Mintz continues, “It took a while, but Microsoft finally fired back. It hired Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a hip advertising firm, and set aside $300 million to portray Windows as warm and human. The ‘I’m a PC’ campaign that emerged isn’t universally well-liked, but the ads have arguably transformed the face of Windows from a pasty nerd to an adorable little girl named Kylie who e-mails pictures of her pet fish to her family without help from a grown-up.”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s efforts worked so well, that Apple sold a record number of Macs – over 3 million units – last quarter, handily outgrowing the PC industry as a whole yet again, and in a crap economy, to boot. And they weren’t low- or no-margin $399 netbooks, either. Obviously, telling people that a Windows PC is a poor man’s Mac didn’t work quite as well as Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Microsoft, or, seemingly, Jessica had hoped.
Mintz continues, “Windows 7 also is arriving in the early days of a golden age for PC design. For years, Apple has been making computers for people willing to pay a premium for design: sleek, metal-encased laptops with brilliant screens; swanlike iMacs that stash the workings of the computer behind an enormous flat monitor, perched atop a minimalist base; the MacBook Air notebook, thin enough to fit in a manila envelope. Meanwhile, the most notable shifts in PCs have been from beige plastic to black, or from chunky square notebooks to ones with slightly rounded edges.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s the software, stupid. That’s why people buy Macs. Apple’s gorgeous hardware is just an extra bonus.
Mintz continues, “Now, PC makers are starting to experiment with size, shape and color at all price levels. Netbooks, the tiny, inexpensive, low-powered laptops that have been the PC industry’s saving grace through the recession, are no longer just shrunken corporate PCs. To entice people to slip them into a purse and carry them everywhere, netbooks are made in a rainbow of colors and array of textures.”
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone who tells you that netbooks are the “PC industry’s saving grace” is an idiot. Unit sales are meaningless without healthy margins, Jessica.
Mintz continues, “Windows 7 feeds into this design craze in part by adding deeper support for touch-screen controls, leading such PC makers as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. to add ‘multitouch’ screens that respond to finger gestures.”
MacDailyNews Take: Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It’s also stupidity. Gorilla Arm is Gorilla Arm, be it 1982 or today.
Mintz continues, “Part of Apple’s success stems from having control over both hardware and software. By better aligning those components, Microsoft and computer makers could get some of the same benefits, and cooler PCs could squash Apple’s gains. Apple now has 11 percent of the U.S. personal-computer market, up from 5 percent when Vista debuted, according to analysts at IDC.”
“Apple announced new iMacs this week but brushed off the suggestion that the timing was intended to steal some of Microsoft’s thunder,” Mintz “reports.” “‘Windows 7, from our point of view, is just another opportunity to remind everyone to switch to a Mac,’ said Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook. ‘People are sick of all the headaches that go along with Windows.'”
“Microsoft has more to contend with than computers running other operating systems,” Mintz “reports.” “People have begun to use such gadgets as the iPhone as tiny mobile computers.”
Mintz “reports,” “But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer scorns the idea that smart phones could unseat PCs as the technology of choice for on-the-go consumers. ‘Let’s face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone,’ Ballmer said. ‘That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Ballmer T. Clown strikes again. May he remain Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes! And, it’s officially over 85,000, you bald ape.
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]
“‘That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.'”
Wow all 75K apps are just for the internet to look decent on the iPhone alone? Thats a lot of Apps.
“May he remain Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes! And, it’s officially over 85,000, you bald ape.”
Amen to that MDN!
Lol ballmer is like Manson at a parole hearing
“Mintz reports” doesn’t read properly. Was the article an opinion piece? It certainly is not reporting. How much do you think the AP got from M$?
That’s got to be one of the most delusional quotes from Ballmer yet. And that’s saying a lot.
LOL!
I *almost* feel sad for him. What else can he say… !! 😀
Btw:
This is how is sounds when a company (if you even can call it that), like M$ is eaten alive!
