“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has never been shy about voicing his opinions on any given issue. At an interview conducted during a recent Churchill Club event in California, Ballmer chose to weigh in on Apple and the iPhone, and even gave the company some friendly advice. According to CNet, Ballmer’s specific ‘advice’ to Apple was to make the company more like Microsoft, a move that would apparently give Apple a fighting chance in the smartphone market,” Justin Berka reports for Ars Technica.
“He’s expecting Apple to do poorly in both the smartphone and notebook markets over the next five years, mostly because the company continues to stand by its rather un-Microsoft-like integration of both proprietary software and proprietary hardware. Ballmer seems to think that the future of the smartphone lies in providing a phone OS to a wide variety of hardware manufacturer,” Berka reports.
Full article here.
Video of Ballmer’s statements via ZDNet here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “HMCIV” for the heads up.]
The day Steve Jobs starts taking advice from Ballmer is the day Jobs opens a clown school.
What’s sad is that no matter how much egg ends up on this guy’s face, he’s still a billionaire thanks to little more than a dorm assignment.
This guys is about the best thing that has ever happened to Apple. My he reign supreme within the halls of Microsoft, for as long as it takes.
1. Ballmer will be out as CEO of MicroSoft (sad as that may be…)
2. Apple will be dominating in the handheld business
3. Apple will command 20% of the overall US and Europe market share.
4. Apple will control 8% of the world-wide PC market share.
5. AppleTV will have moved into being: An AT&T;receiver for Network TV stations purchased al-a-carte (putting comcast and dish into a tizzy), a DVR, movie download system, and integrate a traditional DVD player for legacy content. Suffice to say, it’ll be THE home entertainment system product.
6. Apple will be eating away at the integrated car industry with a total solution.
Did I mention Ballmer will be out as CEO of MicroSoft?
I once thought that Apple would never bring out a phone because I believed they would never tollerate the horrible service their customers would inevitably get from telco companies. I was wrong. Apple got into bed with AT&T;and no matter how much people despise AT&T;, they still love their iPhones.
Perhaps Apple could separate the hardware and software providing stringent specifications and requirements for people building iPhone OS based devices. It would sure make the market bigger.
There would have to be some pretty amazing devices out there to make me buy an iPhone OS based device from anyone but Apple though so it’s probably pointless. Apple is comfortable where they are.
Then again, I was wrong before.
Ballmer has a bright future ahead of him as a light-bulb salesman.
Or Apple could buy HTC, kill Microsoft’s biggest WinMo hardware partner and have them churn out OS X Mobile devices of various shapes and flavors.
Apple would take control of the smartphone market overnight.
Browsers are the OSs of the future. In a near future, all applications will run in-browser, like google docs. By having Safari built-in, the iPhone will share common applications with other phone models. The same will happen with Desktop computers.
Bwahahahaha
I’m sorry.
Bwahahahahaha (pissing in my pants) Bwahahahahaha
“[…] the company continues to stand by its rather un-Microsoft-like integration of both proprietary software and proprietary hardware.”
Versus Microsoft, which just does the proprietary software part.
I’d be more concerned about Microsoft’s strategy in the smartphone market.
What is really Microsoft advantage? And I’m not a Microsoft basher at all…
By crackie, it’ll be the best damn clown school you ever saw!
The tragedy is that no reporters have the guts to call Balmer on his hypocrasy: if Micro$oft is so into separating the hardware from the software, how come they haven’t licensed the Zune or Xbox software to other hardware manufacturers? Huh? Answer that one Uncle Fester!
MW: Hypocrite
Whatever Ballmer says, the opposite is best. So this is wonderful, wonderful confirmation that Apple is on the right track.
Yes, follow Balmy’s advice; do exactly what M$ did in the consumer market — separate the hardware and software:
Build an integrated gaming system with download infrastructure
Build a portable music player with download infrastructure
Oh, wait… M$ supplies hardware and software integrated for the consumer device market. Damn, he can’t even follow his own crappy advice.
Never mind…
A mind is a terrible thing in Redmond’s CEO suite.
Clowns Freak me out!
That’s way Ballmer gives me the willies!
Look at the Pic Ballmer really loves his iPhone!
I advise Steve Ballmer to separate his head from his anus. I also recommend he change his name to Richard Noggin to more accurately reflect his character (also acceptable would be Rooster Lollipop).
I think Ballmer, more than Steve Jobs, is inmerse in a RDF.
Or maybe he is like those dictators with a circle of counselors that lie to him so he believes everything is ok.
Or maybe he is just a moron.
Shit Happens®
@ MacMan and the rest of you,
What do you guys want Ballmer to say? That a vertical approach is indeed better? That Apple is right.
He is never going to say that because it will be equivalent to admit that MS got it wrong this time!
For instance, Bill Gates only praised the vertical approach when he had the Zune ready. He did it only that day.
However, the Zune is like dead in the water… but even though, don’t count on Ballmer to praise Apple’s model.
And you should be happy about it. I think it means MS’ future is not that certain in the mobile space.
A proof: Did MS bother bashing about apple 8 years ago? No, Apple was no threat. It is now in that market!
@Mac+
He can choose to remain silence…
Or not?
Stupid is as stupid does®
“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.”
~ Alan Kay
Why doesn’t Ballmer just shut the fsck up? He’s running Microsoft into the ground and would obviously like to see Apple suffer the same fate.
It’s like a blind man trying to help a sharpshooter cross the street.
Can’t sleep.
Clown will eat me.
On topic, though, it’s mind-boggling how everyone keeps telling Apple what to do. Apple is doing extremely well and there seems no reason why Jobs and co. should pay much attention to hit-whore pundits, intellectually lazy analysts, and bloated CEO’s of competing companies. Sometimes I long for the days before the ‘net when most of these people stammered on in isolation and couldn’t make money by simply having an opinion. Truthfully, some of you folks here at MDN have better and more insightful things to say. And then there’s Colonel Fury…
Perhaps he’s hoping Apple will follow his advice so Microsoft doesn’t have to work so hard at playing catchup?
This is an “Art of War” thing, where it’s best that you define the terms of conflict, not your enemy.
MS clearly knows that competing head to head with Apple doesn’t work (witness the Zune). The iPhone, as it currently being produced by Apple, is wiping the floor with WindowsME-based phones. It would be order’s of magnitude easier for MS to compete if Apple ditched their wildly successful business model (of creating the whole widget), to MS’s model of creating part of a widget, and hoping somebody else can create the whole widget out of parts.
Isn’t this the same mistake Palm made back when they dominated the smart phone market?