“Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is betting on one of Microsoft Corp.’s busiest years ever to keep the company relevant in a new age of mobile technology,” Shira Ovide reports for The Wall Street Journal. “On Monday, Microsoft formally introduced new smartphones that will use a revamped version of the company’s mobile-phone operating software.”
MacDailyNews Take: You know, the phones that nobody outside of Microsoft or Microsoft’s Nokia buys.
“Microsoft was once king of the technology market, with its personal-computer software, but as computing has shifted to mobile devices, the Redmond, Wash., company has struggled to adapt,” Ovide reports. “Microsoft currently has less than a 3% share of the world-wide smartphone market, according to research firm Gartner Inc. In recent years, its share price hasn’t kept pace with the stock market’s gains, and rivals like Apple Inc. have overtaken it in market value.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Overtaken” in market value. As in: Doubled.
WSJ: Would you prefer Apple’s business model, in which it controls the hardware and the software?
Ballmer: We like our model, as we are evolving it. In every category Apple competes, it’s the low-volume player, except in tablets. In the PC market, obviously the advantage of diversity has mattered since 90-something percent of PCs that get sold are Windows PCs. We’ll see what winds up mattering in tablets.
MacDailyNews Take: Maybe dummy means Apple sells 5 million Macs every 90 days, hundreds of millions of iOS devices and billions iTunes tracks and App Store apps very quietly?
And, oh, BTW: Would you rather have “high volume” and low profits or “low volume” and high profits? Quick, somebody ask Mikey Dell, Meg Whitman, and Stephen Elop before they’re due in bankruptcy court.
• Apple rakes in 71% of the world’s smartphone profits – September 8, 2012
• Apple’s App Store hits 25 billion downloads milestone – March 3, 2012
• Apple Mac owns 90% market share for ‘premium’ PCs costing over $1,000 – February 1, 2010
WSJ: You’ve said before that you want to stay CEO until your youngest child graduates from high school in a few years. Is that still the plan?
Ballmer: [Laughs] I said that many years ago. I’m excited to be able to lead Microsoft at this fantastic time. I love my job. I’m happy doing what I’m doing, I’m energized. I will serve as long and no longer as both the board wants me, and I feel like I’m adding value and/or until somebody better should come in and take over.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Self-Delusion gets increasingly ludicrous with each passing day.
Steve Ballmer became Microsoft CEO in January 2000. Here’s the “value” he’s “added” since then:
May Microsoft’s board remain somnambulant for as long as it takes!
Related articles:
AT&T activated 4.7 million iPhones, 77% of total smartphone sales, in Q312 – October 24, 2012
Apple’s revolutionary iPhone hits 250 million units sold milestone – July 30, 2012
Apple reveals 25th billion App Store downloader: Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China wins $10,000 iTunes Gift Card – March 5, 2012
Gizmodo reviews Microsoft Surface RT: Do not buy; inferior to Apple’s iPad; the worst of both worlds – October 25, 2012
The Verge reviews Microsoft Surface RT tablet: ‘The whole thing is honestly perplexing; who is this for?’ – October 24, 2012
Analyst: Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet priced too high, could be the next Zune – October 18, 2012
Dvorak: ‘Microsoft’s Surface tablet isn’t the Apple iPad, so it shouldn’t be priced like one’ – October 18, 2012
Microsoft inexplicably claims Surface RT tablet lower resolution screen beats iPad with Retina display – October 17, 2012
Microsoft Surface RT tablet Wi-Fi-only; 32GB for $599 with, $499 without keyboard, $699 for 64GB – October 16, 2012
Microsoft airs first TV ad for Surface tablet (with video) – October 15, 2012
Apple’s ‘iPad mini’ to obliterate Microsoft’s Windows 8, Surface RT tablet launches – October 13, 2012
Acer CEO to Microsoft: ‘Think twice’ about Surface tablets – August 7, 2012
Microsoft Surface tablet pricing leaked; US$1,000 for ‘cheapest’ Windows RT model – July 26, 2012
Ballmer: Uh, yeah, ‘Surface is just a design point,’ you know – July 10, 2012
Microsoft’s Buffoon, er… Ballmer throws down gauntlet against Apple – July 10, 2012
Microsoft reportedly dumps ‘VaporMg’ chassis, will use ‘VaporMg’ only as ‘surface treatment’ – July 9, 2012
Microsoft’s downfall: Inside the executive e-mails and cannibalistic culture that fueled Microsoft’s lost decade – July 7, 2012
