“In the videos from his talk at Oxford’s Said Business School, Steve Ballmer said that most tech companies fail — like restaurants, I guess — and that the genius companies are ‘one-trick ponies,’ which invent a business worth billons,” David Morgenstern writes for ZDNet.
“For Microsoft, Ballmer counted 2.5 tricks: firstly, the modern PC platform, which comprises Windows software along with the Office software platform; and secondly the Windows Server platform (he described this as Microsoft in the datacenter). And finally, just a half a trick for Redmond’s Xbox gaming system,” Morgenstern writes. “Ballmer granted that Apple had accomplished two tricks: Macintosh, by which he must also include the popularizing of the first widely available GUI OS; and the iOS mobile computing platform, which spans iPod, iPhone (smartphones), and now iPad (tablet computing).”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There are even more for Apple: iPod, for just one screaming example. The App Store for another.
But, this is hardly surprising. Monkey Boy’s math has never added up; hence the reason he’s currently “spending time with his family.”
I wish Ballmer was spending more time “with the fishes.” Be nice if he would just STFU being mostly done and having inflicted enough damage on Microsoft and the tech world at large.
Ballmer T and Luca Brasi could spend time together playing Go Fish or somethin’.
I wish he was spending more time at Microsoft – “for as long as it takes.”
A familiar sentiment on this site. 🙂
Ballsmear is trying to revise history. Too bad that most Real Journalist are gone. Now the wannabe so called Journalist will regurgitate his false information and pass it on without a blink of an eye.
MDN, stop it with the disparaging remarks about Mr. Ballmer. You need to be pumping him up for his return as iCEO, after this sabbatical to refresh and reenergize.
And from a business perspective, you need the hit counts that you got whenever BLN posted (have you noticed he left with Steve?!) or you posted the “☝︎Dummy!☝︎” pictures!
Balmer is shorting Apple and Microsoft. I think Office should be a trick in of itself. Prior to MS Office, all apps were individually sold. After Office, everyone else was forced to follow. But I am not here to defend Microsoft or Balmer.
His over simplification disrespects everyone. I think any product which nets a billion dollars or more, should be considered a trick. Some tricks last some don’t.
One trick on a life time, I can believe that, but when your company has thousands of employees, there’s plenty of opportunity for new tricks. It all depends on if your employees are Type 1 or Type 2.
Apple switching from Power PC to Intel was a trick, and inspired by a Type 2 employee who did most of the work himself. (as an example)
I’m pretty sure it was IBM that invented the modern PC platform. Microcrotch was contracted to provide the DOS to run the darned thing. At the time, everyone used WordPerfect or Displaywrite for documents and Lotus 1,2,3 for spreadsheets. It wasn’t until IBM came out with the PS/2 (not playstation), that MS showed its true form and taught Big Blue how not to write a contract and how to play dirty. IBM walked away from the table at a very slow rate.
Not sure about server – but they probably didn’t invent that either.
It didn’t help that OS/2 was a dog
right again, as always, but i guess this is showing our age or our early adoption or… wait, uh, what? oh well only people susceptible to forgetfullness will remember OS/2 anyway, so pay no attention to me……
BTW, i like the evolution of your avatar, i have trouble deciding on one and your “moving target” keeps me baffled as to which way to go…. again maybe age related !-)
“Keep ’em guessing” 🙂
Ballmer forgot MS’s greatest innovation: the kickstand on the Surface.
dunno, that shit-brown colored Zune was quite an achievement too.
Spell check changed to achievement from excrement?
Microsoft most important trick was fooling IBM into thinking that QDOS (renamed PC-DOS) was MS’ own creation and keeping the right to sell it to other manufacturers (as MS-DOS)
Ballmer is the 34th richest person in the world and when you start at the top of that list and look down, he is the least deserving of that wealth. He basically was in the right place at the right time. NONE of HIS ideas led to that wealth.
Even the members of the Walton family can point to the fact they have inherited their wealth and that wealth is due to the overwhelming success of Walmart. Their father came up with the way merchandising is done today.
Even the two blatant “crooks” on that list, Carlos Slim and Aliko Dangote from Nigeria, did it “legally” in the context of their country’s laws.
Agree. IBM asked MS for an operating system for their new PCs. MS did not have one. But they found one called “QDOS” — Quick & Dirty Operating System — that was developed by a hippie software programmer in Berkeley. He would not sell to MS because he believed it belonged in the public domain for everyone to use. Instead, MS “reverse engineered” QDOS (cough, cough) and called it MS DOS. Apparently, the only difference between MS-DOS and the original QDOS was the drive letter at the DOS prompt command line. Microsoft totally ripped off this guy’s software. Then made billions. Apparently they don’t teach ethics at Harvard… but I guess Bill Gates gets off the hook since he never graduated from Harvard. Oh, well.
