“Ballmer admitted to financial analysts that the predictions for Vista had proved ‘overly optimistic’ and he blamed the pirates in China, India, Brazil, Russia and other emerging markets,” Nick Farrell reports for The Inquirer.
Farrell reports, “He said that there was software within Windows Genuine Advantage which could be dialled up by [Microsoft] to make it even more tougher for the pirates to take out… Of course he is ignoring the fact that a lot of people are not buying Vista because it does not offer much more than XP and Windows Genuine Advantage makes their lives a misery. Cranking up WGA might backfire.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “drew_ill” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Ah, piracy, so that’s the problem. Thanks for clearing that up, Mr. Ballmer. And we thought it was people waking up along with the avalanche of “it’s a chrome-plated turd” reviews that had something to do with Stillborn, er, Long… uh, Vista’s slow sales. Moo.
Related articles:
Best Buy ads: ‘Make Your Move to Mac’ – just weeks after Windows Vista consumer debut – February 19, 2007
Ballmer calls Apple ‘cute, little tiny niche guy’ – February 15, 2007
Microsoft’s Ballmer warns on Vista, says revenue forecasts too aggressive; shares drop – February 15, 2007
Windows Vista’s DRM is bad news – February 14, 2007
Mac OS X Tiger vs. Windows Vista: Mac’s migration a breeze, Vista’s migration a headache – February 12, 2007
Forbes: ‘Windows Vista utterly unimaginative, internally discordant and woefully out of tune’ – February 09, 2007
Computerworld: Windows expert dumps Windows, switches to Apple’s Mac OS X – February 08, 2007
Windows sufferer spends six hours trying to ‘upgrade’ to Vista, says: ‘I should’ve bought a Mac’ – February 07, 2007
Windows Vista woes push BBC News editor to regret never having ‘defected’ to Apple Mac – February 06, 2007
Digit: Don’t buy Vista; Microsoft may be driving millions to stick with XP or move to Apple Mac – February 05, 2007
TIME Magazine: Microsoft’s Windows Vista ‘an embarassment to the good name of American innovation’ – February 02, 2007
Microsoft’s Windows Vista: Five years for a chrome-plated turd – January 30, 2007
Digit: ‘Microsoft’s Windows Vista may be the best reason yet to buy an Apple Mac’ – January 29, 2007
Pioneer Press: Windows Vista shows ‘Apple is an innovation engine; Microsoft, not so much’ – January 29, 2007
Windows Vista disappoints, so get a Mac – January 29, 2007
Analyst: Microsoft’s Windows Vista could be an opportunity for Apple – January 26, 2007
CNET Reviews Windows Vista: Is that all? Clunky and not very intuitive vs. Mac OS X; warmed-over XP – January 24, 2007
Mossberg: Microsoft’s Windows Vista offers lesser imitations of Apple’s Mac OS X features – January 18, 2007
Windows Vista disappointment drives longtime ‘Microsoft apologist’ to Apple’s Mac OS X – January 17, 2007
InformationWeek Review: Apple’s Mac OS X shines in comparison with Microsoft’s Windows Vista – January 06, 2007
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Looks, Locks, Lacks’ – December 14, 2006
15-year Windows vet tries Apple Mac: ‘My God! This is amazing!’ – December 04, 2006
Dave Winer: ‘Microsoft isn’t an innovator, and never was – they are always playing catch-up’ – December 01, 2006
Harvard Medical School CIO picks Mac OS X over Linux and Windows – November 30, 2006
Top Windows developer dumps Microsoft’s ‘pile of crap’ for Apple’s Mac OS X – September 12, 2006
$399 for Windows Vista Ultimate?! (Hint: Get a Mac) – August 29, 2006
Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard is 64-bit done right, unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista kludge – August 14, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Analyst: Apple’s new Mac OS X Leopard sets new bar, leaves Microsoft’s Vista in the dust – August 08, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
“more tougher”?!?!
fffffffft. right
Perhaps it was Jack Sparrow? in the iTunes movie store??
Wasn’t Vista supposed to be uncrackable?
Its always the Pirates. And since Disney produced Pirates of the Caribean and Steve Jobs is now on the Board for Disney it all can go back to Apple being the root cause of poor Vista sales.
Arrrrgg!
No wonder these guys see eye-to-eye with the RIAA. Pussies like they will always find a boogeyman to blame.
Maybe if they made Vista “more gooder” then more people would buy it.
Ballmer is a loon.
1. He’s there because he was friends with Bill in college (though Bill dropped out)
2. He’s emotionally unstable
3. He completely misunderstands Microsoft’s position in the world
4. He does not know anything about the concept of “creative destruction” which would be central to the process of re-invention for his company.