91k apps and growing!!!
Windows anything is bullshit and a waste of money.
Always has been and always will be.
So say we all.
Wow Ballmer, wow… It’s statements like this that show just how out of touch with reality he really is… If I were a shareholder I would certainly be questioning his leadership right now. I mean, he can’t even grasp the most basic principals of the device that has changed the landscape for consumer electronics more than any other since the iPod. (Of course, he couldn’t grasp the most basic principals of the iPod either, so I guess I’m not surprised…)
How much mis-management are his shareholders going to allow?
Say… now there’s some spin. Take Apple’s 75,000 apps vs. Microshaft’s 20 and declare that it is evidence that the world is busy trying to shoehorn the Internet onto the iPhone to make it “look decent.”
<u>Gawd!</u> I love Ballmer. Please, no one replace the guy. It’s like Apple has American Apache helicopters and all Microsoft has is Taliban in sandals.
I want Kylie to fall into a pool of piranhas…
Ballmer is great. He’s my new best friend. I wonder what he’s gonna say when AAPL destroys his beloved netbooks.
Tim Cook is right about that because through all these years, Windows have always been a Mac no matter how you look at it. And I don’t know why Windows users that suffers on the PC doesn’t know that it’s time to switch to a better computing experience that doesn’t have problems.
Simplify your life, only on a Mac
“…the timing was intended to steal some of Microsoft’s thunder,” she said. The only thunder coming out of microsoft sounds like a fart in church to these ears.
“…By better aligning those components, Microsoft and computer makers could get some of the same benefits, and cooler PCs could squash Apple’s gains. …”
“…cooler PCs…” ?!
Yeah, that’ll be the secret to Windows-only computer success over Apple; paint the Win-boxes in new, mod colours, and add neat-o logos!
Heehee! That Ballmer… I wonder if Apple uses any clever negotiation tactics to help keep him in power over at Microsoft.
MSFT would sky-rocket to $50 from the current $25-26, if the Microsoft board fired Steve Ballmer (or he stepped down) and replaced him with just about anyone else (except maybe Pink “mastermind” Roz Ho). “Ballmer T. Clown,” indeed…
Even as Windows 7 was gearing up for release, Windows users decided to “Get a Mac” in record numbers last quarter. That means it will be business as usual for Apple, whether Windows is Vista or 7. If anything WIndows 7 will remind Windows users they need to upgrade their creaky old XP machines, and even more of them will decide to “Get a Mac.”
Don’t get me wrong here; the majority will buy another Windows PC. But if Apple can get even one in five of those shoppers to buy a Mac instead, that will be a huge win for Apple. And I think Apple can get (at least) one in five customers upgrading from Windows XP to go Mac.
I’d like to see a list of all the ‘MDN Take’ insults directed at Ballmer. They’ve come up with some real doozies!
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My favorite MDN take of all time! “Ballmer T. Clown strikes again. May he remain Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes! And, it’s officially over 85,000 (apps), you bald ape.”
As far as his statement that the internet wasn’t designed for the iPhone. What the moron fails to understand is that the iPhone was designed for the internet.
Geez that guy is such an imbecile.
‘Let’s face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone,’ Ballmer said. ‘That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.’
There are a number of fundamental errors in Ballmer’s position in making this statement:
What design?
The internet was not ‘designed’ as it was a case of principles and standards being worked out in an incremental and innovative manner by the likes of DARPA, Sir T B-L at CERN et al. And then a whole bunch of developers across the World applying their creativity to render an cyber world that even Gates himself had totally missed and subsequently tried to gain control of!
No innovation
He seems to have a strong belief in not permitting innovation in the World and it seems to correlate well with the ‘copying’ approach they use in his company. The principles that enabled the growth of the Internet may have been set at a time when computers were indeed big boxes. But I doubt very much that those involved in setting these principles would have ever assumed that the boxes would NOT ever decrease in size to the point where MacOSX runs on an iPhone with Safari as it’s method for surfing.
