“Steve Ballmer made his first solo presentation, sans Bill Gates, at the annual Microsoft analysts meeting on Thursday, claiming that he would be the ‘primary champion of innovation in our company,'” Kate DuBose Tomassi reports for Forbes. “Investors seemed underwhelmed, bidding the software company’s stock down nearly 2% on the day, perhaps less than excited by Ballmer’s contention that the company’s delayed Vista operating system and Office 2007 program could be Microsoft’s ‘most exciting offerings ever.'”
“In March, Microsoft announced delays of both products until late this year, and some analysts have pegged the Vista launch as more likely for next spring,” Tomassi reports. “The annual analyst meeting is the first ever to be conducted without Gates, who is in Africa. Ballmer said he feels he’s ‘entering into a new era’ as of the company’s June 15 announcement that Gates will transition from full-time to part-time over the next two years.”
“Other new Microsoft offerings mentioned were adCenter, an online advertising platform for the company’s MSN, launched in May; the Xbox 360 gaming console, launched last year with strong sales in June according to NPD data; and the company’s challenge to Apple Computer’s iPod, a new music player and online music service called Zune, scheduled to be launched this year,” Tomassi reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ballmer’s “entering into a new era” alright: The Apple era.
Related article:
PC World writer’s advice for Microsoft: ‘Stop making crap’ – July 27, 2006
and to quote some of Dan Quayle famous words:
“Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.”
“We’re going to have the best-educated American people in the world.”
How true, BuriedCaesar. I am sure you agree. But let’s not keep our amusing querelle in such bad terms. Remember:
“We don’t want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.”
“The future will be better tomorrow”
please, stop fussing around. Just have good time. Ballmer is just too funny to spoil it with sour remarks
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Remember, even Dan Quayle said:
“The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make.”
I’m both grateful and horrified.
I’m just thankful that Bush is winning the War on Jobs. Thank god.
Did he start that war as well? This is prolific
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“‘primary champion of innovation in our company”
Hey think about this. Apparently Ballmer is just the primary. Could there be a whole legion of fat, sweaty, maniac Ballmerwannabes, all throwing chairs and vine-swinging to the top? It’d explain the wreck called Vista.
What was that old TV old commercial with a boardroom full of monkeys?
Welcome to MS’s “new era”.
I’m with Ampar. Not drunk, mind you, but just as confused by that rather weak attempt at a dig. Most posters on this site probably don’t even know who Dan Quayle is… you still not finished reading the Newsweek issue from 1992 when he was dealing with his little potato/potatoe issue?
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And, since we’re picking nits, you need to go back to the Podunk library when Wheel of Fortune is over and check out their political science book (if it’s a recent enough publication). Dan Quayle isn’t even from Texas.
And thanks for the back-handed compliment, Mr. Teacher. (Or is that Ms.? It’s sometimes hard to tell, but more likely, though there are fewer male teachers, so that adds a little uncertainty.) And you’re also trying to imply that I’m a teacher, too. Sorry, but that’s strike two. Please try again.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand – I thought at first that Ballmer’s face had been photoshopped onto that shot of Uncle Fenster. Had to look a couple of times to see that it wasn’t. FUNNY!
Ball’s in your court now, Ballmer. What are you going to do now that you couldn’t do before?
The MS Ad service is the stupidest idea I have heard of. I would imagine if this keeps up, they’re eventually going to make Ms Works a free download with OpenOffice and Google Spreadsheets catching up….
MS has such an incoherent strategy at the moment that if I were a shareholder I would be selling right now, before Vista and Zune are released and the company goes bankrupt after having to settle angry lawsuits from unhappy upgraders, PC Hardware Manufacturers for a lack of driver support, before Dell, HP, Compaq, Alienware, & Toshiba all become absorbed into one company and file a class action suit against MS or even worse quit distributing the OS and design their own, and before all the WMP MP3 Companies sue for abandoning PlaysForSure, etc.
Apple is getting it’s revenge by just sitting back and doing nothing.
Microsoft ABSOLUTELY CANNOT screw up Vista if they want to stay a viable corporation. We all know that the PC Companies aren’t happy with MS already, and if users become more unhappy with Microsoft than they already are I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of them attempt to purchase licensing of the Mac OS or even worse, design their own.
MS’s arrogance propelled off of Windows 95 (The really only interesting OS they’ve designed so far) is going to cost them big over the next few years.
Look at how they continue to work on the XBox brand though it yearly has never made a profit. Look at the PocketPC brand, no one uses them, everyone uses their Palm. Hotmail is the closest thing they had to a fad and even that is passed up by Yahoo Mail and Gmail.
The only software I can see Microsoft viably continuing with is Microsoft Office simply because it is the only decent piece of software they have ever developed, save Bicycle Board Games (jk)
So, if anyone needs me over the next few years of legal fireworks and financial loss for Microsoft I’ll be quietly using my MacBook, sending my Podcasts to iTunes, Building Websites with iWeb, Making music with GarageBand, Photocasting with iPhoto, AIMIng my friends with iChat, etc.
