“The word ‘intense’ was invented for [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer, who met with us in a green room that had a paper sign with his name taped to the door. While he was at first warm and engaging, a question about security features shifted his mood. His eyes, soft when he smiles, grew dark. The usually boisterous Ballmer became unexpectedly quiet and soon exited the room without saying goodbye. Still, he had a lot to say… before he did,” Dyan Machan reports for SmartMoney Magazine.
A few choice snippets:
Machan: Steve Jobs’s iPhone announcement stole the thunder from Bill Gates’s keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show. Do you wish you had the iPhone?
Ballmer: No. Apple has put its brand into a new category. That doesn’t mean it’s a good product. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of our partners came out with a device that looks exactly the same at a lower price in six or seven months [near the time when iPhones will ship]. There’s a notion that there’s magic with Apple. iPod is a hot brand — not Apple.
Machan: But Apple is in the home, winning in the very place Microsoft has identified as important to its strategy — that is, entertainment.
Ballmer: It’s a romantic notion that Apple has the lead. People who build overpriced, underpowered equipment and then market it in an edgy way do not have a formula for broad success. In the home there are PCs; Apple has no presence. There are videogame machines; Apple has no presence. TVs: Apple has no presence; Microsoft has some presence. Music: Apple has a very large presence [via the iPod]; Microsoft has an interesting presence in the high-end market.
Machan: You mean the Zune? Please.
Ballmer: We don’t kid ourselves. We won’t come out our first Christmas and take over. There will be a phase two and three. But at the end of the day, entertainment devices will be a very good business for us.
Machan: People complain about feature bloat. Most of us use 5 to 10% of features. People won’t buy for features.
Ballmer: No. They will buy for features. People use more of these products than they think. Maybe you couldn’t write [a great PowerPoint presentation]. But now you can read it. The user interface is sexier. Sex sells.
Machan: What part of Bill Gates’s job stretches you the most?
Ballmer: There’s no replacing Bill Gates. I gotta go.
More in the full interview, including the security questions, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dave” for the heads up.]
Certainly, any Microsoft shareholder with a brain would concur with Ballmer’s last sentence. Selfishly, we hope he stays long enough to ride the ship all the way down to its well-deserved watery grave. Microsoft has an interesting presence in the high-end music market? Please, indeed. Kudos to Dyan Machan for going at Ballmer hard. The Zune is a joke. Vista is a bloated, messy joke with an interface that even the most-delusional know is trying to look like Apple’s Mac OS X. Hey, “sex sells,” right? Ballmer’s hope to compete with iPhone is the same old, same old Microsoft business-as-usual: make it “look” like an Apple product to fool the ignorant. What’s really interesting about this is Ballmer’s Gates-like hasty exit: even they seem to be so tired of hearing their own B.S. that there’s no point of continuing their charades. For their shareholders, Microsoft really ought to keep Ballmer and Gates off the interview circuit until they get their Apple envy under control.
Related articles:
AT&T has received 1 million Apple iPhone inquiries so far – March 27, 2007
Train wreck: Windows Vista flaw locks up PCs when users try to delete, copy, move files – March 27, 2007
Bill Gates not amused when asked about Apple’s ‘Get a Mac’ ads – March 15, 2007
Gates dumps Microsoft stock – March 05, 2007
Why Apple’s smart ‘Get a Mac’ campaign drives Bill Gates crazy – March 04, 2007
Microsoft CEO Ballmer talks infected feet, profuse sweating, and Windows Vista – February 21, 2007
Ballmer says pirates to blame for poor Vista sales – February 19, 2007
Bill Gates: Vista is so secure it could run life support systems – February 16, 2007
Ballmer calls Apple ‘cute, little tiny niche guy’ – February 15, 2007
Microsoft’s Gates tries FUD to keep people from switching to Apple’s secure Mac – February 12, 2007
Bill Gates unhinged with Apple envy; Microsoft on path to become high profile casualty – February 06, 2007
Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows – February 02, 2007
Microsoft’s Windows Vista: Five years for a chrome-plated turd – January 30, 2007
Bill Gates lists Microsoft ‘innovations’ that Apple has offered Mac users for years – January 30, 2007
Gates bristles over Vista, Mac OS X comparisons – January 29, 2007
Apple #1 brand in North Amercia, #2 after Google in global rank – January 26, 2007
Microsoft CEO Ballmer laughs at Apple iPhone – January 17, 2007
Bill Gates confronted by glowing Apple logos as every single blogger at meeting uses Macs – December 15, 2006
Ballmer: ‘Zune halo effect’ will help Windows Vista – December 06, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune selling like snotcakes – November 15, 2006
Ballmer: I’m Microsoft’s ‘primary champion of innovation’ – July 27, 2006
Microsoft CEO Ballmer spends two days unsuccessfully trying to clean Windows PC malware – June 05, 2006
Couldn’t you just buy a Mac and run Windows? Microsoft CEO Ballmer: ‘No, we prefer real PCs’ – April 29, 2006
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admits to brainwashing his kids not to use Apple iPods – March 28, 2006
Microsoft CEO Ballmer: ‘Apple iPod users are music thieves’ – October 04, 2004
Microsoft CEO Ballmer on the digital home: ‘There is no way that you can get there with Apple’ – October 03, 2004
Fuckin fantastic!
