological University and graduated from Detroit Country Day School, a private college preparatory school in Beverly Hills, Michigan, with a perfect score of 800 on the mathematical section of the SAT. He now sits on the school's board of directors. In 1977, he graduated ''magna cum laude'' from Harvard University with a A.B. in mathematics and economics.

At college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on ''The Harvard Crimson'' newspaper as well as the ''Harvard Advocate'', and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. He then worked for two years as an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, where he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt, who later became CEO of General Electric. In 1980, he dropped out of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to join Microsoft.

Microsoft

Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 30th employee, the first business manager hired by Gates.

Ballmer was initially offered a salary of $50,000 as well as a percentage of ownership of the company. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8 percent of the company. During the subsequent 20 years, Ballmer headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. In January 2000, he was officially named Chief Executive Officer. As CEO, Ballmer handled company finances, however Gates still retained control of the "technological vision". He served as President of Microsoft from July 1998 to February 2001, having previously served as Executive Vice President, Sales and Support since February 1992. Ballmer led Microsoft's development of the .NET Framework.

In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company. The same year, Ballmer replaced Microsoft's employee stock options program.

In 2009, and for the first time ever since Bill Gates left Microsoft as full-time chairman, Ballmer made the opening keynote at CES.

Ballmer has also served as Director of Accenture Ltd. as well as a General Partner of Accenture SCA since October 2001.

Person

Ballmer is known for his energetic and exuberant persona, which is meant to motivate employees and partners. His flamboyant stage appearances at Microsoft events are widely circulated on the Internet as viral videos. One widely circulated video, captured at a developers' conference, features a perspiring Ballmer chanting the word "developers".

Bill Gates steps down

The ''Wall Street Journal'' has reported that there was tension surrounding the 2000 transition of authority from Bill Gates to Ballmer. Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of a meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Ballmer seemed "remorseful", the person said. Once Gates leaves, "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle," Ballmer said. "Use him, yes, need him, no."

On competing companies and software

Apple

Speaking at a conference in NYC in 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer criticized Apple's pricing, saying; 'Now I think the tide has turned back the other direction (against Apple),' Ballmer said. 'The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment — same piece of hardware — paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.'

Free and open source software

He has referred to the free software Linux kernel as a "cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." Ballmer used the notion of "viral" licensing terms to express his concern over the fact that the GNU General Public License (GPL) employed by such software requires that all derivative software be under the GPL or a compatible license.

Google

In 2005, Mark Lucovsky alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair, and threw it across his office. Referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer vowed to "kill Google" in an expletive-laden tirade then resumed trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft. Ballmer has described characterizations of the incident as a ''"gross exaggeration of what actually took place"''.

During a Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco(2011) he said: "You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone and you do to use an Android phone…It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones."

Sports

On March 6, 2008, Seattle's Mayor announced that a local ownership group involving Ballmer made a "game changing" commitment to invest $150 million in cash toward a $300 million renovation of Key Arena and were ready to purchase the Seattle SuperSonics in order to keep them in the City of Seattle. However, this initiative failed, and the Sonics have since relocated to Oklahoma City, now performing as Oklahoma City Thunder.

Media portrayals

''Bad Boy Ballmer: The Man Who Rules Microsoft'' (2002), Fredric Alan Maxwell, ISBN 0-06-621014-3 (unauthorized biography)

The 1999 docudrama ''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' features Ballmer as a major character; he is played by actor John DiMaggio.

Wealth

Ballmer was the second person after Roberto Goizueta to become a billionaire in U.S. dollars based on stock options received as an employee of a corporation in which he was neither a founder nor a relative of a founder. Ballmer is the 44th richest person in the world according to Forbes, with an estimated wealth of $15.7 billion. While CEO of Microsoft in 2009, Ballmer earned a total compensation of $1,276,627 which included a base salary of $665,833 a cash bonus of $600,000, no stock or options, and other compensation of $10,794.

