“Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on Thursday sought to strongly counter the idea, echoed all week at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital technology conference, that the era of PCs is waning,” Nick Wingfield reports for The Wall Street Journal. “‘I think people are going to be using PCs in greater and greater numbers for many years to come,’ said the chief of the company with the most to lose.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ballmer’s trying to hang on until his imagined retirement date. Stay as long as possible, Steve!
“Mr. Ballmer spoke after other tech luminaries had spent two days largely declaring PCs to be passé. Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday made an unflattering comparison between PCs and trucks, vehicles that dominated the auto market but which gave way to smaller cars as the country grew more urban,” Wingfield reports. “Mr. Jobs said computers, including Apple’s own Macintosh, won’t go away, just as trucks didn’t disappear. But he suggested that sleeker portable products such as his company’s iPhone and iPad would be the equivalent of cars—offering touchscreen Website browsing, droves of applications and other features not found on PCs that run Microsoft Windows.”
Wingfield reports, “Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of the Hollywood animation studio DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., said he has abandoned a laptop for an iPad and smartphone. ‘The laptop is yesterday’s news,’ he said.”
“When Apple’s’s market capitalization passed Microsoft’s last week—making Apple the most valuable technology company—the change bolstered the idea of the post-PC era,” Wingfield reports. “The debate partly stems from semantics, since Mr. Ballmer and some other industry executives regards tablet devices like the iPad as simply a new form of PC. He predicted future tablets that use Microsoft’s Windows will be competitive with the iPad, though he conceded the company has a ‘lot of work to do’ to ‘optimize’ its operating system to run on those devices. ‘The race is on,’ Mr. Ballmer said.”
MacDailyNews Take: The race is on and you’re still shopping for shorts, you big dummy.
Wingfield reports, “In mobile phones, Mr. Ballmer said Microsoft has learned the “value of excellent execution” through past missteps in the business. Microsoft makes an operating system for handsets, called Windows Phone, that has fallen behind technology and market share of Apple’s iPhone.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Surely a bigger fool than Ballmer has been mistakenly charged with running a major U.S. company. We just can’t think of one.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Doug A.” for the heads up.]
… but no one, not even Ballmer, can beat George “mission accomplished” W. Bush for his deer in a headlight mismanagement style.
What about Sculley?
I think Ballmer should hire Carly Fiorina, and groom her as his replacement. Otherwise we are only one heartbeat away from less incompetent management, assuming that no one is as big a loser as monkey boy.
Oops. Forgot John DeLorean unless he is in prison.
let us not forget
Edgar Bronfman Jr!
Threw away his family’s sizable chunk of Dupont holdings, lost Seagram’s distillery, founded and failed Vivendi, now flails at Warner Music Group. Balmer incarnate but with a soundtrack to boot.
dd
It’s dumg on his part, but M$ is stuck with having only software for the most part to wow the masses, and mainly Office and an OS, both “mature” products, as product cycles go. Things can’t look too good in Redmond.
I agree w/Jobs. If you didn’t have to plug into a computer running iTunes, I know about half a dozen folks who would use an iPad without anything else. This I think will be mitigated by increased internal storage or the cloud.
What race? Ballmer should go back on his meds.
You would think once you have been ran-over by Apple so many times, you would just step to the side. Get a clue Mr. Ballmer, just say you are the computer company for those who know no better, too damn cheap, do not care, or just do not think!
Race!? LOL
Memo to Microsoft Board of Directors.
Pay no attention to those who say disparaging things about your CEO. Sites like MDN and their readers are nothing but Steve Jobs suck-ups who equate everything connected with Apple as good and everything connected with Microsoft as bad.
Steve Ballmer is doing a wonderful job for Microsoft. A perfect job, in fact. Stick with this guy, he will take your company places that you never thought you would go.
For anyone who is neither blindly drinking Apple Kool-Aid nor despising it, here is the likely scenario:
Companies, while they may add iPads and the like for field and on-the-go use, will still keep their thin clients and workstations. Heavy data (numbers, graphics, audio, etc.) won’t be crunched on lightweight machines.
More and more people will use lower-end machines for home and personal. We’re already seeing today a greater number of people buying smaller, lighter, lower-end desktops, laptops, netbooks, etc. (Slimlines, Zinos, Mac Minis) Once home from work, many people don’t need top-of-the-line machines for email, Internet, viewing photos, playing music, etc.
However, because even home users will still need to create content, however low-end, they will not replace their full-fledged computers with iPads and the like. The iPad is mostly a content-consumption device, and the content it consumes has to be created in the first place, whether it be a Hollywood movie edited on Mac Pros or your vacation movie edited on your Slimline.
The iPad and similar devices will be supporting devices for proper PCs (whether the majority will be willing to keep up with two sets of computing devices waits to be seen). They will not replace computers until they get more powerful, get richer, content-creation applications (i.e. apps like Sketchbook Mobile will be the norm not outstanding exceptions), and obtain more connectors and ports. At that point, they would have become PCs again.
