Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher spoke with Microsoft’s Disinterested Figurehead Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer at this year’s D conference last evening:
AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski provides notes. Here are a few excerpts:
Mossberg: What about Vista and the lousy reception it’s been given. Is Vista a failure?
Ballmer: Vista is not a failure. Is it something we’d like to improve? Of course. Is it something that with 20/20 hindsight we’d do differently? Sure, he confesses. But Vista has sold a lot of copies, he adds.
MacDailyNews Take: To clueless Best Buy shoppers guided by ignorant USA Today articles. They did not choose Vista, they don’t know any better. Most Windows users don’t even know what an OS is, much less choose one. Most Mac users, on the other hand, have tried to use Windows (at work and/or school) and have chosen Macintosh for a reason.
Walt jumps in and asks about the percentage of Vista sales that result in downgrades to XP. Ballmer dodges. Gates looking a little depressed.
Walt asks if Vista has damaged with Windows brand.
Gates says Microsoft’s philosophy is to “do things better.” And Vista has given us lots of opportunity to do that, he notes. (Audience laughter.) There are plenty of lessons out of Vista–compatibility and other issues vendors are concerned about.
Ballmer says that according to consumer research, the No. 1 complaint about Vista was the change to the Windows user interface.
MacDailyNews Take: And so, in their finite wisdom, they’re about to change the upside-down and backwards Mac WIndows user interface again with Windows 7. Read on:
Paczkowski notes, “We’re about to get a Windows 7 demo (Oh, one more thing …. Here’s hoping Microsoft shares only those aspects of the new OS that it doesn’t end up de-featuring at a later date.) Ballmer says what we’re about to see is ‘just a snippet’ of Windows 7.”
Paczkowski writes, “Windows 7, like other Microsoft OS’s before it, seems to have borrowed a thing or two from Mac OS X. This time it’s Apple’s Dock, which Microsoft appears to have borrowed. Multi-touch and a Dock. In Windows. Steve Jobs must be so proud.”
MacDailyNews Take: Some things never change. Unless Apple does. Then everything changes. Microsoft’s OS, the music business, the smartphone and wireless industries…
Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green conducts the WIndows 7 demo. Paczkowski notes, “Larson-Green pulls up a brand new app, “Touchable Paint.” She uses all 10 fingers to draw a tree. Then, she brings up a photo gallery. Noting that multi-touch makes it faster and easier to manipulate photos, she demonstrates … well, she demonstrates a lot of features that anyone who’s ever used an iPhone will already be familiar with: two-finger zoom, flicking through a slideshow, single finger panning through thumbnails… Walt asks if multi-touch is built throughout the OS. Larson-Green says it is.”
Walt asks Ballmer if he’s worried about the next iteration of Mac OS X, which will likely be released before Windows 7. Is there a risk that the work you’re doing now with multi-touch will look dated when Apple (AAPL) releases its next OS?
Ballmer says he’s confident Microsoft will have fantastic Windows 7 PCs, regardless of what Apple’s got on the market.
Walt presses him, noting Apple’s recent growth in the PC market.
Ballmer notes the difference in scale between the two companies: “We sell 270 millions PCs a year, and Apple sells 10 million. They’re fantastically successful, and so are we.”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft sells zero (0) PCs a year. Apple sells 10 million more personal computers per year than Microsoft. Apple created the personal computer as we know it today. Microsoft copied/stole it. If you want to count faulty, Red Ring of Death, sound-like-a-hurricane-in-your-living-room Xboxes as “Microsoft PCs,” you’re desperately grasping at straws. Please stop reading now and head on over to Dell.com to begin configuring your next POS.
Walt hits on Windows quality issue, noting that he’s seen old Macs running significantly faster than new Vista machines.
Ballmer admits there’s room for improvement: Steve Jobs has a great business, he says. His model works well. But so does ours. 10 million people like his model. 290 million like ours.
MacDailyNews Take: 290? We thought it was 270? In less than 5 minutes, Balmy sold 20 million more nonexistent PCs in his mind. Anyway, most of those 290 million never made a choice because they have no idea there even is a choice. They were stuck with Windows at work or school and therefore consigned themselves to Windows PC purgatory because “that’s what they use at work/school.” Fortunately thousands of people awaken with each passing day. Of the now 300 million total, about 10 million people per year have used both; they choose Macs for a reason. And, by the way, the installed base for Mac OS X is approximately 25 million users, not the 10 million Ballmer is trying to insinuate (notice that he dropped the “per year?” We did.) 25 million users LOVE Steve Jobs’ model, the rest don’t know any better.
Kara asks Gates how it feels to have Microsoft defined by Apple via its “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” campaign.
