“Speaking to a group of market analysts this week, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer repeatedly mentioned Apple, including a suggestion that a growing rate of Mac adoption is statistically insignificant,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider. ‘Share versus Apple, you know, we think we may have ticked up a little tick,’ Ballmer said at the 2009 Financial Analyst Meeting, ‘but when you get right down to it, it’s a rounding error. Apple’s share change, plus or minus from ours, they took a little share a couple quarters, we took share back a couple quarters.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Ballmer’s head is a round error. And his fear is palpable.
Hughes continues, “The Microsoft executive said he expects Windows to continue to trade market share with Mac OS X back and forth, though he added he feels taking customers from Apple is a limited resource.”
MacDailyNews Take: Because, all together now: Once you go Mac you never go back, baby!
Hughes continues, “‘Apple’s share globally cost us nothing,’ Ballmer said. ‘Now, hopefully, we will take share back from Apple, but you know, Apple still only sells about 10 million PCs, so it is a limited opportunity.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, stellar businessman, that Ballmer. After all of these years, we still can’t tell if he’s stupid, delusional, a liar, or all three rolled up into one sweaty, unkempt mess. Really, now, who’d want the smartest customers; the cream of the crop, who’ve proven to repeatedly and routinely spend their money on quality (oops, therein lies Microsoft’s problem) versus those who’d rather settle for junk hardware and a derivative problematic OS in order to “save” a few bucks upfront and who are then highly likely to “trade” software with their friends, “borrow” it from work, etc. rather than buy a legit copies? (Microsoft’s other problem.)
Educated computer buyers overwhelmingly invest in Apple Macs. Cheap, uncool (as Microsoft’s own ads describe them) computer buyers wander aimlessly into Wal-Mart and shortsightedly saddle themselves with Windows PC junk. They also tend not to buy software. Certainly not like Mac users do. Software developers should take note; the smart ones have already.
Steve Ballmer never learns:
Direct link here.
Monkey boy hears foot steps.
Maybe Balmer needs to remind himself of Newton’s Law of Motion. The law of inertia states an object that is not moving will not move until a net force acts upon it. Microsoft is not moving and Apple is a force acting upon it. The problem for Microsoft is where Apple’s force is moving them…into obsolescence.
Was this the same meeting where half the analysts in the room were on Apple laptops? I wonder if they were as dismissive.
So why does Microsoft spend hundreds of millions yearly to compete against a “rounding error”? And why is that “rounding error” cleaning its clock in mobile electronics, media sales and mind share?
A ’rounding error’ is his square dunce cap…..
Please don’t get too elitist on me, MDN. It is not necessary to denigrate subgroups of the human population (skinflints, clueless, uneducated, uncool, etc.) in order to make your point.
Be realistic – for a large number of folks there is a huge difference between $500 and $1200. Some of these folks may indeed be uninformed about the true cost (and pain) of Windows PC ownership. Others may harbor valid reservations on whether or not to risk hard earned cash on an unfamiliar Mac computing environment.
I am proud to be a Mac user. I am a Mac user by choice and inclination. And I often enjoy your pithy takes with respect to analysts, Ballmer, etc. But I really don’t care for your oft rehashed elistist take.
I guess market share is like body heat – the bigger you are, the easier it is to retain. Analysts keep asking what is Apple going to create next to keep up its momentum, like all the innovation Apple has brought forth in the last decade still weren’t good enough. Meanwhile MSFT hasn’t created anything new or exciting in a decade, and yet still is the largest software peddler.
The possibilities are narrowing. Either the man’s an idiot or he thinks all the rest of us are.
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Of course Ballmer doesn’t care about a few licenses, because one license is much like any other. However, the PC mfrs, like Dell and HP, care about those few percent that Apple takes, because Apple is skimming off the most profitable customers.
I second KingMel•. While it is fun to quote Steve Ballmer, the elitist attitude at this site is pretty thick, and it starts with the MacDailyNews Take.
HazMatt
Actually, I’m no rich guy even with my five Macs. But I do at least consider myself to have a rich existence (owed in large part to working 50 hours a week in a glorious computing environment rather than that crusty turd of an alternative).
he’s stupid, delusional, a liar, or all three rolled up into one…
I personally doubt he’s stupid, but delusional and a liar seem very likely. There is an avalanche headed his way and unless he is completely delusional he knows it. He’s just trying to keep anyone else from looking up the mountain for as long as he can.
My daughter attends Texas A&M;and has a MacBook. She says virtually all the kids realize that Macs are the only desirable computers to own and their use on that campus is soaring. Macs are what all the kids want. No one aspires to own a PC.
Microsoft is now facing a HUGE public perception problem that did not even exist two years ago. NOW it’s the Mac owners who are seen by their peers as smart, well informed and up to date. Basic human nature dictates that everyone wants to be seen as smart, well informed and up to date. Being a Mac user now brings folks that comfort as it should.
Microsoft has been rapidly losing ground in public opinion for a few years now. It is starting to really hurt them now.
Jeeeees what is going on in this World. If I did business like these tools are doing business, my boss would sack my sorry arse!
Doesn’t Ballbag understand we all know he is a tool? I think he does, the worm is turning! He lives on the ignorance of the unwashed masses who blindly suffer the Windows world standard. It can’t be simple it has to be hard, that’s the way it’s always been with windows!