Where’s my chair!!
love the picture!!
What color is the sky in his world?
It’s a shame MicroSlut has to be such a tough cookie. Apple and Microsoft could have ruled the world together if they wanted to work together. Oh well…
-Pi
Smart “Monkey” Magzine
MW: show, as in, “Show me the Monkey!”
Don’t blame Balmer for walking out. The interviewer was asking retarded questions and I’m surprised Balmer didn’t call him on it. One of the worst tech interviews I’ve read in a long time.
Market value down from $600 billion to $270 billion that it is today is well done.
Microsofs´s market value will be down to $150 billion soon. The Leviathan is sinking no doubt about it.
He and Gates are feeling pressured. It’s gotta’ suck to constantly be asked about your much smaller, much sleeker rival. Basically, they keep getting asked: why do you suck? and do you realize you’re really, really boring, Señor Copycat?
Who knows more about what is sexy than Ballmer?
That’s a no-brainer. Literally.
jeff wrote:
“The interviewer was asking retarded questions…”
Your painful grammar aside, what exactly was “retarded” about these questions? They were very reasonable in my opinion.
MDN take is right on. We DO NOT want this man to leave the ship Microsoft. We DO NOT want a motivated visionary taking over and erasing the culture of “no taste” left by Gates/Allen/Ballmer. Be sad, the day this man leaves.
MW: With. Microsoft is better off (for us) WITH this man!
Note to MSFT shareholders: Uncle Fester’s got to go.
-jcr
Ballmer = biggest retarded dork ever
I’m glad someone finally had the guts to call out Ballmer on some of his bullsh*t for a change. That’s why the moron monkey walked out of the interview so quickly.
“You mean the Zune? Please.” Sums that up perfectly.
Not a word about quality, Ballmer’s whole auro, along with MS, is all about power and control, quality isn’t even in the game plan. Its all about winning consequences be damned. I think – I hope, that’s becoming more and more obvious to potential buyers.
And I have to disagree with some of MDN’s take: VISTA is NOT a joke, its a deadly cancer that a lot of people and businesses are going to pay dearly for, well above and beyond the cost of purchase.
All together MS really is just a a shitty company isn’t it.
The word I was trying for in the first sentence was “aura”. Peace.
You mean the Zune? Please. – LOL
A somewhat related interview with Steve Ballmer, as far as sex and Microsoft.
Balmer is definately in his own little fantasy island. Bill, the plane, the plane, screams balmer.
I really don’t know why Microsoft and Mr. Bill haven’t gotten rid of Balmer years ago.
Apple has taken over completely the home market in Video, and music and downloads. The iphone is so hot even before it has even been released people on Ebay are charging $1200.00 for something that doesn’t exist and people are actually trying to buy them!
Yes Balmer, you just stay in your little fantasy island and Apple will be visiting you very soon.
” . . . who met with us in a green room that had a paper sign with his name taped to the door.”
Ballmer made the sign himself over a two week period using Vista Paint. It will be saved for his refrigerator.
There will be a phase two and three… right ok and i guarantee that he doesnt have the foggiest idea of what that is. how can he? all ms does is implement a poor copy of Apple.
The Zune is a great example of this. i really cant stop laughing about the zune though, i mean 5 years after the iPod, all they can do is rebadge a toshiba (really thinking this is going to compete with the iPod?) give it a crap UI, then a couple months later Apple announce the iPhone, which blows everything out of the water including anything in the mobile phone sector!!!!, and all microsoft can say is “Microsoft has an interesting presence in the high-end market”.
ROFL it sure is interesting you dickhead, interesting how full of sh*t you are.
More and more are seeing that the Emperor has no clothes.
ROFL!