Internet Explorer 6 under threat
Yes, Internet Explorer is under threat as the ‘inflicted’ de facto standard a web designer must comply with to gain traffic and Ballmer doesn’t like it a bit. The notion that Safari (whether on an iPhone or a Mac) might displace IE6 has got him rattled.
The ‘PC’ as in ‘Personal Computer’
The iPhone (and the tablet that Apple WILL deliver) is going to turn his world upside down as true personal computing will finally be done right and delivered. I’m sure it gets him worked up because this is going to come from a company outside the Microshaft “sphere of sheep and lemmings”. He will denigrate the tablet just as he did the iPhone (remember his “$500 for a phone!” gaff?)
Lastly, he cannot be serious in suggesting all 75,000 apps are for using the internet…
It is fascinating that Ballmer downplays the number of applications available for the iPhone.
I thought that his rationale for using PC’s was that there are so many applications available for them – unlike the Mac (not taking into account of course that Macs can run Windows…)
“Now, PC makers are starting to experiment with size, shape and color at all price levels.”
Bzzt.
PC Makers are starting to experiment with size, shape, and color at the premium level. The problem is, they’re also competing in cheap, cheap, cheap. So, assuming I’m buying a Windows PC, I have a choice between an attractive $1200 laptop running Windows 7 and an ugly $600 laptop running Windows 7. I’d probably buy the $600 laptop.
Mac users get attractive design by default. Because Apple has no legitimate competition, you don’t really have a choice but to pay $1200 for the attractive laptop (and Mac OS X and iLife and all those other great things that Apple provides).
I’ve often theorized that if Apple sold a Mac in an ugly PC case and passed that savings on, it would be the most popular Mac ever sold. We all like attractive computers, but given the choice between spending on an attractive computer or saving money on an ugly one, the vast majority of people would rather have the money.
“Unit sales are meaningless without healthy margins, Jessica.”
Which is why it took Apple so long to add a “Top Grossing” column to the iTunes App Store. Because it’s all about the number of units shipped. 99¢ apps don’t have healthy margins, but if you sell a lot of them you can make good money. Of course, you have to sell a lot of them.
Apple sold something like 3,050,000 Macintoshes last quarter. In 2Q 2009–not a great quarter–38,000,000 Netbooks shipped. That’s more than 12x the number of Macintoshes shipped in Apple’s “Best Quarter Ever.” So, yeah, if you can make $1 off of shipments of 38,000,000, that’s pretty good money. Of course, in the Windows PC world, there is more than one company selling hardware, so that $38,000,000 gets shared among more than one company so each company doesn’t end up doing so hot, even if collectively the money is good.
“‘Let’s face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone,’ Ballmer said. ‘That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.'”
I gotta admit–he has a point with this one.
I’ve seen lots of Apps on the App Store that are glorified web pages. Applications like Yelp, eBay Mobile, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, AllRecipes, Chipotle, NYTimes, MLB, etc are all basically glorified web pages. They don’t do anything you couldn’t do with a dedicated iPhone web page.
Visit sigalert.com for an example of an iPhone web page. You can use pinch to zoom in and out. It can get your location and show you the traffic where you are. The navigation works just like an App. About the only thing you don’t get is access to the motion sensor.
Ballmer. What a dork.
I think it’s too insulting to the intelligence of Monkeys to call him Monkey Boy Ballmer anymore.
Dx and Connor Macbook you are both wrong.
The quote is “allowing Apple to attack with ads that pit a dorky office stiff (PC) against a casual creative type (Mac) and paint Vista PCs as unjustifiably complex,” the key to this is she is saying Apple is painting PCs as unjustifiably complex, but Apple is justified in this as MS makes them more complex then they have to be, she is criticizing Apple for pointing out MS flaws, this is not a pro Apple “report”.