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Thanks for Dave Mark at the Loop for this find.

Dina Bass, Beth Jinks and Peter Burrows writing for BloombergBusinessweek:

Ballmer’s relations with the board hit a low when he shouted at a June meeting that if he didn’t get his way he couldn’t be CEO, people briefed on the meeting said. The flare-up was over his proposed purchase of most of Nokia Oyj (NOK1V), and part of an ongoing debate: Should Microsoft be a software company or a hardware company too?

Several directors and co-founder and then-Chairman Bill Gates — Ballmer’s longtime friend and advocate — initially balked at the move into making smartphones, according to people familiar with the situation. So, at first, did Nadella, signaling his position in a straw poll to gauge executives’ reaction to the deal. Nadella later changed his mind.

If I were Microsoft's board I would have called his bluff. It would have saved them from a probably horrible acquisition and gotten rid of the dead weight.