This is the third installment of our exclusive interview last week with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. In the first article we showed an overview and video footage of the main subject areas we covered: Big Opportunities, Operating Systems/Browsers, Mobile, Search and Developers.
In the second post we did a deeper dive on his thoughts on big business opportunities for Microsoft in the next 5 – 10 years.
Here we focus on his thoughts on the competitive landscape around operating systems and browsers. And Ballmer has lots to say on the subject. Particularly because Microsoft has fresh browser and OS products in the pipe: IE8 launched earlier this year and Windows 7 launches on October 22.
We jumped right into the conversation by bringing up the 2001 consent decree with the Department of Justice and various other governmental bodies that, among other things, prohibited Microsoft from bundling Windows and IE for competitive purposes.
But the landscape has changed a lot in the last eight years. And Microsoft’s competitors are doing exactly what Microsoft is prohibited from doing – bundling an operating system and a browser. Heck, Google didn’t even change the brands. Chrome is both a browser and a desktop operating system.
Ballmer says the notion of an operating system being distinguished from the browser is no longer sensible:
I’ll say that it is certainly clear that in the year 2009, the notion of operating systems being independent of internet access and internet ability to render important things in the internet is kind of not a sensible concept. And in every legal dispute we’ve been in, eventually, people agree with that. You know, we had to agree with some rules around that with the DOJ as part of the consent decree. We’re trying to agree on a new set of rules around that with the European commission, but I think we’re well past the point where people really question that it needs to happen. The question is for somebody who’s got our market share, on what terms does it happen?
He elaborates, arguing that there isn’t really any distinction between the browser and the operating system – both are operating systems. Except for the hardware drivers, of course. And oh boy do we agree. Says Ballmer:
You know, Google is talking about building an operating system with the name of its browser. Nobody should be confused. The browser they think of is the operating system and the question is you know sort of like Marc Andreesen in the late ’90s is back at work at Google. If you remember, he said something like, Windows will just be a poorly debugged set of device drivers running Netscape…Now, that’s kind of basically the attitude expressed in Chrome Browser, Chrome OS. Windows is just, you know, sort of a bag of bits that manages the hardware under the Chrome operating system and oops, we can even do our own device drivers for the Chrome operating system. Of course, the Chrome operating system isn’t available, hasn’t shipped.
When it comes to browsers, Ballmer calls Chrome and Safari rounding errors. And he certainly noticed Google’s attempts to turn IE into Chrome via a plugin:
The most successful by far is Firefox. Chrome is a rounding error to date. Safari is a rounding error to date. But Firefox is not. The fact that there’s a lot of competitors probably is to our advantage. Yeah, we’re right now about 74 percent overall with the browser market, roughly speaking. But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features. The other guys are getting more and more unanticipated competitive attack factors, the thing that Google announced yesterday where they replaced IE but they don’t tell you. I mean that’s how I would say it. For all intents and purposes of what they’re doing IE is not there. It’s their operating system. Instead of now masked as browser, it’s masked as a plug in basically to IE. So, you know, we’re going to have to compete like heck and you know, see where things go. The one thing that’s unclear is what’s the economic play for anybody else competing with us at the browser level. Is this all about kind of controlling the search box or is it about something else?
Clearly fired up, Ballmer also wonders at Google’s attempts to build two operating systems (Android and Chrome). It’s confusing, he says, and doesn’t help with interoperability. Microsoft has Windows for the desktop and Windows Mobile, and he says that he thinks about ways for Windows and Windows Mobile to “share more” every day. Google must have gotten Android wrong, he says, to have started to focus on Chrome. “In the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right.” He elaborates:
It’s incompatible with the one operating system they have shipped. To me, still, I don’t understand why they needed another one. They must have gotten the first one wrong. They must – they’ve got the first one. I mean, I really don’t know. They must think they got the Android wrong somehow. Otherwise, in the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right as opposed to have many of them. We have one and a half operating systems, Windows and Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile is kind of a half because it’s not entirely the same as Windows. And everyday, I say I’d love to get those two things to share more.
So I don’t know why Google before they have one successful one, decided they needed a second one. You know, I was expecting this Fall, or if not this Fall, next Winter, to really see a rash of essentially things that look like PCs running Android.
I think that’s a little tougher for them now because they basically tell the hardware community Android is dead, Chrome is the thing or maybe Chrome isn’t the thing. Maybe it is Android. The cacophony there is probably helpful to us in the grand scheme of things and I don’t know why they would have chosen to do it, at least the way you read the press. It probably has a lot to do with internal squabbles, but I just don’t know.
And he’s not done yet. In a fascinating answer to my question on how Microsoft will compete with Android, Chrome, Safari, Linux and other operating systems, he begins a long discussion of competitive attack vectors on Windows/IE and how competitors are hitting Microsoft from all sides via true operating systems and browsers. He even drew a chart for me, although he wouldn’t let me take it with me. Here’s what he had to say:
Mr. BALLMER: Here’s Windows and Windows is a very successful product. How do you attack Windows? Well, you attack with the high end, and hardware. That’s an attack. That’s – I won’t call it the Snow Leopard attack. I’ll call it the Mac attack of which Snow Leopard is a piece. You could attack from the side. That’s the Chrome – Firefox attack. You can attack from cheap, from below. You’re not from the side. You’re one on one, but that’s kind of a Linux, Android, presumably Chrome OS, who knows, attack vector. You can attack through phones that grow up. You know, mama don’t let your phones grow up to be PCs or something. I don’t know. But that’s another attack vector. So, you could say how do I feel about all these attack vectors? Strong, I feel very strong here.
