“Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday that Wall Street’s current expectations for revenue from its newest operating system may be too ‘optimistic,'” The Associated Press reports. “‘I’m really excited about how enthusiastic people are about Vista, but I think some of the revenue forecasts for Vista in 2008 are overly aggressive,’ Ballmer said in a meeting for financial analysts. ‘(Vista) is primarily a chance to sustain what (Windows) revenue we have — not every release is a revenue growing opportunity.'”
AP reports, “Ballmer also responded to a question about a series of commercials made by smaller computer maker Apple Inc. The ads poke fun at Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, through a geeky character who calls himself a ‘PC.'”
‘I’ll give Apple credit for what it’s done,’ Ballmer said. ‘It’s not like they’ve really grown a lot of market share (through the commercials). Remember, when you’re the little tiny niche guy who owns about 2 percent of the worldwide (computer) market, you can be cute one time and it helps you grow,'” AP reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: First Gates loses his mind and now this from Ballmer. Those ads have really gotten under their skin. Jobs should triple the “Get a Mac” campaign’s budget.
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Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUD>
Good job Steve!!
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I bet that really hit hard, didn’t it you Apple fanboys???
Your Potential, Our Passion
@ FUD????? >
Fear, uncertainty and doubt.
The term FUD is thought to originate from when IBM’s mainframe business started to be eroded by so-called plug-compatible manufacturers, like Amdahl.
Big Blue’s salesmen would wander the corporate world spreading FUD-thinking including such gems as…
“IBM will always be around. If you buy an S/390-compatible from (Amdahl, Hitachi, etc.), how can you be sure that they will still be there when you have a problem?”
“We’re probably going to sue them for infringing our IP, you don’t want to get caught up in that”
and, last – but by no means least…
“Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”
Doesn’t the fact that Apple questions bother them make it all the more fun to ask about Apple comercials and iPods?
YES!
I hope Ballmer stays with M$ until he retires! He’s the best friend Apple has.
I really wish he’d do another Monkey Boy Scream’n’Dance video. We need new fodder for the parody mill.
It’s funny how Apple market share just jumps around willy nilly depending on which MS nerd or MS slaveboy is talking. One time it’s 5%, another time it’s 3%, now it’s 2%. Next week Bill Gates will say that it’s -17% if he wants, and NO ONE in the mainstream media will call him on it, just like they didn’t call him on his latest rash of baldface lies.
And they never talk about the INSTALLED USER BASE, or the fact that Apple’s market share of actual COMPUTER SALES is actually very good. It’s always OS market share that they focus on.
Ballmer is a tool if there ever was one. Someone cue the dancing monkey boy video.
and this is why he sucks at what he does.. he will be the downfall of that company.
That Cat needs a screw down hairdo, lord knows, he could lick ’em by smiling,
Billions of dollars in R&D only to maintain the revenue they currently have!!!!
WTF – and this is what they teach at Harvard about business???
R&D is supposed to generate MANY multiples of GROWTH revenue.
Coke don’t spend on R&D, they spend on marketing to maintain (or incremntally grow) their market share.
Now Windows fan boys will say, this is technology, not sugared water (mmm why is that familiar…
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> ) and so you have to keep investing to maintain your current position, like ummm….. cars???
Then we get back to the fact that if the PC industry is like cars, then Windows is teh sheap generic piece of shit that gets you from A to B, but not comfortably, dynamically or in style. Sure they are in business, but who cares.
This leave the Apple/BMW analogy alive. Apple/BMW create products within tehir respective industries that are stylish, high performance, comfortable, leading/bleeding edge, and yet only hold a small % of the total market. Both however are considered leader of their industry, and both are highly profitable and growing.
I know which I’d prefer to be working for – GM or BMW??? Apple or Microsoft????
My 2 cents,
Luke
“Then IBM released the “PC” with PCDOS (MSDOS) from Microsoft. Apple publically made light of the situation, saying it was not concerned. Look what happened”
Bad example.
The Apple II? They were developing Lisa, Mac, etc…
Apple was pretty sure they had the GUI thing to themselves, to be fair.
