Despite the news of Greg Isaacs' departure having been mentioned in several sites, this key eBay director's recent departure hasn't made the wire reports news. Isaacs announced his departure yesterday.

Who is Greg Isaacs, some of you might wonder? He's not on the big eBay's management list, after all. True. Greg Isaacs is, or rather was, the Director of the Developer Program at eBay.

Through AuctionBytes Blog, I found that Isaacs was mentioned in July 2006 in CNNMoney's Business 2.0 journal in the top 50 people who matter. The top ten names in the list include Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google's co-founders, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO and Ray Ozzie of Microsoft. Then, in number 31, Greg Isaac is mentioned. Skype's co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, are ranked after him at number 36, just to give you an idea.

Greg Isaacs had managed to persuade eBay's management to allow outside developers access to eBay's database so that they could build tools and widgets around it. Already several startups have sprung up from the developer site.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer can't get no love. His famous "monkey boy" performance is crazy-popular among those who thrive on poking fun at (and re-mixing) Ballmer's sweaty antics. He's being marginalized as Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie are groomed to replace Gates (and, we imagine, Ballmer as well) -- and reporters and analysts are jostling to get past him and talk to Ozzie, who everyone seems to adore.

Now the worst possible judgment, from Business 2.0 Magazine. He just doesn't matter. And what's more: he matters less than anyone in business. Ouch.

In conjunction with the mag's "50 Who Matter Now" list (featuring Ray Ozzie and competitive leaders Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and worst of all for Ballmer's ego, Bill Gates himself), Ballmer headlines the "10 People Who Don't Matter" segment. "Let's face it: The head of the world's biggest software company is a lame duck," the judgment begins.

A lame duck who decides what happens with billions of investors' -- of your -- cash. Somehow, that's not very comforting.