Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer “had plenty to say—particularly in response to shareholder questions about Macs, Windows, and the company’s struggle to regain its footing in the market for mobile phones,” Todd Bishop reports for Portfolio.
“One shareholder told Ballmer that he believes Microsoft has a poor reputation compared with Apple among younger computer users, and particularly college students. ‘I’m just wondering why your marketing group can’t do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you’ve got a real bad image out there,’ the shareholder said, saying that Apple’s ads make the Redmond company look ‘like a buffoon,'” Bishop reports.
MacDailyNews Take: As if Microsoft’s choice of an actual buffoon for CEO hasn’t had any impact whatsoever.
“[Ballmer said] ‘There’s certainly always opportunities for improvement,’ acknowledging that there ‘is a group of people with whom our market share is less,'” Bishop reports. “[Ballmer said ‘]It is important to remember that 96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows, that’s a good thing. Even in the toughest market, which would be the high end of the consumer market here in the U.S., 83 times out of 100 people choose a Windows PC over a Mac.’ He added, ‘We’re working hard on it. Windows 7 I think gives us a real opportunity to come back again at some audiences that have been tougher for us. Frankly, the economy is good for us, because people do understand that Macintoshes are quite a bit more expensive for essentially the same computer…but we have opportunities to improve among exactly the constituency that you identify.'”
MacDailyNews Take: “Essentially the same computer?” Ballmer can’t really believe that, can he?
Bishop reports, “Later, another shareholder asked why Microsoft and Nokia don’t team up to try to topple the iPhone and fend off Google’s Android. Ballmer focused initially on the latter, saying he’s dedicated to keeping higher market share than the new Google mobile operating system.”
MacDailyNews Take: At least Ballmer T. Clown understands that “toppling iPhone” is an unrealistic goal.
Bishop reports, “[Ballmer said] ‘I think we’re on the right strategy, which is to focus on the software that goes into phones, as opposed to building phones.'”
MacDailyNews Take: He “thinks.” He still likes his strategy. He likes it a lot. May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO (and may MSFT shareholders remain clueless) for as long as it takes!
Full article here.
“… people do understand that Macintoshes are quite a bit more expensive for essentially the same computer…”
If you believe that, you deserve what you get.
83 of 100 people in the premium U.S. Market choose a Windows PC? Yet Apple gets 91% of the profit from that segment? The math isn’t adding up.
Got that right MDN!
The old maxim holds true “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity”
Cheers,
Tim
This Ballmer guy needs help immediately!!! Living in denial for more than 5 years is something to worry about. Shareholders and/or board doing nothing about it is also very strange. Group therapy is in order here.
Maybe… Hopefully not.
Agree. May Ballmer stay as long as it takes.
If MSFT has basically moved sideways in a decade, shouldn’t these investors take their money out and put it in something with a better track record???
That’s right, just keep harping on those 96 out of 100, 83 out of 100 numbers… nevermind that those customers aren’t actually “choosing” Windows. More often than not, they “choose” a computer based on hardware specs, which just happens to come with Windows preinstalled. In fact, that’s exactly the scenario Microsoft themselves painted in their Laptop Hunter ads.
And for many of them, they’re choosing a computer that will be used primarily to access the internet. Based on the forthcoming Chrome OS, Microsoft’s going to start getting squeezed out of the bottom of the market by Google, along with Apple squeezing them out of the top. I wonder if the MS shareholders realize the nature of the coming threat.
Ah well… for as long as it takes!
What? Shareholders want Ballmer to build Windows Phones? And get another 50% with the Ring of Death?
“96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows”
More often than not, people get a PC with Windows because they are just plain ignorant of something better. They are not “choosing” they are “blindly following”.
Ah yes, Microsoft, constantly worried about what Apple is doing. The shareholders should be more concerned about MS finding it’s own direction, developing it’s own excellence (har har) and working on products that can re-define the company’s future. Being a “me too” and throwing money at the problem in the form of advertising, marketing and rebranding while trying to fool the customer into thinking MS makes cool stuff. Stop worrying about what Apple is doing. Fire your executive staff, break up the company into smaller divisions, and let the coders and engineers run the company.
“Microsoft CEO Ballmer grilled….”
No thanks, I am trying to cut back on fat……
FOCUS! FOCUS! FOCUS!
