Microsoft CEO Ballmer advises Apple to separate iPhone hardware and software

“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.