I have so much trouble trying to enlighten friends to the Mac experience and get them of the Windows heroin. They won’t listen, don’t have enough time to learn. I give up!
Sure Ballmer, we all know that a mere TEN MILLION computers sold each year is just a drop in the bucket right? Wow, it never ceases to amaze me what an absolute imbecile that guy is…
Ballmer’s a fool… unless… he has us all fooled!!! :aaah:
@J.Scott,
I repair Macs up in Aggieland and see more of them at Sweet Eugene’s House of Java each week.
So does Mr. Ballmer subscribe to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy mathematical proof that there is no life in the universe?
Or perhaps he has not quite figured out the math at all?
I would be happy to offer him a remedial course in rounding. I will charge him $500,001 dollars but I think it would be easier if we round up to the nearest million dollars…
I’ve never been too interested in Steve Ballmer’s background, until now. He’s myopic, and all the more confounding when we see that this is Microsoft’s CEO talking! If Microsoft indeed goes down during his watch, it would be a classic case study of top management being blind sighted by its own sense of invincibility in the marketplace! Apple may be small but in this game, it is momentum that counts. MS does not have momentum, and is not delivering its innovations quickly enough to the market. Palm made the same mistake and was overtaken by Apple. MS is in danger of repeating the same mistake.
To put it into perspective, 10 million systems sold each year means Apple is selling an average of 19 Macs every single minute for the entire year. That’s hardly the trivial amount that Monkey Boy tries to pass it off as being. It’s just more proof that nobody has a more elitist attitude than Microsoft’s management and their fanboys (some of which post here regularly).
Apple sells “only 10 Million”.
If 1/2 of sales are to switchers, how long will it take to sell OSX to the entire American Consumer Population ?
Once infected w/OSX, they stay.
They also make a machine that can last practically forever….
My G4 Cube is running 10.5 as an ATV Server & the Wife’s PB G4 12″ is @ 10.5 as well.
How many used Macs are going to switchers ?
Yeah, I can run XP on my rev.a BlackMacBook, but I don’t. Why should I ?
Yes, it’s only a trivial insignificant number of people switching of no consequence to us. But we’ll also get them all back with Windows 7, our magical new operating system.
This is just like the Pre dweeb who claimed everybody would dump the iPhone for the Pre the day the Pre came out.
Balmer is neither stupid, nor a liar. He is a salesman. What he does is what any used car salesman does. He cavalierly disparages competition and he exaggerates when talking about his own product. He doesn’t carefully think when talking (no used car salesmen do), so he makes the same mistakes in his pitch as used car salesmen do, elevating a competitor to his level when the competitor is mere 5% of his market share (has anyone ever heard Apple mention Zen when talking about the iPod? or Sansa?). Balmer surely knows what kind of a threat Apple poses to his Windows monopoly. He obviously can’t acknowledge it (that would be foolish, for a salesman), so he tries to sell his Windows as best as he can.
J. Scott said something that is extremely indicative, if a bit anecdotal. Today’s generation of college freshmen seem to overwhelmingly covet Mac. Most of them end up buying one. By the time they’re out of school, the attitude about Mac will be so ingrained in them, it will be practically impossible for them to imagine being seen using (worse, owning) a Windows computer. Once these kids are out of college, they will become the primary influencers. By then, hopefully, economy will be rolling right along, and everyone will be able to afford a Mac again.
The sheer mass of freshmen classes of 2012-2013 (and those that will follow) is quite formidable. It is difficult to imagine a force that could stop this motion.
If it’s a “rounding error,” Balmer would not have bothered to make that comment. The fact that he did, plus the prominent “make sure you consider a Mac and then reject them as being too cool” reminders to consumers in Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunter” ads, make it crystal clear that Microsoft (and Balmer) are VERY concerned about the steady progress Apple is making, and how bad Microsoft looks in comparison.
However, Apple does not compete directly with Microsoft (except maybe with Zune if you can call that “competing”). Apple’s competitors are the other PC makers, who all rely on Microsoft to provide an OS. Apple can win that race without Mac OS X market share surpassing Windows. In fact, if Apple can double its PC market share while maintain current profit margins (selling mostly $1000+ computers), Apple will be the most successful (and probably most highly valued) tech company in the world.
@KingMel –
Unless the MDN Take has been edited, I don’t see them calling people clueless, skinflint, etc. in this particular take. I’m sure they have in others.
The fact is many Windows buyers are now buying $400 machines because they are some of the adjectives you describe – just because they are loaded words does not make them less accurate.
It’s their web site – you don’t like their tone, don’t read it. It’s MDN’s web site, they like being snarky – and many of us enjoy it.
Ballmer is a public figure – and in many ways, delusional. We enjoy being snarky at his expense since he seems to successfully destroying a company we don’t like.
What you see as mean/elitist I see as realistic – calling someone that is ignorant ignorant is only mean if it’s not true – unless you are just going to be politically correct, something this web site and many of it’s readers (myself included) are not
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Does anyone have real numbers on how many Windows licenses MS is claiming per year? What percent of that is 10M? How much of a dent are we making – obviously their lower numbers are some of that.
@moo – howdy from Houston. How many repairs are you doing in Aggieland?
Dream on, Monkey Boy.