Yet another fantastic piece of media interviewing!
Has anyoen actually trained Ballmer how to speak through and deal with the press??
I have been media trained for TV, press interviews etc and I look like a media expert compared to him!
Jesus – A CEO of one of the most influential companies in the world talking absolute bollocks.
He has’nt a clue how to deal with the press… but then again, what do you expect from a salesman with no sales skills.
I get the impression he treats all his employees like shit… I wonder how I got that impression…
He is also in a state of extreme denial, he cannot accept that Bill Gates is finished with Microsoft (thank god!).
We’ll heere’s a tip Ballmer, you want to turn around the bad press? – start talking through them NOT to them. The press are a vessel to get YOUR message across. Instead of bullshiting all the competition, speak to them about positive features, what Microsoft is doing to combat Apple’s presence.
You need some training!!
I think he’s gettin’ one up. You know, a little boner…
Ballmer is a revolting person. No doubt.
Makes you wonder if that goes for Gates and other seniors at the company too.
” . . . who met with us in a green room that had a paper sign with his name taped to the door.”
—-
Microsoft employed 200 marketing consultants @ $500 per hour, 8 months and 42 proofs at board level to get that paper sign approved.
In the same time frame, Apple invented the iPhone…
LMAO!!!
Just how many shades of dishonesty are there at Microsoft?
Uncle Fester
I gotta go…
Ballmer is learning to control his behavior, he moves to another room before throwing a chair now.
Just how many shades of dishonesty are there at Microsoft?
—
Too many!
There is’nt a colour expert on the planet that can answer that one!
“More and more are seeing that the Emperor has no clothes.”
That’s an image we do NOT need! Think of the children.
Machan: Spam and viruses exist at Microsoft’s tolerance. Security is a selling point for Vista. Have you held back security improvements to force people to upgrade?
Ballmer: Quite the contrary. Our strategy is to get rid of it. We’ve done our best. Bad guys have to be right once. We have to be right all the time.
This is a hoot! Several hundred thousand bad guys have been right. M$ has been right never.
MDN MW: minutes. How many minutes does it take a VISTA computer to be infiected once connected tot he internet?
“There’s no replacing Bill Gates. I gotta go.”
What they missed was Ballsy bursting into tears seconds later over the thought of losing his shiny pet, Turtle Boy.
Re Microsoft and honesty. From the article:
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cheese” style=”border:0;” />
Harvard pal Jim Cramer of TheStreet.com. “No one could lead this next leg up for Microsoft as well as Steve,” Cramer says with his typical, hyperverbal exuberance. “Tenacity, loyalty, rigor and honesty all rolled into one great guy.”
WTF!
He’s right about one thing, sex sells. How else would a buffoon like him have children?
Scumbag.
“I gotta go.”
as in Ballmer saying, “I gotta go take a Zune before I Zune my pants”
When your entire business “innovations” have either been stolen or licensed from somebody else, your weakness is bound to come out. Gates and Ballmer are perfect examples of common thieves and liars. When their lies come back to haunt them, they run away like the playground bully punched by the smart kid. I really like the “…overpriced and underpowered…” comment. What a complete dork. I guess a quad core computer with fast dvd burners, bluetooth, wireless, etc. are so trumped by the quality PCs out there with their state-of-the-art floppy drives and nothing else. I guess what I’m really trying to say is, “PC users quit being sheep and try a Mac for yourself. Unless you are opposed to having a little fun and a lot of productivity.”
In closing, I guess that turd brown Zune (which zucks) is sexy. Please people think for yourselves. Microsoft is all out of lies.
Those competitors in Apple’s target reticle do say the most stupid things, because for them to say anything not screamingly stupid would be the equivalent of saying, “We’re f*cked, just f*cked.”
OMG, he’s crazy.
Sex sells??? Apart from the fact that man (and woman) have known this since money was invented, does this mean that MS is looking at a new market segment? A new entertainment division?
“I really don’t know why Microsoft and Mr. Bill haven’t gotten rid of Balmer years ago.”
Hint:
Microshaft stinks… Ballmer… stinks… a match made in h….ell
Sex sells??? Apart from the fact that man (and woman) have known this since money was invented, does this mean that MS is looking at a new market segment? A new entertainment division?
—
YUK!
Imagine that – Balmer and Co nude in Microsoft Porn.
The ‘M$ porn download service’ will cost $200 a download. and be full of virusis.
