“‘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.]
Related articles:
Wilkes University to dump all Windows PCs, replace with Apple Macs – February 22, 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
Engadget: Microsoft’s Zune software: ‘It sucks’ – November 13, 2006
Apple Macs can run more software than Windows PCs – October 30, 2006
Top Windows developer dumps Microsoft’s ‘pile of crap’ for Apple’s Mac OS X – September 12, 2006
PC World writer’s advice for Microsoft: ‘Stop making crap’ – July 27, 2006