10 Most Influential CEOs of 2009

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2009 was one of the toughest years for Microsoft, The company for the first time announced layoffs. However, according to CRN, CEO Steve Ballmer performed admirably in what is by a long shot the toughest job in the technology business.

Ballmer walked a management tight rope driving Microsoft's healthy Windows and Office revenue, while at the same time pushing Microsoft into the cloud with products like Windows Azure and Microsoft's Office Web Apps. Ballmer also kept the pressure going on in the virtualization business with Hyper-V. With the launch of serach engine Bing, the company also upped the ante in its war against Google.

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According to CRN, APVC's senior VP and president north America, Rob McKernan has put more power and cooling cash into solution provider coffers than any executive in the business.

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There's no other CEO who gave shareholders a better return on investment, in one of the toughest years of the century, then IBM's Sam Palmisano.

IBM shares which started the year with $86.04 a share were hovering around the $120 mark in November.

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Only 16 months on the job, Paul Maritz has taken VMware literally into the clouds, write CRN. His vision to make VMware a cloud computing powerhouse has given the company a new vigour.

Also, his partnerships with EMC and networking giant Cisco have the potential to forever change the computing landscape and also spell trouble for Microsoft.

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CEO of Kaspersky Lab Eugene Kaspersky is said to have rewritten the rules of the computer security game. According to CRN, Kaspersky's passion and drive assure that the company has not lost its technical edge even as he has grown it into one of largest privately-held security companies in the world.