Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Ballmer Under Pressure, Shaking Up Management

After missing big in improvement market segments, Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer being pressed by the Board of the company to start increasing the performance at the company.

According to those close to the matter, Ballmer is going to respond by placing more people with engineering backgrounds in senior product positions at the company.

Smartphones and tablet computers are of particular note in poorly executed products and campaigns, and there needs to be more focus and movement with Web services like cloud computing.

Major competitors like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) enjoyed solid growth over the last year, while Microsoft shares have had little movement.

Overall, the pressure is on Ballmer to perform, and the perception, and probably reality, is he hasn't done the best job in putting the right people in the right positions.

It appears that's what the Microsoft management shaking up is going to be all about.

Microsoft closed Monday at $28.20, up $0.43, or 1.54 percent.