“Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has signaled a new direction for the world’s largest software company, pointing to hardware and online services as its future, taking a page from long-time rival Apple Inc.,” Bill Rigby reports for Reuters.
“Ballmer’s comments in his annual letter to shareholders published on Tuesday suggested that Microsoft may eventually make its own phones to build on its forthcoming own-brand Surface tablet PC and market-leading Xbox gaming console,” Rigby reports. “‘There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface,’ wrote Ballmer. The new approach mimics Apple Inc, whose massively successful iPhone and iPad demonstrated tight integration of high-quality software and hardware and made Windows devices feel clunky in comparison.”
Rigby reports, “Alongside the shareholders’ letter, Microsoft’s annual proxy filing, which deals with the shareholders’ meeting and other governance issues, showed that Ballmer, 56, got a lower bonus than he did last year, partly for flat sales of Windows and his failure to ensure that the company provided a choice of browser to some European customers. He earned a bonus of $620,000 for Microsoft’s 2012 fiscal year, which ended in June, down 9 percent from the year before, according to documents filed on Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. His salary, which is low by U.S. standards for chief executives, remained essentially flat at $685,000. It is the third year in a row that Ballmer has not earned his maximum bonus, set at twice his salary.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: How apropos for a company built on poorly mimicking Apple’s Mac OS.
Upside-down and backwards is no way to go through life, son.
Hey, while you’re at it, build some more fake Apple Retail Stores that you have to fill by handing out free concert tickets. Too bad you don’t have any fake iPods to peddle, huh, Zune Boy?
And, Reuters, by what measure exactly is Microsoft “the world’s largest software company?”
Apple leads. Microsoft follows. As usual.
Look ! Surface doesn’t appeal to business customers as it doesn’t have a keyboard on it !!
“…more often…”? Microsoft, how can you model more often any more than you can?
Finally Microsoft can take some time off from constantly Innovating, constantly leading, and follow somebody else’s lead for once. A well-deserved break.
/s
Imitaion is the sincerest form …
I’ll love to watch a Saturday Night Live skit with Steve Ballmer in it. The real baldy Steve Ballmer, not the fake one with actors pretending to be Ballmer. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop laughing from beginning to end.
This guy just cracks me up.
Microsoft being Apple is like uhm….I don’t know…..Government Motors wanting to become BMW. I can’t get the ickiness out of my mind…
or your hand.
Imitation is the sincerest form …
(correcting a typo)
Gasp!! Microsoft is going to copy Apple!!?? Please, say it isn’t so. Where have I heard this before? Go Ballmer! Take State!
I think all of Ballmer’s (and Gates) bonuses should be transferred to Steve’s Estate.
Leave him alone. Quit picking on the man. He’s doing just fine at Microsoft. Leave him where he is, at the top. Dazed and confused as ever. Do you think he was dropped on his head when he was young?
Of course he was. Would YOU want to carry that thing?
Only difference is to admit copying Apple.
Ballmer is doing a great job at microsoft, his strategies are spectacular and impressive. as a apple fan i want Ballmer to keep and maintain his job 🙂
Bout time Microsoft started copying apple..
Ballmer: “I like their strategy. I like it a lot.”
I love that picture of Ballmer with the dummy sign.
Microsoft….. when it just has to be good enough
Steve, call me maybe!
Apple’s vertically integrated approach and success is forcing other tech companies to follow but leaves them all at a significant disadvantage.
HP was the first to read the tea leaves and strike out on their own with Palm, but it ended badly; now they have nothing. Samsung and Google are being forced into a “co-branding” relationship. Microsoft is coming out with their own tablet and has been cozing up to Nokia but will likely ship their own phone.
Other companies like HP, Dell, HTC, Acer, ect. are done. If Microsoft plays it’s cards well, there will be three players in the post-PC era: Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung/Google, in that order.
I Think MDNs take is missing a critical point, Microsoft has actually created something innovative with Windows 8. Maybe they haven’t cut the old Windows cord completely, but Windows 8 is moving in that direction. No, it’s Google/Samsung who are the serial copiers and poorly at that.
Hmm….the idea must have come to Ballmer after he stopped laughing at the iPhone,
1985: Windows 1.0 mimics Apple OS.
2012: Windows 8 mimics Apple everything.
Some things never change …