How many years has this crap fallen from those lips? And yet they all still seem to buy into it. The biggest problem is their monopoly position doesn’t give them the security anymore. They can’t get away with Windows only technology and have people buy into it. Look how screwed all those companies are that decided to jump onto IE6 and write web-based applications around it. They’re stuck in the past. Or those others that decided to use Microsoft’s PlaysForSure. They are all but dead. Even the stagnation of the entire computer market that centered around one OS, Windows. They lost potential upgrade sales due to the lack of inspiring software released out of Redmond. If you don’t create the software to push the hardware, then the hardware doesn’t move.
And I’m not saying Apple is the answer. They should’ve looked for open alternatives that could be sustained and supported by more than just one company. And that’s exactly what is happening today in the smartphone market. Microsoft becomes the big loser. If you fail to move forward and advance, you only keep those willing to stay behind with you. New generations are always looking for the next thing and will inevitably move on without you.
I thought it was something like 80% of sales of the ‘Premium’ computer market (say, systems costing $999 and above) were Apple machines?
Or does this wishful thinking show us Balmer secretly ‘thinks’ he’s in charge of Apple..?
@ Tommy Boy
It’s a rounding error
Steve Ballmer is to Microsoft as Barack Obama is to the United States of America: Poison!
@Josh
Amen to that brother.
“Ballmer grilled”
and his smile looks so much better!
Could we please keep all political references of the mac boards? Seriously, if you want to say bad things about the president I suggest you post something over at Fox news as you’ll have plenty of friends to agree with you. However, since this is a tech web site let’s keep the commentary along those same lines.
The King has no clothes, the King has no clothes.
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Microsoft’s Board of Directors could have been added in the last take.
Traveling throughout Mexico (which is on the upper tier of third-world nations), seeing a MAC is extremely rare. Internet cafes or simply “cyber” will get you a bank of cobbled-together machines running Win-Doze, and the populace has never even heard of MAC, iPhone or OSX. When the numbers are being touted (83 out of 100 times), this may not be the general computer purchasing population out there.
Woo-woo, Win-Doz is #1 in Mexico, where the minimum-wage is $53/MX per day ($4.07 USD), try compiling statistics relating to average household income, ie; US, UK & Western Europe, Japan and the Pacific Rim… I think you’ll see quite a different story.
@ roy
“Fire your executive staff, break up the company into smaller divisions, and let the coders and engineers run the company.”
Having personally been through this scenerio, let me assure you it isn’t the answer either. Engineers and coders should stick to what they are good at, coding and engineering. What is really needed is symmetry between the management/sales/marketing/design/engineering sides. Everyone on the same page working toward the same goals with a common unified goal. I’ve seen many a software/tech services company fold because the coders were trying to do it all. I’ve also seen companies fold because sales and management doesn’t understand the coding/engineering side and over-promise and under-deliver. It is a double edged sword..
Microsoft has lost it’s clout. The no longer instill the fear it the once did to there smaller “partners”. They have competition heating up in every front. There focus on enterprise has clouded there vision for a sustainable strategy. I give them 5 more years of dominance, if that. By 2015 we will see a much weaker, less wealthier Microsoft. Just like that one shareholder stated, collage kids are choosing Apple, and this dumb-ass CEO can’t see this as a dangerous trend?
Everybody around me is ether upgrading to a Mac, or buying an iPhone. If Apple could get games titles on the Macintosh, you would not have a reason to buy a PC. The only thing they are good for is 3D, and 3D is only mainstream in gaming. If Apple could fix this by providing better OpenGL drivers and backing game development, Microsoft would not have a leg to stand on.
As if Microsoft’s choice of an actual buffoon for CEO hasn’t had any impact whatsoever.
Truer words have yet to be written on the subject of buffoons and upper management at M$!
@Since_IIci
Like I give a crap.
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Buster: you’re right; George Foreman doesn’t make a grill big enough…but boy, I’d love to see him “knock out the fat” on that one!
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Few if any stockholders elected to vote to remove the buffoon from office — now thats what I call NUTS!
Whereas I hope that Obama will only be a one term president, thereby limiting the infringements of our liberties and overall national decline – I hope Ballmer continues on at Microsoft so he can do to that company what that hillbilly did to Ned Beatty in the movie “Deliverance”.
