“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:
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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
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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
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Ballmer: I’m Microsoft’s ‘primary champion of innovation’ – July 27, 2006
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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
“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