References

External links

Corporate biography

Forbes World's Richest People listing

South China Morning Post audio interview

Steve Ballmer Playlist Appearance on WMBR's ''Dinnertime Sampler'' radio show February 23, 2005

Forbes.com's Billionaire List

Category:1956 births Category:Living people Category:American billionaires Category:American chief executives Category:American computer businesspeople Category:American Internet personalities Category:American Jews Category:American people of Jewish descent Category:American people of Swiss descent Category:Businesspeople from Michigan Category:Businesspeople in software Category:Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Category:Directors of Microsoft Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Microsoft employees Category:People from Detroit, Michigan Category:People from Farmington Hills, Michigan Category:Stanford University people Category:The Harvard Crimson people

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name	The Creatures
background	group_or_band
origin	London, England, UK
genre	Alternative rock, experimental
years active	1981–2005
label	Polydor Records, Geffen Records, Universal, Sioux Records, Instinct Records
associated acts	Siouxsie and the Banshees
website	Official site
past members	Siouxsie SiouxBudgie }}

The Creatures were a musical act formed in 1981 as a side-project for Siouxsie and the Banshees members Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie. ''The Times'' described their music as "adventurous art rock built around Siouxsie's extraordinary voice and drummer Budgie's battery of percussion".

With the dissolution of Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1996, The Creatures graduated from an occasional side project to a full-time concern. They disbanded in 2005.

The duo released four studio albums: ''Feast'' in 1983, ''Boomerang'' in 1989, ''Anima Animus'' in 1999 and ''Hai!'' in 2003.

Their music was hailed by Jeff Buckley and PJ Harvey.

Biography

''Wild Things'' era (1981)

Singer Siouxsie Sioux and drummer Budgie created The Creatures while recording the Banshees' ''Juju'' album. During one session, they discovered by accident that the association of just the voice and the drums suited to the track "But Not Them". A recording session was organized with the aim of recording five songs. This project was released in the form of an EP titled ''Wild Things''. The title track was a reworking of a hit by The Troggs and the other numbers were Creatures compositions. The EP reached number 21 in the UK Singles chart and the pair performed "Mad-Eyed Screamer" on ''Top of the Pops''.

''Feast'' era (1983)

In 1983, The Creatures released their first full length album ''Feast''. The band decided where to record the album by randomly placing a pin on a map of the world. The result was Hawaii, which led to the featuring of The Lamalani Hula Academy Hawaiian Chanters on some tracks. In the week of its release, the band was on the front cover of both the ''Melody Maker'' and the ''NME''. The ''Melody Maker'' described ''Feast'' as "an album of filtered brilliance, fertile, sensual and erotic" and the ''NME'' accentuated "The humours of Sioux's frosty larynx are nakedly outlined against skins of sometimes fabulous quality" The album reached number 17 in the UK Albums Chart. The hit single "Miss the Girl" took its inspiration from the book ''Crash'' by J. G. Ballard. Shortly after its exit from the charts, a follow-up "Right Now" was recorded: that song was initially performed by Mel Tormé. The Creatures revamped it by adding a brass section, and it became their most successful single, reaching the top fifteen.

''Boomerang'' era (1989)

The Creatures came back six years later. Siouxsie and Budgie went to a stone barn in Jerez, Andalucia, Spain to record ''Boomerang''. Brass arrangements were used on some tracks and Anton Corbijn took colour pictures for the sleeve. The record was critically acclaimed and widely regarded as Siouxsie and Budgie's crowning achievement as The Creatures. ''NME'' wrote : "it's a rich and unsettling landscape of exotica". One of the bluesy songs of ''Boomerang'', "Killing Time", would be later covered live by Jeff Buckley. In late 1989, The Creatures made their live debut appearance on U.K television and went on tour shortly after for the first time, visiting Europe and North America.

Collaboration with John Cale and ''Eraser Cut EP'' (1996-1998)

When Siouxsie and the Banshees called it a day in 1996, The Creatures had already began composing new material. At the same time, the long-out-of-print ''Wild Things'' EP and ''Feast'' album were remastered and re-released through the compilation ''A Bestiary Of''.

In February 1998, John Cale contacted them for a future collaboration. He was the organizer of the "With a Little Help from My Friends" festival that took place at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. The concert was shown on Dutch national television and featured a Siouxsie song (made for The Creatures) especially composed for the event and still unreleased, "Murdering Mouth" sung in duet with Cale. That night, the Creatures also premiered a live orchestra version of "I Was Me". During mid-1998, the pair toured with John Cale in the U.S, playing yet unreleased material to their audience.