Bet the buggy wip makers of about 100 years ago would have sounded like Ballmer.
From some one that started in home computers late 1970’s. Its been a slow tough evolution to this point. Similar to when self powered vehicles just started to appear. Yes cars.
The Model T were crude and came in any color as long as it was black. Think the iPad/iPhone/Itouch are these equivalent units. There were ones before but were like one off Swiss watches. That started the revolution of a tool not a work of art.
I service clients all day. And a simple device to get email, web browsing and a few games would cover a good percentage of there needs. Others would require a Truck so to speak. We are going from one size does NOT fit all to the right tool for the job.
Have watch the ZuneHD which is a pretty nice capable little device fall pray to the eddies and current that make Microsoft today a “WAS” company. Was pretty much DOA on delivery due to basically zero support. It had a good chance but they flubbed it!
MS have tried for almost 10 years to force their concept of an desktop OS onto mobile devices. And failed badly. They are too bloated and too much company politics slowing down the flow. They need to streamline quickly or will defiantly be left behind. But think its too late for that. You can tell they are playing catchup. You either leade, follow or get out of the way…
All I can think of is Ballmer riding a nuclear missile like Slip Pickens. Fun ride… Except for the poof at the end…
Oh well Ballmer my man, “Keep on Trucking!”
I found the Keep on trucking logo kinda looks like Ballmer
May Steve Ballmer remain CEO as long as it takes!
End of the PC also means End of the Macintosh.
I really don’t know why this website rips on microsoft anymore – apple has already beat them, and they’re not going to catch up. Google is a much bigger threat to Apple. The competition has essentially caught up with the iphone. The androids have a much more user friendly interface than anything else, (apart from apples, still slightly more useable and prettier one ^^) and the phones are coming in the masses, each targeting it’s own base of users. if a consumer walks into a shop and wants to buy a phone which he can take good pictures with, theres an android phone with an 8 mega pixel camera. if he wants a basic, cheap one theres an android phone for that as well. Apps are also being caught up on. although the android market is fragmented and unpractical for developers, many users are fine with having 50,000 apps as to 200,000 apps. really all the useable ones are on the android market.
Apple needs to find a way to keep ahead of the competition, before android really starts snapping at the heals. the upcoming WWDC should determine it.
@bildad
I’m glad we agree. I just think “the future” (i.e., “post-PC”) will arrive faster than you think. These things can have an exponential growth rate. Let’s meet again in 2 years and see how this story has developed…
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I am still amazed that some people still think that you can just make the perfect tablet that will be and do everything a traditional computer can do out of the box, thats the very same mistake that MS made with their tablet philosophy. You simply can’t very few new ways or forms of technology can even the car wasn’t instantly superior to the horse and cart.
The great thing about the Pad and its Android immitators no doubt is that they tie into something that people do want ie media delivery and do it better than the average laptop. Then over some years its general computing abilities will develop, in particular with software exploiting its full interface advantages (rather than simply adapting t it). As it matures it will increasingly take over from traditional pcs but unless you create the market for them first like so many technical advances the software and other tablet specific technologies will never be developed sufficiently.
I drive a Mac Mini Cooper LOL
Ballmer is unbelievable. I wonder what Gates thinks of him?..
Edward- you’re in the wrong place. Hope you’re never in charge of anything.
@ Nightstar
Well said. And also, until the paradigm shifts and the cloud is fully embraced we still need a desktop to sync these things. Hopefully iLife will make it in some form to the iPad. And, the storage nut still has to be cracked for those that don’t trust the cloud.
MacMan,
Whattayah think about this quote from the article. “Mr. Ballmer spoke after other tech luminaries had spent two days largely declaring PCs to be passé.”
Strong language.
Tech “luminaries” that two months ago hadn’t even dreamed of the concept of “post PC era” are now enlightened. I agree that Mr. Jobs has a unique vision. I’m saddened that he may not live to see it come to fruition.
Peace
Could imagine being in his shoes and everyone including your kids calls you stupid. People talking in hushed voices and laughing when you`re around, then you see Steve Jobs on TV laughing at you, I`m surprised he`s lasted this long.
Sorry, previous comment directed to Nightstar should’ve be directed to dotun.o
My sister and her husband have a truck. They use it for hauling stuff to the dump (they have their own house to maintain and also work on his mother’s place) and when they shop for large items. But they don’t use it all the time because of gas prices — they get far better gas mileage from their smaller car.
It’s the same deal with the iPad and “regular” computers. I don’t have an iPad yet, but I could see using one when I’m on the go for checking email, surfing the Web and the like, but still keeping my desktop at home for things like media creation, storing family records and the like, just like sometimes my sister uses the truck and sometimes she uses the regular car.