At the Microsoft’s recent “the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Global Summit,” a gathering of the company’s top software developers, Microsoft repeatedly proclaimed to their MVPs that they would “win” in search and other aspects of their Windows Live thingamabob.
“‘We’re a two-trick pony, and that’s rare in the history of business. Desktop software was a trick. Server was a trick. Our third trick is trying to do online, and our fourth trick is trying to do consumer electronics,’ Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said during a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with Joss and about 200 Stanford Graduate School of Business students Thursday,” Ryan Blitstein reports for The Mercury News. “‘Google built one very good business. They only have one thing they do. Everything else is sort of cute,’ Ballmer said.” Full article here.
On Friday, former Microsoft technical evangelist and prominent blogger Robert Scoble weighed in, “Microsoft executives are bragging to MVPs that ‘we’re in it to win.’ I don’t think Microsoft is. The words are empty. Microsoft’s Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks… If that’s ‘in it to win’ then I don’t get it.”
Scoble writes, “Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn’t winning. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative…”
“Oh, and Ballmer, if I ran Google your speech at Stanford yesterday would be plastered on every door on every campus Google has. Why? It’ll motivate Google employees the same way a coach will motivate an opposing team during the Superbowl by taking trash in the press. You’re up against a formidable competitor and one you’ve never seen before that has some real, significant weapons that you can’t deal with,” Scoble writes.
Scoble writes, “This isn’t Netscape you’re talking trash to, Steve. Have you really studied Google? It doesn’t sound like you have. Again, Microsofties, you’d be better served not to talk trash until you have something YOU CAN SHIP!”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “pogo” for the heads up.]
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MR. PC Guy,
Humor, I get it. Althought it seems that some of these others do not.
I like “daddy” too. Please don’t hit me daddy, I’ll be good and not buy an iPod, I promise!! LOL
Later,
ne
Petey—
You truly get the Biggest Idiot of the Day award. I’m sure Ballmer won’t mind lending you that award for a day.
What a great lot of fun reading these comments! Let me just say, I work for a large enterprise, many, many, many pc’s (over 10,000) and there is absolutely no talk here of a time line for Vista. Zero, zip, nada. In addition, the one lab group who has it installed pretty much just say either “why did they do that? or “Are you f’ing kidding me?” about nearly every facet of the OS. The biggest rave is “that’s sorta cool, but look how much of the CPU it’s using” and then shortly after back to the “are you f’ing kidding me?”
Now clearly, we’re just nuts and bolts people, not big picture people. But none of us has ever witnessed such a resounding silence here about plans to distribute an MS product.
s/he
I disagree with you.
I like money as much as anyone else, but I can’t imagine being Mrs. Balmer and looking up at Steve’s sweaty grimacing face whilst lying under him during sex…not for a few bucks.
Come on fellas. Lets get real. You guys are living in a fantasy world. Get off of your dungeons and dragons soap box, and smell the coffee. Windows rules the roost, and you guys (apple) are the ugly friend left out in the cold. You might have cool software, and cool ads, etc. However, you guys are too small, and don’t command any respect…except for music. And this discussion has nothing to do with music, and everything to do with OS X.
Give up, and admit defeat. You know what I would do if I ran apple? Shut down the company, sell all the shares…
. . . of people comparing computers to cars. The facts are plain enough; nothing wrong with the machines–it’s the frakkin’ OS. Windows has never been much more than good enough, and it never will be. Microsoft is about to have their asses dusted yet again with the next shift to touch interface. Their OS is going to look archaic again, and it will be years before they catch up. Difference is, this time around Apple are smarter, and more people are watching this time.
No problems yet with 10.4.9 itself, though World of Warcraft has been giving more error reports, but I can send those along and keep on my merry playing. Hopefully they’ll be pretty quick to figure things out. There’s some good people at Blizzard, IMHO.
@ Steve Jobs
The Shakespeare quote is from Macbeth:
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
But you are right – ’tis a Ballmer looking apparition in it’s form.
+@ Petey:
You both need to pop open OS X’s dictionary and look up ‘irony’ before you post again.
I have 3 M$ mice. they are 1.5 and .5 yrs old. 1 is dead
i dod like the ouse that died tho.
jun m4 KeYBoardddddddddddddddd