It will feature an ‘innovative’ new concept – sex! (which Microsoft will patent of course, along with air’, ‘the wheel’ and the amazing idea of ‘drinking’ and not forgeting Microsoft’s most original concept to date: ‘breathing’.
There is one thing positive about it though… at least they may make some money from all the web pervs and paedo’s out there…
I think MSFT really needs a visionary at the helm. Someone who will inspire and knows how to communicate a message. Also, someone who knows how to deliver. And deliver a quality product.
Only if MSFT gains a leadership asset like this will Apple have the ability to reach greatness yet unseen. Apple needs stronger competition to get even better than they are today.
You gotta bet that Ballmer has pictures, perhaps even a video, from their college days, of Bill in a compromising position with certain members of a local flock of sheep.
Working closely with sheep was their major training for running Microsoft. Those two can really relate to their customers as a result of their college sheep training.
Ballmer already has bold, new ideas for taking squirting to the next level.
Duct tape, a pink Zune and a Super Soaker? Or something MUCH more bold? You decide.
Man, if they ever need to cast an Uncle Fester for a new Adams Family movie, give Ballmer a call. Great pic!
It should be illegal to use the words Ballmer and sex in one sentence. I have to take a shower now.
“Machan: You mean the Zune? Please.
Ballmer: We don’t kid ourselves. We won’t come out our first Christmas and take over. There will be a phase two and three. But at the end of the day, entertainment devices will be a very good business for us.”
Interesting! “very good business”? Really. I walked through the Toronto Eaton Centre on Monday. The mall is in central Toronto and is a big destination for locals and tourists alike. I started on the top level in the Apple Store that was pretty busy for a Monday. Then I walked all three levels of the mall past and through a variety of tech and electronics stores. I was purposely looking for a Zune.
Nowhere in this large and popular mall could I find a single Zune! I wonder what pahse two and three are? Zero times any number is still zero!
“I wouldn’t be surprised if one of our partners came out with a device that looks exactly the same at a lower price in six or seven months [near the time when iPhones will ship]”
Yea– It’ll be brown: will run some virus-plagued version of Windows Mobile; and will “squirt”– except when it doesn’t.
Idiot. There’s already a hunk of junk that fits your description–LG has one out now.
And about all that can be said for it is , it sort of “looks the same”
Saying Apple is not a hot brand is like saying Ballmer is not a hot head. What a dolt.
MDN MW: “thats”, as in “Thats the facts, Jack!”
Of course sex sells. And in Microsoftland the newest centerfold is a 600-lb woman who doesn’t shave, has missing/crooked teeth, is missing a limb, a mustache, whose hair is falling out, and who has a tattoo of Spongebob Squarepants right above her cootch.
BALLMER SUCKS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF ALL THAT DOES SUCK!
@ Tommy Boy
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />
Just spat coffee everywhere!
Why are Microsoft executives so damned sensitive?
This is awesome. For months now I have been watching Microsoft’s top people let themselves be chased out of room after room, as if THEY are the ones doing the rejecting.
BALLMER: Wanna dance?
REPORTER: No, thanks. I’m taken.
BALLMER: What do you mean, you’re taken? I said you look fat in those pants!
(dances away blithely solo, revealing massive sweat streak down back of shirt)
…maybe Geppetto should start carving a new executive for Microsoft …….someone with a wish to find a little bit of reality when Ballmer implodes and gets sold off into the cosmetic products industry …or something like that. Someone who knows when to say, ‘man, I’m really f*kd up ..I should stop doing interviews.” …..or someone who could say, “man, I should probably check in with the puppetmaster.”
If Microsoft’s executives (namely Gallmer, new word for Gates and Ballmer since they’ve got “gall”) were Pinocchio, their noses would’ve impaled Pluto by now. If Geppetto did carve a Pinocchio to lead Microsoft, he’d probably end up with a pickled liver or dead of alchohol poisoning within a year.
Apple is the new “world” order.
To amyhre: That sure would be a sad end to Mickey’s dog! (j/k)
Yeah, Ballmer, Sex Sells.
Vista is your inflatable lover to… well, we’ll not embarrass you further, fat boy.
Look, it’s easy for people who favor to Mac to badmouth Microsoft it’s CEO. But there is something serious going on here.
When you are the leading brand, you should never mention the brand trailing you. No matter what position you hold, it’s bad policy to bad mouth the competition. Much better to talk about your unique strenghts. That’s one of the reasons I was ticked off with the Apple CFO who made some snide and disparaging remarks about Microsoft about 2 to 4 weeks ago.
But listen to what’s coming out of Ballmer’s mouth. This goes beyond defensive. He is clearly threatened.