5. He really needs to keep his tongue in his mouth…
Unless you have an almost brand new box, who would go out and pay for Vista upgrade?
The lack of family pack pricing is ludicrous, especially considering you either have to buy the dumbed down version to get it to run on your older hardware, or spend more money than your pc is worth trying to upgrade the hardware.
I have 8 older PC’s at my office and home. It would cost roughly $1,400 just to upgrade, some to Vista Business and some to Vista basic. And none of them would be able to run full blown vista.
Fortunately all my future upgrades will be to Macs anyway.
That picture of Ballmer made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”raspberry” style=”border:0;” />
arrrrr!!!!! shiver me timbers
hmmmmm……piracy, pirates, pirates of the carribean, disney movies, animated, animated movies, pixar
I GOT IT! an animated movie about a pirate who steals from a partner and takes over the world!
no no wait, thats real life….hold on…. okay her it is steve say this at the next event:
” so what has our competitor been up to recently? lets take a look, so far vista has been hacked 70 times and its only been out for a little less than three months, OSX has never been compromised and as people are getting more and more conscious of security this is what is the most important feature they are looking for, so today we are introducing the genuine apple advantage tool, which when downloaded and installed on your mac will automatically find windows based computers and send them a short article caling the computer a weiner! IPHONE BITCH!!!!”
That’s funny. Everyone I have talked to says VISTA is the reason for Vista’s slow sales.
Vista is way too expensive for what you get. Especially in Europe even with a strong Euro!!!
If you haven’t….
Refresh this page a few times
the picture changes…and it’s hilarious EVERY time
Yay me.
MDN MW “Provide”, as in “I was happy to provide the link to this article on Ballmer’s clear understanding of Vista’s poor sales to MDN.”
What a douche bag.
LMAO! That picture is HILARIOUS!!!
Pirates of the Carribean III: VISTA SUCKS. Aaargh!!
Alright, i think it might just be overly-optimistic market analysis on M$’ part let alone the fact that was many have stated before, it really doesn’t offer too much more then XP. Some winblows users are also trying to find any excuse they can to justify getting vista. One of my friends actually bought the upgrade for home premium edition and he said one of the new “features” he liked was that he can now move files in explorer to different locations at the same time……to quote those crappy cox commercials sounds like “buyer’s remorse” to me.
Also the pirating community has not been able to fully crack vista yet, just implementing 30-day timestop programs which have to be rerun every 30 days, aka not a permanent fix. So Ballmer is talking out his rectum as usual.
where do you find these pictures of Ballmer? genius.
VISTA is not just any old dog of a OS, its a pirate sea dog.
Next he will be blaming the stores for not giving it prominent shelf space. The local PC World stores have shelves full of all the various flavours of VISTA – and that’s the problem – they’re full because no one is buying!!
Then it will be that the packaging is too much like XP.
Vista is Microsoft’s short sword and Microsoft’s belly is slit and its guts are snaking out. When people actually get Vista to install and “work” they will then discover the true depths of DRM hell. You couldn’t invent a better corporate suicide plan than Vista.
Oh, man, I am fully into the Ballmer RDF. Everything is spinning ……and the pretty colors …….I ..love .the ..world. Everything you tell me is true.
I feel so good. It’s like my naked body is being bathed in warm liquid milk chocolate.
I loveOh, oh, wait a second..Shit..Aaawww fk. somebody stole my operating system.
If Balmer thinks Vista sales have tanked.. wait till Leopard gets released …
“….. Vista ?? .. What’s that ?…….”
“Quick … hand me that chair !”
MW = “love” ….. Doncha just love it ??
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />
oh my, to put things in perspective, even though Vista sales may be slow. They have likely alread sold more copies of Vista than Mac OSX’s entire installed user base. Vista only needs to sell to 5% of its user base to surpass sales of Apples entire base.
Thats BULL SHIT, I live in Mexico, where you can buy pirated windows XP all over ($30.00) for a copied disk.
I havent even seen Vista anywhere! and I am talking about the MS original. seems you would have to have some penetration, to copy something.
Now I will admit, That I pirate Mac OS10 !! let me explain, I went to the States last July, purchased an iMac 20″ core duo, brougt back with me and paid 15% duty (fine).
This December, Apple was avaible at Office Max, I purchased a 17″ for my kids at $17,900 peso ($1,640 us vs $1,190 us in the States) I called Apple an asked about an “English replacement OS for the Spanish, they said they could not supply me with one, “And could not sell me one in Mexico”
So I used my english version for my kids, and since Xmas have done the same for two other ex-pats , who purchased Macs here at a premium, but need in English.