Gates clearly isn’t happy with that question. Dodges. Ballmer jumps in. Hits that 290 million metric again. “Every share point Apple picks up is a share point we don’t like. But we like selling 290 million units.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ballmer’s delusional. Microsoft sells zero (0) PCs a year. Most Mac users have made conscious technology choice and are therefore better informed than the vast majority of Windows sufferers.
Much more in the full article, including a video of the Windows 7 demo and photos of Kermit and Monkey Boy on stage with Mossberg and Swisher here.
MacDailyNews Take: To find out which of the cool iPhone features has been patented by Apple and are now protected from replication and which ones you can expect to be copied soon by the likes of Nokia, Samsung or Motorola, we’ve combed through the U.S. Patent and Trademark database and checked all relevant Apple’s patents.
And we came to a conclusion that this time Steve Jobs did his homework and most of the key features that make iPhone an iPhone will not be easily copied by competitors. This applies to Multi touch display, the idea to use full screen of the device for User Interface, scrolling, zooming and other finger gestures, soft on screen controls, multifunctionality, proximity, ambient light sensors and many other functions.
When Steve Jobs exclaimed [in front of a slide displaying “200+ patents” during Macworld Expo 2007’s iPhone-dominated] keynote, “And boy have we patented it!” it was not an empty boast. The have indeed PATENTED it. And though not all of the claims have received patent protection yet and even less of them may withstand scrutiny in court if Apple decides to enforce them, many of the claims should should stick. – Unwired View, May 2007
Troll: “I don’t capitalize humankind, man, woman or child – and they represent something real. Ben is a proper name.”
Nice try, but Jupiter is a reference to an ancient god, and is capitalized, regardless if he’s “real” or not. Gandalf? he’s a mythical character from a book, he’s capitalized.
God is a reference to a specific entity. If you’re referring to Him you do so with a capital G. If you don’t believe, fine, don’t refer to God, use your point without bringing Him up.
There’s no reason to needlessly insult people who do believe.
Jupiter is a god. A Big Mac is a hamburger. God is a god. Whose god are you talking about? Must be the one true god claimed by many to be different to yours who goes by a generic name and in whose name much injustice and murder has been committed. Oh wait… should I have capitalized Whose or Name too?
“Apple created the personal computer as we know it today. Microsoft copied/stole it. “
Amazingly, this is still not known by the general public, nor acknowledged by the mainstream media.
“That’s an awfully big statement coming from such a little person.”
Except with a little research you could confirm that it’s all true. But never let the truth get in the way of your fanboy revisionist history, right Ampar?
From an Apple fanboy perspective nothing ever gets invented in the computer world until Steve copies it from someone.
Next you’ll be telling me that he and Al Gore have a plan to patent a new thing they just invented called the the Internet, or praising Steve for the invention of the x86 architecture a year or so ago, or claiming Apple not Xerox invented mice and windowed GUIs, or that Mach and BSD Unix are an Apple invention. Perhaps you’ll tell me how Apple invented USB, or the MP3 player, or the touchscreen or the cellphone.
Apple my be good at commercializing stuff, but they don’t invent much.
Rave reviews:
Silicon Alley Insider:
“Microsoft Windows 7? We Already Hate It*”
InformationWeek:
“Windows 7 Shows Microsoft Hasn’t Learned Vista Lessons”
Conde Nast Portfolio:
“Windows Touch-screen? Oh, Lord Help Us…”
PC Advisor, UK:
“Microsoft still out of touch”
24/7 Wall St.:
“Microsoft (MSFT) Windows For Buffoons”
PC Magazine (by none other than Lance Ulanoff):
“Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are also guilty of doublespeak. Each has been quoted extolling the virtues and success of Vista. Yet, days later, they’re explaining how Windows 7 will be lighter, faster, and more componentized.
Does anyone else but me think this is nuts?”
“Except with a little research you could confirm that it’s all true. But never let the truth get in the way of your fanboy revisionist history, right Ampar?”
You made the statement. Have the cojones to back it up, troll boy. If you’ve got them. Do your own research, slack ass wuss.
Does Ballmer have to ask himself softball questions and then answer them during interview all the time? Of course. Will he throw chairs if he can’t answer his own questions? Most definitely. Is throwing chairs better than ducking eggs? Depends on the kind of chairs.
I’d be interested to know what’s going on during Microsoft’s developer meeting. Probably it goes something like this:
Manager 1: Vista doesn’t do well. We need more features.
Manager 2: What features can we include? We have still have MS Bob.
Manager 3: No, no. There is no need for that anymore. Gates is no longer the CEO. We don’t have to humor his wifey. *his iPhone rings*
Manager 2: Wait. iPhone! Apple does something cool with multi-touch.
Manager 1: We will include multi-touch everywhere in 7! Definitely.