Ballmer: No. Apple has put its brand into a new category. That doesn’t mean it’s a good product.
Ballmer: There’s a notion that there’s magic with Apple. iPod is a hot brand — not Apple.
Ballmer: It’s a romantic notion that Apple has the lead.
Ballmer: People who build overpriced, underpowered equipment and then market it in an edgy way do not have a formula for broad success.
Ballmer: In the home there are PCs; Apple has no presence. There are videogame machines; Apple has no presence. TVs: Apple has no presence; Microsoft has some presence.
What Ballmer is rally saying is: I’m afriad that people think that if Apple makes it it’s a good product, that people see the Apple brand as magic, that people perceive Apple to have the lead, that Apple has a formula for success and that they are eating into our markets. Notice, he wasn’t asked any of those questions. Instead of answering the questions he was asked, he’s attempting to answer his own misgivings.
Check out this “iZuned shirt here: iZuned I would get one if I actually knew someone who owned a Zune.
Tommy Boy:
(But seriously, I thought it was a tattoo of Squidward above a down arrow.)
No, there’s no “replacing” Dr. Evil, that’s for sure.
But Monkey Boy is capable of giving us something to laugh at all on his own.
My favourite:
“People who build overpriced, underpowered equipment and then market it in an edgy way do not have a formula for broad success.”
Microsoft already lost the battle for the lucrative high-end consumer desktops to Apple; it’s nowhere in the mobile music player market; Win CE devices are a standing joke; and just watch Sony and Nintendo whack its arse in the console market.
You want to know about cost, Monkey Boy? The next area that Microshaft have to worry about is the enterprise. Dell equipment is roughly equivalent to Apple equipment, but look what happen when you add in Microsoft’s licensing costs for Exchange:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/685B09D3-950B-4B23-8B1F-A56D448F7208.html
Apple’s calendaring solution, which uses open standards, is *included* in the price of the server. If you’ve got 100 seats you’d be paying $17, 206 for a Windows solution and $5, 495 for an Apple solution. And guess how much of that seventeen thou is going in Redmond’s pocket?
So who’s “overpriced” now? Get lost, Ballmer, you lying tosser.
Somewhere there’s a village that’s being deprived of it’s idiot. Thanks Microsoft.
Keep pumping out the same Anti-Apple FUD that you have been doing for years, Ballmer. One day you will wake up, look around, and wonder WTF happened – where did it all go wrong.?
Ballmer doesn’t get it.
People would most likely say that they are edgy. I doubt that many would admit to being frightened, blind, sheep.
Ballmer and Pencil neck have zero tact. Steaming and lying to the press and on camera, too.
I loved Gates’ little Daily Show performance where he runs offstage after the interview.
These bastards have more money than god, can’t they buy themselves some public speech TRAINING?
Where do you get these photos of Monkey Boy!
A face only a mother could love.
Now that both Gates and Ballmer have flounced out of interviews, it’s going to be open season on them. Reporters can either let them give their standard speech and publish a story that’s boring or else they can ask challenging questions and prompt some sort of newsworthy response.
Microsoft has many weak points and journalists are aware of them, so it’s only a matter of time before Gate and Ballmer find themselves in a situation where things are not stage managed in the way they’d like them to be and storming out isn’t a realistic option either.
The personal weaknesses displayed by Gates and Ballmer, the weaknesses in Microsoft’s business and the embarrassing failures of a number of recent Microsoft launches add up to a very tempting target for a certain type of journalist. Things might be getting very bumpy very soon.
They don’t even have the option of saying nothing for the next few months. Leopard will be with us within weeks and the iPhone shortly after. Comparisons will inevitably be made with Microsoft and it’s inconceivable that they won’t want to comment, but doing so will open the door for critical questioning.
I glanced at the picture and at first thought it was a Youtube clip of the Adam’s Family.
I am so happy that “idiot Balmer” is in charge of MS. No one else can help like he can and not even work @ . Walk away Bill, just walk away.
“The iPhone isn’t a very good product, but we’ll copy it anyway.”
Microsoft needs new leadership, badly. Vista ships on almost every PC sold, except for those sold by Apple. Apple has the “monopoly” on the “commercial” (not counting Linux) OS that doesn’t suck. Apple could just keep using Tiger and continue to succeed, but Leopard will arrive in a few weeks. If that’s not a killer advantage for the next five years, I don’t know what is. It’s no wonder Balmer is ticked off; Vista and Zune are the best things to happen to Apple since… maybe ever.
