It's a good analogy. Balmer went into the right direction (cloud), but with the wrong execution. Nadella is also going into a sensible direction (ai), but the execution is abysmal.
Instead of focusing on properly executing a handful of projects where AI could be leveraged successfully, they went all in on AI everywhere with only a very handful of useful tools.
Which I still miss, .NET Native, C++/CX, UAP/UWP, were so much better developer experience than Android, oh well.
They were also a good evolution from the Win32 model on desktop, what .NET 1.0 should have been, but Nadella's management completly messed Windows development experience as well.
You know how forums turned bad because people with good manners/communication skills can just go to a different discussion place so over time you consolidate with a toxic base of people with nowhere else to go?
Even if a company tries to get rid of the bad people, once you start doing random, the line must go up layoffs, the best people leave and then use their network within the company to poach the next down layers of good people. Current American 'layoff while spending the money on stock buybacks' is corporate suicide.
Instead of focusing on properly executing a handful of projects where AI could be leveraged successfully, they went all in on AI everywhere with only a very handful of useful tools.