During that period, Siouxsie and Budgie created their own label, Sioux Records, and became an independent act. The ''Eraser Cut'' (an anagram of The Creatures), was released in July followed in October by the single "2nd Floor".

''Anima Animus'' era (1999-2002)

Early in 1999, the Creatures released ''Anima Animus'', the first studio album in just under a decade. Its urban sound was an important departure from ''Boomerang''s very organic atmosphere. ''The Times'' wrote: "It's entrancing, hypnotic and inventive", and PJ Harvey selected ''Anima Animus'' in her ten favourite albums released in 1999. Other singles from the album were "Say" (dedicated to Billy Mackenzie) and "Prettiest Thing". The song "Another Planet" was included on the soundtrack to the film ''Lost In Space'' in a version radically reworked by Juno Reactor. Live albums ''Zulu'' (London'98) and ''Sequins in the Sun'' (Glastonbury'99) were also released on limited editions via The Creatures website.

In June, The Creatures appeared on Marc Almond's ''Open All Night''; Siouxsie sang in duet on the track "Threat of Love". Late 1999 saw the remix album ''Hybrids'', which featured tracks remixed by other acts including The Beloved. During the same period, a compilation of unreleased ''Anima Animus''-era tracks was released as ''U.S. Retrace'' and three one-track CDs, ("Murdering Mouth" - live version, "Rocket Ship" and "Red Wrapping Paper"), were edited to fan club members.

''Hai!'' era (2003-2004)

Siouxsie and Budgie returned with a full-length album, ''Hai!'', in 2003. The drum sessions were recorded in Japan less than 24 hours after the Banshees had completed their reunion tour ''Seven Year Itch''. Budgie first worked with the Japanese taiko drummer Leonard Eto, the basis of the album being a spontaneous drum duet between the two. The rest of the sessions were done in France over a period of several months. The single "Godzilla!" was described as "spookily brilliant" by the ''NME'' and the reviews were favourable for ''Hai!''.

That same year, Siouxsie was asked to be the guest vocalist on the Basement Jaxx's "Cish Cash": she wrote the lyrics and the electronic musicians composed the music for the track. This record was crowned at the 47th Grammy Awards.

In 2004, Siouxsie toured for the first time billed as a solo act but with Budgie still as drummer and musical arranger. The setlists combined Banshees and Creatures songs. A live DVD called ''Dreamshow'' depicted the last London concert of September 2004 performed with the Millennia Ensemble. Released in August 2005, this DVD reached the number one position in the UK music DVD charts.

This was the last release by the pair, as Siouxsie announced publicly during an interview with ''The Sunday Times'' in 2007 that she and Budgie had divorced. Their musical partnership has been discontinued for the foreseeable future and, thus, The Creatures have disbanded.

Siouxsie celebrated her 50th birthday in May 2007, and released the first solo album of her career, ''MantaRay'', in October 2007, to critical acclaim.

Discography

Singles

!Year	!Song	!width="40"	!width="40"	!Album
1981	"Mad Eyed Screamer"			''Wild Things EP''
	"Miss the Girl"			''Feast''
			''-''
1989	"Standing There"
1990	"Fury Eyes"
	"Sad Cunt"			''-''
"2nd Floor"
	"Exterminating Angel"
"Say"
"Prettiest Thing"
2003	"Godzilla!"			''Hai!''

Albums

Year	Album	Peak chart positions
UK Album Chart	!style="width:4em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:4em;font-size:75%"
1983
1989
1999	''Anima Animus''
2003	''Hai!''

References

Sources

Budgie. The Creatures Biography. ''The Creatures.com'' April 2000

Paytress, Mark. ''Siouxsie & the Banshees: The Authorised Biography''. Sanctuary, 2003. ISBN 1-86074-375-7

External links

The Creatures + Siouxsie Official Website

Category:English rock music groups Category:Musical groups established in 1981 Category:Musical groups disestablished in 2005 Category:English electronic music groups Category:British New Wave musical groups Category:Siouxsie and the Banshees

de:The Creatures es:The Creatures fr:The Creatures it:The Creatures pt:The Creatures sv:The Creatures