Manager 2: That’s great. We can even do Ctr-Alt-delete with touch now! Multi rules!
Manager 3: Multi-touch! Multi-touch! Multi-touch!
Manager 5: Multi-touch!
Manager 7: Multi-touch!
Manager 6: Multi-touch!
Manager 4: Multi-touch!
Manager 16: Multi-touch!
From the Washington Post:
> With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.
> The growth in prison population is largely because of tougher state and federal sentencing imposed since the mid-1980s. Minorities have been particularly affected: One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is behind bars. For black women ages 35 to 39, the figure is one in 100, compared with one in 355 for white women in the same age group.
And not a peep. But oh, should China try to host the Olympics…!
More servicemen have died in Iraq than innocent lives have been lost in the 911 bombings.
> To date, more than 1.6 million</a> American troops have been deployed in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations. More than 4,000 have been killed. More than 65,000 have been wounded or injured, or have contracted a disease. Of the 750,000 troops who have been discharged so far, some 260,000 have been treated at veterans’ medical facilities. Nearly 100,000 have been diagnosed as having mental-health conditions. Another 200,000 have sought counseling and re-adjustment services at walk-in vet centers.
Not a peep. And you’ll have to wade through much disinformation to find out the cost to the Iraqi civilian population. It can be no less than an order of magnitude more.
To get back on track, Ballmer and Gates’ atrocities are of a much lower scale – mostly economic and mental. Of course, they are not in control of WMDs and foreign policy, otherwise I believe them capable of no less carnage.
Never mind, “God” will make things right, eh?
A “demo” is having the hardware on the stage and demonstrating it’s operation. They showed a video.
@Ampar:
So from your treatise on suicide v. homicide exploders, we should call him:
Steve homicide Ballmer
The question also arises; is there a separate category of bomber who only hits inanimate targets?
Anyone else notice in the demo video how laggy multi-touch is on that Windows machine? And that’s with a top-o-the-line (I’m assuming) laptop running the OS, not the dinky little ARM chips Apple has in it’s iPhone.
They have a lot of work to do still, obviously!
From the summary:
“Kara asks Gates how it feels to have Microsoft defined by Apple via its “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” campaign.
Gates clearly isn’t happy with that question. Dodges. Ballmer jumps in.”
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alexanderp378156.html
Not that Gates is an angel, but I couldn’t resist that quote.
All these references to Hummer… I’d like to have read the original comment. Unfortunately, there seems to be a little insecurity in the MDN-verse that doesn’t allow them to keep dissenting comments around long. Come on, MDN, if the guy was that much of an asshat, the regular commenters will keep him in line. It’s better to let Hummer make an idiot of himself than to be fanboi censors.
@ John
“Anyone else notice in the demo video how laggy multi-touch is on that Windows machine?”
Yes. Plenty of Slashdot commenters. Here’s one:
“I can handling wiping off finger marks, but the lag on that demo is totally unacceptable. Unless it was running on a 5-year-old celeron-based laptop with 128MB of RAM, or unless the whole demo was running in emulation, that interface is simply DOA. Would any of us put up with 1/2-second lag in a mouse-driven GUI? No way.”
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=566415&cid=23572983
They were pretty cynical about it, too. Someone else comments:
“The trouble is, when you put together an unoptimized, unscalable, hastily coded demo to prove the feasibility of something or to make a stopgap before the real version is available the code *lasts forever*. The real version doesn’t come and hack is laid on top of hack to make the demo the real thing and you own it.”
That may or may not be true, but it’s interesting to note that some tech people now believe Microsoft to be the home of shoddy, hastily hacked together, pile-rubbish-on-top-of-rubbish solutions. Quick-and-dirty solutions aimed at easy profits not at excellence.
I’d like to make two points:
1. A “demo” is having the hardware on the stage and demonstrating it’s operation. They showed a video.
A video is good enough for me.
2. And don’t you MAC sheep start going off about how when questioned about quality and user satisfaction Ballmer kept referring back to sales figures as if it didn’t address the issue. Sales figures are the only metric necessary. If you sell a lot of something then of course you have a user-focused quality product. Case closed. Ballmer is a god among men. Now stop it, MAC dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
This is what will drive people away from Microsoft
“Q: We probably spend more time with Microsoft products than we spend with any other products. Has anyone ever considered taking that engagement and leveraging it as an advertising medium?
Ballmer says he’s not sure layering ads on the Windows desktop is a way to improve the Windows experience. That said, he notes, we live in a world where business must think more creatively about advertising.
Gates jumps in and notes that advertising has been moved creatively to other mediums–the mobile arena, for example. But we must be careful of how we do this, he adds, because we don’t want to interfere with the user experience.”
Sounds like they’re thinking about it. Yikes!
