Former Microsoft CEO and presently the company’s largest individual shareholder isn’t thrilled with the way Microsoft reports its finances, according to a recent report in Bloomberg.

Microsoft disclosed on Wednesday its financial figures at its annual shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Washington, although Ballmer criticized the way in which those figures were reported. Microsoft reported what is known as the “run rate,” which is only an assumed revenue for the entire year based on present sales figures.

“They should report the revenue, not the run rate,” Ballmer was quoted as saying. What Ballmer feels is that there is a problem with transparency when actual sales margins are not disclosed. He was reported as saying that he actually had no idea how the company was doing financially. As Microsoft sees its revenue changing, from software to hardware and cloud services, margins are expected to also change. Sales margins for software are usually very high due to the fact that software can be duplicated cheaply. Sales margins for hardware and cloud services on the other hand are not as good.

In response to Ballmer’s criticism, Microsoft’s general manager for investor relations, Chris Suh, said, “We enjoy a regular dialogue with Steve, and welcome his input and feedback, as we do from our other investors.”

Ballmer was also critical of new CEO Satya Nadella’s response to an audience member that had brought up the matter of the Windows Phone missing many important apps – the Starbucks app being one of those. Nadella answered the audience by invoking Microsoft’s universal applications for Windows, which will put apps not just on phones, but PCs, tablets, Xbox and HoloLens too, therefore creating its own application ecosystem.

Ballmer said that this wouldn’t work, and instead said that Microsoft has to put Android apps on Windows Phone. Earlier this year it looked like that was going to happen as part of Microsoft’s Project Astoria, although now it’s reported that has been held back for some reason.

You can listen to a webcast of the meeting here.

Photo credit: Masaru Kamikura via Flickr