Even if the courts didn’t got that way.
>> Steve Ballmer said Thursday that Wall Street’s current expectations for revenue from its newest operating system may be too “optimistic.”
That’s why Microsoft has been such a dud lately. They don’t make products that people can get optimistic about.
I’m amazed their CEO publicly stated people shouldn’t be that optimistic about Vista!
How can their “WOW” ads be effective if even their top dog isn’t himself a believer?!
Ballmer is Microsoft’s cancer.
They say Apple has 2% market share, implying that they have the other 98%.
What a laugh. Apple’s pushing 3% world wide. Linux has about 3%. Bootleg Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, and XP has about 20%.
That leaves Microsoft with less than 75%.
Isn’t it amazing that no one will buy bootleg Vista Ultimate at $3 to $5 a copy.
Maybe that’s what Balmer heard when he decided to warn the markets. No lineups to buy Vista in America and in Asia and Russia the bootleggers can’t give it away.
The reporter also shows their true colors by saying
“Ballmer also responded to a question about a series of commercials made by smaller computer maker Apple Inc.”
Err what? Microsoft doesn’t make computers…
M$ have plenty of time to make a lot of money, but that’s all they can do. They’ll abuse their monopoly until it’s gone. But it will take at least 5 years for that to happen.
The scary thing is that Apple is destined to make way more money than M$ because they sell hardware and software. Most, if not all, of M$’s hardware loses them money. Apple make money on both the hardware and software. Since they probably account for the R&D costs of a lot of the software in their hardware sales, they probably reap a lot of cash from upgrades to the OS and iLife.
M$ profits last quarter – 2.63B. Apple’s – 1B and their profitability will increase as their shipments do.
Steve Bawlmore
HAH! That “cute little niche guy” is whooping your ass, Stevie Baby!
Smaller computer computer maker?
Microsoft doesn’t make compuers, and Apple sold 1.6 million of them last quarter.
I would think it is Microsoft who is the smaller computer maker, if we call XBox a “computer.”
That condescending bastard is about to have his hubris shoved up his zune.
What is so sad is regardless of what you think of Microsoft, the behavior of both Gates and Ballmer has been atrocious.
These are the guys that crafted a globe spanning empire. They have a hammerlock on several key industries and their decisions steer corporate flagships of all shapes and sizes.
Yet here they are, clearly flustered and seemingly obsessed with a competitor they claim they don’t consider to be such. Any CEO worth his exorbitant salary is fully and completely cognizant of his industry, his competitors and their place in it. A reputable CEO wouldn’t be caught dead looking as childish or as uninformed as both Gates and Ballmer have looked since the revelation of the iPhone and the release of Vista.
They truly did not expect to have Vista compared to Mac OS X. It’s obvious by their reactions and the off the cuff garbage they (especially Gates) babble when Apples OS is mentioned. And we all know for a fact that people like Gates and Ballmer and even Jobs are surrounded by people whose job it is to make sure that the Boss never looks stupid.
Either Microsoft’s people are completely incompetent, or irrational arrogance permeates Microsoft to a heretofore unrealized degree.
I feel sorry for Ballmer because he is in denial. That explains why he can minimize microsoft’s dire situation. People are actually starting to question the validity and usability of windows for the first time in history. The media has responded the way Apple wanted them to with Apple television ads. That is why media coverage is making Gates and Ballmer so very uncomfortable during interviews.
Just my observation.
since when has market share really mattered ?
it’s profit
and mind share that REALLY matters
apple are held in the very highest esteem aboot the globe
while ms are a universal pariah
The irrevocably fatal decision in business is to underestimate the threat of your competition. The corollary to this is to overestimate your inherent ability to maintain success.
Ballmer: 0 of 2.
FUD Clothing:
http://www.spreadshirt.net/shop.php?op=article&article_id=1012322
fear. I smell blood.
“And God said “Let there be a CEO named Ballmer that offers no inspiration to his staff, no corporate direction, and is devoid of intelligence.””
He may offer no inspiration, but he sure can offer perspiration.
MDN MW: ‘shall’ as in ‘thou shalt not spread FUD’.