But Microsoft’s treachery did not end there. Later, MS was developing word processing and spreadsheet software for Apple Macs, so had a team with access to Apple’s revolutionary GUI for this purpose. There was supposed to be a “Chinese Wall” between the Mac application software development team and the MS team developing MS’s new operating system, Windows. Bill Gates mantra to the Windows development team the whole time was: “Make it more like the Mac. MAKE IT MORE LIKE THE MAC! So sleazy. I am surprised more people are not familiar with this revealing backstory.
Anyone interesting in a fun book that describes some of this (in the context of a novel) should pick up _Microserfs_ by the Canadian author, Douglas Coupland. (Incidentally, he coined the term “Generation X”.)
Yes this is true. Even If you provide relevant links/Sources the iHaters and so called Journalist fails to recognize or even believe the data is true. It’s sheer stupidity but they continue to ignore these facts.
[citation needed]
Wikipedia’s article, which has citations, says MS paid $50K (which was my recollection) for all rights to QDOS.
(BTW, I’ve never owned any IBM PCs nor clones.)
http://www.therightplanet.com/pics/smiling-ape/
Wow, for a site called “MacDailyNews”, this sure isn’t … uh… news. Just editorializing.
What Balmer was was of course an oversimplification for both bustinesses. I’m sure if you went through the list of Dodge’s innovations for example, it would read as one or two tricks while the company’s own fanboys would tout things like “Cab Forward” as one of their “many” innovations.
Just lighten up, people. Jeez. It’s 2014. Stop wasting time being a fanboy and go outside.
It often helps to be aware of historical events. TomH’s post has taught me something I never knew.
Every day’s a school day.
Especially for those that must sit in the corner, dunce cap in full evidence
Wow, apart from all the other nonsense, if Xbox deserves a 0.5 trick, so does Apple TV.
just wait while xbox becomes x-xbox and apple tv becomes even more mainstream, it just has not been recognized yet, since still just a hobby.
will be a huge thing where xbox is on its way to the footnote of history once games are unleashed
He forgot Microsoft Bob, and Clippy!
Balmer only counted two Apple innovations? There must have been a rounding error.
yeah, two rounding errors, total of two round zeors after the two,
I miss Ballmer. It was nice knowing that each month he’d come out with the most absurd statement about something. Truly an entertainment master. Lets create a petition to have Ballmer reinstated at Microsoft. I miss the guy!
Lately the word “innovation” has passed “synergy” of my most hated word. At least synergy had a meaning that everyone could agree upon. Innovation is far more overused than synergy ever was, and worse, no two people on the planet have ever been in full agreement on the exact definition of the word.
Ballmer could’ve said almost the exact same thing, but instead of saying “innovation” he could’ve stuck with the word “trick” and then self-defined that term for the context being used.
Had he said that Microsoft experienced 2.5 tricks that fundamentally shifted their company and resulted in strong growth and dominant positions within categories of business, that would be true:
1 DOS/Windows/Office PC
2 Servers (Windows Server, Exchange… in the datacenter)
2.5 Xbox
Likewise, at least these two tricks count for Apple:
1 Mac
2 iOS based devices
I think he’s still forgetting about the Apple II, and prior to iOS there was the iPod and all things iTunes. So I would add…
3 iPod
4 iTunes
5 Apple’s Retail Stores
In fairness though, this is such a semantic argument, and the categorization really only matters in the context being considered, just as DOS/Windows/Office PC could be considered one category, iPods, iOS devices, and iTunes could be consolidated into one category. It all depends on the context and how much you want to talk about things that are more independent of each other.
The bottom line is that neither company has really experienced nearly as many radical transformations as most people would think. For the most part, it’s been about building upon success and leveraging through a halo effect and ecosystem or abusive monopolistic policies. One of these companies got in trouble for the latter and hasn’t been doing so well in the 13 years since while the other doing the prior has been increasingly successful.
He looks like Uncle Fester !
Let’s see now. What did Microsoft ever actually ‘innovate’?
– Windows: Direct imitation of Xerox’s Star OS, UNLIKE Apple, which innovated far beyond it from day one. Then Microsoft ripped off Apple’s Mac OS innovations. Nope. No innovation there. Sorry.
– Office: Microsoft bought the tech behind Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. The only stuff I think they actually invented themselves was Access. Maybe some of those other fiddly bits in the Windows version. So nope. Not much innovation here either.
– XBox: The hardware was crap in generation 1. But they did eventually get the PC hardware right. It’s just a cheap PC box with a PowerPC chip tossed in instead. No innovation there.
So I’m a bit confused as to what Microsoft ‘innovation’ this Ballmer blowhard is talking about. He seems to be full of hot air and little substance in that respect.