Ballmer: “In the home there are PCs; Apple has no presence.”
Apple has no presence in the home?
Does he mean consumers? How can that be?
The PC world has been telling us for about a decade that Apple has no presence in business. It has to be in the home (consumers) by a process of elimination. There’s really only two options here.
If Apple has no presence in business and it doesn’t have it in the home (consumers), then where is it?
Is Ballmer trying to say that Apple is a figment of the imagination?
In his dreams.
“In the home there are PCs; Apple has no presence.”
Sorry, Uncle “Fucking” Fester. But in my home, Windows has no presence. Apple does – with three killer Macs!!
Baller and his company are nothing less than dog-shit.
“People who build overpriced, underpowered equipment and then market it in an edgy way do not have a formula for broad success.”
Hmmm, let’s consider this statement…
• The “old” generation of Macintosh systems – which ceased to exist last fall – were based on PowerPC processors. One of the processors that Apple abandoned – because it wasn’t scaling without causing heat problems – is now resident in Microsoft’s XBox 360 games console and (when that hardware was in development) Microsoft was forced to use G5-powered Macintosh systems for development.
So that equipment couldn’t possibly be underpowered, although it would take a man with the patience of Job to convince any Windroid that a PPC Macintosh represented better value than a WinDell system from the same period.
ª How about the new generation: Apple’s Intel-powered systems are powered by the cutting-edge of Intel’s processor family which are, by and large, at the cutting-edge of mainstream computing performance; as if that wasn’t enough, these are the same Intel processors which have found their way into a small fraction of the systems sold by the multitude of “beige box” assemblers or mainstream Windows OEMs, many of whom are still flogging the “obsolete” long-pipeline NetBurst P4 processors to their unwitting customers.
So, by that assessment, Apple’s current models could not be underpowered as that would mean that 70% of the POS boxes sold by D**l or Gate**y would be even more underpowered. Surely, Dances With Monkeys can’t be that stupid.
But what if Macintosh systems are overpriced: well, we all know that this argument is a canard.
Most Apple systems are – when compared like-with-like WinDell systems (both in terms of hardware and software) highly competitive and – in certain cases – actually cheaper.
In the case of XServe and XServe RAID, Apple actually has the most cost-competitive technology in the marketplace – the former because Apple’s server technology ships with unlimited client access licenses from the start whilst the customers of Windows servers continually have to cough-up more cash every time they add another user, and the latter because Apple took the innovative route of deploying drive mechanisms with low-cost interfaces as opposed to “fancy-schmancy” SCSI mechanisms favoured by others.
So that’s another of Dances With Monkeys’ talking points comprehensively dismissed.
Ballmer is an ass ….. and he knows it
look at msft stock price vs aapl over his term as ceo
msft is flat, aapl is up several multiples
We’re the smartest monkeys,
The smartest monkeys,
The evidence is all around
Our brains are bigger, this we’ve found
The smartest monkeys…
-cm
If, as they say, the fish rots from the head first, then there be a whole
lotta stinkin’ goin’ on at Redmond.
Steve Ballmer is worth his weight in entertainment. I mean, think about
it–where would we Mac fans be without this dullard and his peculiarities??
There ought to be some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award for Mr.
Ballmer’s classic “Monkey Boy” performance. It is a comedic classic!
Ballmer’s next gig: Iraqi Information Minister. Aside from his denial, he’s clearly in shock and awe.
I love how he says that his company’s partners are creating a cheap knockoff of the iPhone. The pride he takes in his own mediocre lack of vision is just astonishing. What a boob.
Also: how the hell can he call Apple’s hardware ‘underpowered?’ Maybe he hasn’t heard about Intel Macs? Unless I’m mistaken you’re both using the same hardware now, genius. I don’t think Micro$oft’s, well, ANYTHING has ever been in danger of being called sexy.
I wonder what he would have ended up doing if he and Gates weren’t college chums?
What Ballmer meant to say: “In my home there are PCs; Apple has no presence.”
Ballmer broke – no, with great ignorance, he SHATTERED – one of the most significantly important cardinal rules of being a CEO during this interview:
“Thou shalt not mention thy competition by name in any way, shape or form at any time.”
Poor interview preparation, indeed.
Ballmer understands hot brands.
And leather chaps, whips and ball gags.
MW: FACT
“I wonder what he would have ended up doing if he and Gates weren’t college chums?”
Master of the phrase, “order up!”
Zune help: http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/
or
here: http://www.applestore.com