HP said to dump Microsoft over Surface; to cozy up to Google Android for tablet efforts – July 2, 2012
Bad news for Microsoft’s iPad killer? – July 2, 2012
Dear Microsoft, Steve Balmer and Bill Gates: What is up with your obsession with keyboards? – June 28, 2012
Jason Schwarz: Top 10 reasons why Microsoft’s Surface is DOA – June 22, 2012
Why I love Microsoft’s vaporware Surface tablet – June 22, 2012
Microsoft’s Surface tablet said to be Wi-Fi only at launch; no 4G, no 3G, no 2G, not even 1G – June 22, 2012
Microsoft outsources Surface assembly to Pegatron; prices above $799 for Windows 8, above $599 for Windows RT expected – June 21, 2012
Acer founder: Microsoft will quit making tablets soon – June 21, 2012
Devastating video shows Microsoft’s Surface event aping Steve Jobs’ iPad unveiling (with video) – June 20, 2012
Thanks to Apple, Microsoft is doomed in the era of mobile computing – June 20, 2012
Why wouldn’t Microsoft let anyone touch its Surface tablets’ keyboard cover? – June 20, 2012
The cost of Microsoft’s Surface tablets – June 20, 2012
Apple’s revolutionary iPad vs. Microsoft’s anti-tablet ‘Surface’ – June 20, 2012
Microsoft’s Surface tablets provokes ‘sense of betrayal’ among Windows PC assemblers – June 20, 2012
Fox News: Copier Microsoft is doomed to fail with Surface tablet – June 19, 2012
Microsoft’s Surface tablet destined to be as successful as the Zune – June 19, 2012
Surface: Why Microsoft’s big mystery turns out to be a big mistake – June 19, 2012
Microsoft’s Suicide, er… ‘Surface’ – June 19, 2012
ZDNet Sr. Tech Editor Perlow: Microsoft’s Surface has catastrophe written all over it – June 19, 2012
Microsoft previews own ‘Surface’ tablet – June 18, 2012
Microsoft touts ‘major’ June 18 event said to showcase Windows RT tablets – June 15, 2012
ZDNet’s Kingsley-Hughes: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is an awful, horrible, painful design disaster – June 8, 2012
Analyst meets with big computer maker, finds ‘general lack of enthusiasm’ for Windows 8 – June 8, 2012
Dvorak: Windows 8 an unmitigated disaster; unusable and annoying; it makes your teeth itch – June 3, 2012
The Guardian: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is confusing as hell; an appalling user experience – March 5, 2012
More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video) – June 1, 2011
Mr. Ballmer continues to make ill-advised off-the-cuff remarks that only thinly mask his antipathy for Apple and its more discerning, less corporately enslaved, least lobotomized customers and anyone else who dares to question his hegemony.
Moreover, he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth. Microsoft’s partners are responsible for that huge OS market share he brags about, but he risks alienating them by building hardware himself. They are not happy with his shabby treatment of them—Acer is the latest to demur.
At this rate, Steve Ballmer’s wife may soon leave him if she is not cheating on him already.
Hey! I know his wife, and she’s a nice guy.
I want to erase my mind even thinking about anyone willing to have sex with Ballmer!
Must…..purge…….mind! AAAUGH!!
Steve Ballmer as Young Frankenstein singing “Puttin On The Ritz”
What ever you do do NOT scare him as he will flip out & start throwing chairs at you.
MDN: ‘Quick, somebody ask Mikey Dell, Meg Whitman, and Stephen Elop before they’re due in bankruptcy court.’ JUST SO OUR GOVERNMENT DOEN’T BAIL THESE GUYS OUT FOR THIER LACK OF CREATIVITY.
“I like our model. I like it a lot.”
Somnambulant. I actually had to look that one up. Thanks MDN. 😉
Ballmer is very, very clever. The board STILL pays him his salary. He’s a laughing monkey-boy who likes his pay check, likes it a lot.
Amazing isn’t it? Defies all logic, but I like their plan, I like it a lot for as long as it takes.
Ballmer—Still relevant only in his own mind.
MDN, you are funny. just see apple stock this morning. it’s another big falling. $588. apple is done.
Is it just me, or is the PC market the only market place where Microsoft is the high (but declining) volume player? He mentioned tablets, but what about MP3 players and phones? Microsoft isn’t dominating any of these categories. In fact, are there any other smart phone operating systems being used less then windows?
What a sad sad man.
I finally got a chance to sit down and read yesterday’s WSJ. My favorite quote from the interview?
WSJ: How has the public reception been for Windows 8 and Surface in the first few days?
Mr. Ballmer: Numerically there’s not really much that’s interesting to report.
I think that sums it up folks! 😀