Although this is funny, I’ll skip the bashing since it is too easy and obvious and point out the real problem:
To champion innovation, one needs to be innovative themselves and be able to spot innovative products and people.
Running around screaming “innovate, innovate, innovate” <Cue music from the Monkey Boy “Developers, Developers, Developers” video> isn’t going to cut it.
If Balmer hasn’t been able to do it today, to hire and spot the people in the organization who are innovative, to build a culture of innovation, to reward the right behaviors, including failure, how is he going to start now.
It’s something you are born with, not that you just turn on like a light switch, or get the role assigned to you because on an organizatinal re-design.
Welcome, BuriedCaesar!
“The easiest job in the world has to be coroner. Surgery on dead people. What’s the worst thing that could happen? If everything went wrong, maybe you’d get a pulse.”
– Dennis Miller
Most posters on this site probably don’t even know who Dan Quayle is… you still not finished reading the Newsweek issue from 1992
Heh, how many posters on this site were born before 1992?
But for those who weren’t that’s OK. I’m sure the school library has an archive.
Crazy to think politics in the early 90’s were actually nice (the sensationalism of Bush 1 barfing on Japan’s prime minster notwithstanding).
As for Ballmer: you had better start innovating to save your company and your ass.
geezer: I was born June 7th, 1962. And I remember Archimedes.
>Remember, Vista, when it will be out,
When, when, whennie, when-when…?
LOL!
jeez MDN are you trying to kill me?
i almost choked to death on my dinner after seeing that picture i was laughing so hard.
That’s good stuff.
Dan Quale was born in the town just down the road from my farm, Huntington Indiana.
And that’s a fact.
How about being the “primary champion” of getting-your-cash-cow-Windows-and-Office-products-out-the-door-on-time. Microsoft can’t follow money-losing strategies with Xbox and Zune forever, without money coming IN from somewhere.
sung to the tune of The Addams Family…….
The Ballmer family started
When Uncle Fester farted
The children are retarded
The Ballmer family
According to Webster, alright is all right, though it is “non-standard”. So get standardized so you fit in, you non-conformist libral.
My mother was an English teacher and my wife is a grammar kommisar, so I’m used to having my sentences ripped to shreds. Sad. But I’m a Mac-head so it’s all good. And yes, IT’S all good, not ITS. Learned that lesson the hard way too.
I was born in 1963. I remember Ronbo and Bush the Vomiter. And Lloyd Bensen disemboweling Quayle during the vp debate: “I knew John Kennedy, John Kennedy was a friend of mine…”
ps: best PC WORLD column ever: http://www.pcworld.com/columnist/id,9/columnist.html
Re: Dr. Dangling, “Three Steps to a New, Improved Microsoft!
Parting advice for Bill Gates.” You were right.
Steve’s a champion of donuts and cream buns.
He holds the dual world records for:
“the most donuts ever stuffed in a human mouth prior to swallowing”, and
“the most cream buns eaten by a human in one sitting without vomiting”.
LOL! Dan Quayle…..ROTFLMAO!!!! LOL! ROTFLMAO! LOL!
Stop it, my sides hurt! LOL!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!
Oh…HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!! Ow! My stomach hurts now! LOL!
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
Thank you and good night.
Thank you and good night.
umm… ishufflemyfeet… it’s morning. check your time tag.
….awww… just fcukin’ with ya.
It’s funny how selective memory is, isn’t it? You remember Dan Quayle quotes because the media focussed on him and hung on every word. Strange how they didn’t do that to Jimmy Carter’s Vice President (does anyone even remember who he was?), or even Al Gore. What if they did? Why, you’d have even-handed coverage for a change. But you realize that if you did that, the press would have to actually live up to their designation as “impartial”.
Put another way, do you really believe that all Vice-presidents are dumb and that you are much more qualified to be one? That’s a convenient fiction that the powerless often tell themselves, with no evidence for such assertations. “Those guys are dumb! I’m smart! Life’s not fair! Wahhh.” Yes, and you’re not rich or a famous musician, either. I wonder why.
Perhaps you’ve bought into the big lie that “all Republicans are stupid”? Funny how that last one gets trotted out every time there’s a Republican president, VP, or Congressman that the media views as a threat: Reagan, Rumsfield, Bolton, Kirkpatrick, Newt, and so forth. You might even call it a “meme”. Where’s the evidence? A bunch of quotes and gaffes that anyone who had been in any position of power long enough would make. Or do you really think that the lack of focus upon say, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, or Nancy Peliosi, is an incredible oversight or accident? An accident is a one-time event. A problem is a repetition of that behavior. What we’re seeing is not an accident, but a problem.
Of course, if you were actually honest with yourselves, you’d be aware of this by now. Follow the mass media — digest and obey. Just don’t pretend that you’re thinking.
Walter Frederick “Fritz” Mondale