Ballmer: “Vista isn’t a mistake”
No, Monkey Boy its a Vistaster
Ampar: See Retard
“leaving far-more-populous China a distant second,”
Sure, the US should adopt the Chinese policy of summary execution without appeal to keep those prison numbers down.
“One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is behind bars”
Do the crime, do the time. One in nine black men aged 20 to 34 should stop being criminals if they don’t want to end up in prison.
Also summary execution should help those statistics too.
“More servicemen have died in Iraq “
As shooting wars go, the body count from Iraq and Afghanistan is miniscule. That’s not to minimize any individual death, but rather to put it into historical perspective. At current rates the US could be in Iraq another 75 years and still not exceed the death toll from Vietnam. Don’t even think of doing the US WWII death calcuation, the US could be there for centuries and not exceed that toll.
In the same time frame, 50 times as many people have died in the US in car accidents. Why not put your time into that?
I hate having to do this, but our News contributor here is talking apples and oranges. Vietnam was 40 years ago. Different technology. WWII was 65 years ago. Yet older technology.
Apparently, News chose to miss the point entirely. The sole purpose for Afghan and Iraq wars were to prevent future 11 September events. The purpose of Lim’s post was to point out the irony of the fact that more Americans have now died in this war than in an event, the likes of which the war was purported to prevent.
Car accidents are not the direct responsibility of a government. Foreign wars are. Especially when their purpose is greed and their consequences are death and destruction.
MS is bluffing; multi-touch will never make it into Windows 7.
MS has learned absolutely NOTHING from Vista. So here we go again: What starts out as the Holy Grail in an hopelessly ambitious timeframe, will degenerate into a skinned Windows ME, pushed out years late with broken apps and drivers. Brilliant.
Ballmer needs to “Steve” the entire Windows division. MS can’t even do a laughable job at OSes anymore.
“consequences are death and destruction.”
It’s hard to have a war without some death and destruction.
“The sole purpose for Afghan and Iraq wars were to prevent future 11 September events.”
And arguably they have done that, because there has not been another attack on US soil since.
The US could not show weakness in the face of these attacks. Showing weakness and an unwillingness to fight is what emboldened the terrorists to attack on US soil in the first place. Now every wannabe Jihadist gets on a bus to Baghdad where they can be shot in the street without any messy due process.
I don’t see your point on the body count over time being any different from mine. The US body count is very low. The Iraqi army one was not. It seems that you’re trying to support my point by pointing out how good the US has got at fighting wars without losing many people on the US side.
On to cars: I don’t agree:
The federal government sets and reviews safety standards. The federal government and states design, build and maintain the roading infrastructure. They are responsible for setting licensing standards for drivers, for testing and re-testing them, literally deciding who is and is not fit to get behind the wheel. There are responsible (at federal, state and local levels) for setting the laws for driving and for setting the punishment for violators and enforcing those laws.
They’re involved in the policy and mechanics of driving as much as they’re involved in the policy and mechanics of war.
Windows Vista is commonly regarded as Windows XP tarted up to look (in theory) more OS X-like. Which isn’t 100% accurate – the regressions in performance indicate that plenty of code under the hood has been replaced by something worse – but it is a fair summation of Vista’s lack of added value. Vista’s reputation is basically: a tarted-up XP, only performance is worse.
So what are Gates and Ballmer focusing on with the next version of Windows? Fixing those performance issues? No – they’re going to perform additional cosmetic surgery, in the misguided belief that it’s merely the operating system’s interface that puts people off.
I know that’s what the MS astroturfers like to claim when they post comments under articles and on forums, but when you have the head of the company himself also going with that story… then you have a company in major, major trouble.
“the regressions in performance indicate that plenty of code under the hood has been replaced by something worse “
The Aero interface does a lot more than the old XP interface on the back end. Those cool effects don’t come for free. “Slower” doesn’t always mean “Worse”. On a modern PC Vista, is perfectly fast enough for 97% of PC users.
> The sole purpose for Afghan and Iraq wars…. Ahh… there you go. Al Qaida was in Afghanistan, not Iraq. If they were/are any place else, that would be Pakistan, not Iraq. How easily they slip one through you, eh? Like the assassination of John and Bobby, Ted’s mysterious plane crash a few months later (he survived; years later JFK Jr. wouldn’t). Like the Florida election shennanigans that got a patsy—controlled by the war machine—in.
So you got your war in Iraq. It turned what appeared to be an unending stream of surpluses into deficits. It’ll cost $3-trillion when all is said and done. It will have destroyed the lives of thousands of Americans more than 911, and millions of Iraqis. And what’s the price of oil now? Where’s Osama? The Geneva Convention? Our freedom and right to privacy? Our dollar?