Not every college students are using MACs one of them is myself who is a 100% PC user. MACs are inferior in term of performance and reliability compare to my premium PC which I own at home. Steve and his little company doesn’t understand that his toys that he makes can’t match or come near to my PC.
http://www.bing.com When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing & Decide
It is important to remember that 96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows, that’s a good thing. Even in the toughest market, which would be the high end of the consumer market here in the U.S., 83 times out of 100 people choose a Windows PC over a Mac.
No they don’t!
In the user/chooser market (i.e. where a top-down decision isn’t being made by some corporate IT droid and his/her bean-counter colleague), Mac penetration is a lot better than 4 times out of 100. And in the developed economies (USA/EU/Japan/Australasia), that figure is even better.
Dances With Monkeys can try and whistle in the dark as much as he likes, but he has an inferior product that only wins because his system builders are willing to sacrifice margin (cutting each others throats as they do it) in order to keep volume. HP only really makes money from printers and consumables, Sony’s VAIO division probably leaks red ink from every pore and Dell are close to becoming an intensive-care case.
” I’m just wondering why your marketing group can’t do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you’ve got a real bad image out there “
And this is a shareholder speaking. Out of touch with reality. A perfect example of why Ballmer (who gets a free ride) stays entrenched.
Amen, amen Josh!
Hey, a Chevy is essentially the same car as a Mercedes, isn’t it? It’s got four wheels, an engine, a body, a steering wheel… What’s the problem?
I’m a PC: MAC stands for Move Add or Change.
Mac is short for Macintosh.
(Just thought I’d let you know the difference.)
I agree completely! M$ needs to immediately spend another $300 Million in ads to become cool. Quick hire Seinfeld back, get him and Billy Goat in a shoestore. Oooooo how cool I wanna be just like them. Another $600 Million! No, it’s so potent, $300 BBillion. Get 20 mid-life has-been clueless moraless schmucks to roam around homeless and disrupt households and talk about a world without walls. That’s the ticket! For as long as it takes.
@I’m a PC:
I hope you used your premium PC to schedule a couple of English and grammar classes for next semester.
“He [Balmer] acknowledged that Apple has “picked up a couple of tenths of a percent of market share” . . . . . . .
Yes indeed, since I bought my first mac that would be about SIXTY tenths . . . .
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@I’m a PC
You are a faint copy of Zune Tang. Is English your first language?
. ‘I’m just wondering why your marketing group can’t do something”
That’s microsoft, its all about marketing, not innovation, customer satisfaction, quality products, only marketing.
@Tommy Boy
I was thinking the same thing until I realized that the 91% figure was locked in at the “over $1000” level and Ballmer used the much more flexible and definable “high end” so as to be able to massage the numbers.
@@Josh
Is that your commentary about Fox news? Technically speaking, of course…?
@Josh
@Roy
So, generally we all understand that the US (and much of the world) is in trouble presently. You can disagree with how Obama’s dealt with the problems of course, but they did not begin with him. Obama has been President for less than a year. Dems have had control of the House since 2006 and the Senate only from the ’08 elections (the Senate in 2006 was split 49, 49, 2). The Republicans took control of the House in 1994 and the Senate in 1996 previously, and of course the White House in 2000. Counting from 1980 we have had a Republican President in office for 20 of the last 28 and 3/4 years. I’m not happy with Democrats or Republicans personally, but I think the “Obama=poison” statement and the “all our ills come from him” sentiment is melodramatic, oversimplified, out of touch with reality and ultimately harmful to solving the problem; like Ballmer actually.
@@Josh – Sorry, I prefer pure tech as well, but I couldn’t let the bumper sticker echo chamber persist. I’ll never make the first political comment. Promise.
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So who is going to repace m$? Apple is for that percentage of buyers who will pay more for a better, trouble free experience. What percentage of the market is that. I think it is under 20%.
Who else is there to provide the opperating system for the other 80%?
Linix is free and they can not seem to do it.
Amen, Josh!!
The meeting would have been much more interesting if the employees from the Microsoft retail store were there to spontaneously break into dance during the tough questions. That would have allayed shareholder concerns that Microsoft is not adequately connecting with younger consumers.
And yes, that is sarcasm.
Google?
@MCCFR Right on!
Man, these MS execs will say just about anything. Problem is that they lost the mindshare of this new generation of consumers: kids-teens-young adults who will be buying tech for the next few decades. MS is not their tech brand of choice. To them MS is their dad’s technology.
“96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows”
Uh, no, Balltard. Not even close. I didn’t “choose” the crappy Dell with XP I use at work.
Microsoft’s share among people who are able to choose is significantly less than 96%, and less still among those who take the time to make an educated choice.
——RM
Ah, yes! Once again we see it proven that Stupidity is a condition; ignorance is a choice!™
I thought Apple was around 10% these days how old is that 93% number anyway.
“I thought Apple was around 10% these days how old is that 93% number anyway.”
Notice how he doesn’t say, we SOLD that many, he just says Apple is bla bla, and we’re the rest. Total lie. In Asia, the entry price for WIndows is super super low, and of course, there’s rampant piracy. A significant chunk of the OS market is piracy. But I guess that’s why MS needs all that Authentication crap. Also, I thought LInux was still around. Ballmer pretends it doesn’t even exist. Nice ’rounding error’
LordRobin,
LOL, so true. When he said that in the Engadget interview, i thought, … “You’re not listening to your customers, because of the 96% share?… Asshole” He just ignores what Apple’s doing because the numbers say so…
People, this is a MONOPOLY. MS doesn’t react to its customers because they don’t have to. They got you by the balls. And in the press they claim people “9 times out of 10, walk out with a windows machine”… what a sleazebag
“people do understand that Macintoshes are quite a bit more expensive for essentially the same computer”
If I were a share holder I would ask, why aren’t you making a PC a BETTER computer instead of essentially the same?
I mean, it’s bad when you lie about your competition and say that “my product is better than theirs’ but he knows that will get him laughed off the planet. He has to lie just to say, they are essentially the same.
Overheard in the hall today:
“I’m Microsoft through and through. I’m a believer. Whatever Steve says, that’s what we’ll do.”
Nothing like a company full of agreeable drones.
As Ron White says: “You can’t fix stupid.”
“Ballmer said, ‘I think we’re on the right strategy, which is to focus on the software that goes into phones, …'” (“Trust me.”)
Ballmer is telling shareholders that they should rely on Microsoft’s software strategy?
I have never heard a better reason for any shareholder to dump Microsoft stock and run screaming.
My grand father who was born in 1903 and died in 1983 said “I’am not reach enough to by a cheap things” he was A great influence in my life…
If I type lol or LOL does that mean I am insecure?
@ just wondering,
Either that or you are 16, which also probably means you are insecure.
Steve Jobs likes your strategy. He likes it a lot.
Wait till Chrome OS eats MS lunch
Grilla Monkey Boy
“I thought Apple was around 10% these days how old is that 93% number anyway.”
10% US (up from a low of about 2.3%-3%). Around 3% worldwide (up from a low of 1.2%-2%). The ranges depend on the source you look at.
So the shareholders are bitching to Microsoft how about crappy they are and how great Apple is doing….but, yet they remain a Microsoft shareholder? This does not compute…
Ballmer stated that MS has 96% worldwide marketshare.
As for the ’rounding error’ of marketshare that has gone to Apple — he wants it back.
Wow. Now that’s some pathological greed.
Ballmer: It is important to remember that 96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows, that’s a good thing.
–
For who? Microsoft?
FWIW, if the IT fascist at your work bought 15,000 WinPCs, does that mean YOU choose it?
I guess if you want to be employed, it does!
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Most investors actually look at the ex-dividend date, which is two days before the record date. That is because it takes three days for the trade to settle, and the transaction to be recorded on the company’s book. online meetings|web conferencing
It’s About Time :
… And no hair and no brains….
Funny how the statisticians never count iPhones, iPod touches, or iPads as personal computers….
What would it do to the numbers if you did?…
I love it. Of course, I also own an ipod and recently me and my wife both bough the iPhones. MS has been making phones for 15 years and it all sucks ass. I owned one, it was a nightmare. Also, from Seattle and MS sucks.
Windows 7 seems to be good so far, that I have to admit, but they copies Ubuntu and OS X a lot. Not much innovation there and their Mobile market dropped to 7% from like 15%, so take that to the bank.
Steve needs to go, and Bill Gates needs to come back ASAP.
Buy Steroids and Anabolic