I mean, we’re gaining share. Apple is expensive. And in tough economic environment, people get it. Their model is, by definition, expensive. And we’ve actually held or maybe even gained just a tiny bit of share relative to the Mac in the last 12 months. And it’s not really Snow Leopard. It’s really Windows PCs versus Mac.
That’s the trade-off. We’ve done extremely well versus Linux-powered machines with the Androids or Linux and we’ve done that primarily by having a better solution and being willing to do the right thing from our pricing perspective. And Windows 7 will only make this, I think, more competitive here.
Mr. ARRINGTON: And part of what we’re talking about here is Netbooks, of course.
Mr. BALLMER: Yes, well, Netbooks are just the first battleground.
There’s no question that there was a Linux PC battleground and then it became “the MID” and if you remember that mobile internet device. That’s what they call Netbooks before Netbooks, is in the new battleground. We’ve done a very good job and I think we’ll continue the job.
Phones, I think the jury is out. Nobody has yet tried to take the phone and turn it into a PC or take a PC and turn it into a phone. But this is where we have to be. We’re going to have it and we’ve got to have our phone act together. I like our 6.5 release. I like our plans for the future. But you know, we’re certainly in a period now where competition has got a lot more commotion.
Mr. ARRINGTON: As you said the market there is just getting started.
Mr. BALLMER: It’s still awfully nascent. People don’t think about it that way because phones aren’t nascent. Smart phones are more nascent. And then this attack is perhaps the most, I don’t mean this in a negative sense, but it’s the most insidious because some people don’t even know that it’s really an attack. Those are operating systems. They all run their own proprietary rich-client code and we’re competing against them. [Editor's note: If you view the full transcript below, it's clear he's talking about competitive browsers in these last few sentences, which he clearly views as operating systems with "proprietary rich-client code."]
There you have it. Ballmer sees a competitive landscape where Microsoft is surrounded by competing operating systems and browsers (which are also operating systems) and hobbled by a consent decree that limits their competitive response. But he doesn’t seem shaken by the threat. At the end of the day, one quote rings true from Ballmer: “In the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right.”
The full transcript of this portion of the interview is below.
Transcript:
Mr. ARRINGTON: You’ve got Windows 7 launching when? What’s the date?
Mr. BALLMER: 10/22.
Mr. ARRINGTON: 10/22. A decade ago the DOJ said that the browser and the operating system cannot be merged together. You probably know I’m talking about there. How do you feel about that with today’s world where Google is moving forward with Chrome OS and Chome Browser being merged?
Mr. BALLMER: I have no clue. I mean, how do I say this correctly? I don’t know what Google is doing. I’ll say that it is certainly clear that in the year 2009, the notion of operating systems being independent of internet access and internet ability to render important things in the internet is kind of not a sensible concept. And in every legal dispute we’ve been in, eventually, people agree with that. You know, we had to agree with some rules around that with the DOJ as part of the consent decree. We’re trying to agree on a new set of rules around that with the European commission, but I think we’re well past the point where people really question that it needs to happen. The question is for somebody who’s got our market share, on what terms does it happen?
You know, Google is talking about building an operating system with the name of its browser. Nobody should be confused. The browser they think of is the operating system and the question is you know sort of like Marc Andreesen in the late ’90s is back at work at Google. If you remember, he said something like, Windows will just be a poorly debugged set of device drivers running Netscape.
Mr. ARRINGTON: Yeah, he did say that. Yes.
Mr. BALLMER: Now, that’s kind of basically the attitude expressed in Chrome Browser, Chrome OS. Windows is just, you know, sort of a bag of bits that manages the hardware under the Chrome operating system and oops, we can even do our own device drivers for the Chrome operating system. Of course, the Chrome operating system isn’t available, hasn’t shipped.
Mr. ARRINGTON: Right.
Mr. BALLMER: It’s incompatible with the one operating system they have shipped. To me, still, I don’t understand why they needed another one. They must have gotten the first one wrong. They must – they’ve got the first one. I mean, I really don’t know. They must think they got the Android wrong and somehow. Otherwise, in the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right as opposed to have many of them. We have one and a half operating systems, Windows and Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile is kind of a half because it’s not entirely the same as Windows. And everyday, I say I’d love to get those two things to share more.
So I don’t know why Google before they have one successful one, decided they needed a second one. You know, I was expecting this Fall, or if not this Fall, next Winter, to really see a rash of essentially things that look like PCs running Android.
Mr. ARRINGTON: Yeah.
Mr. BALLMER: I think that’s a little tougher for them now because they basically tell the hardware community Android is dead, Chrome is the thing or maybe Chrome isn’t the thing. Maybe it is Android. The cacophony there is probably helpful to us in the grand scheme of things and I don’t know why they would have chosen to do it, at least the way you read the press. It probably has a lot to do with internal squabbles, but I just don’t know.
Mr. ARRINGTON: When you think of Windows 7 and explore competitive positioning versus Snow Leopard which just came out and has had some problems, and also, Chrome OS, how do you think about that?
Mr. BALLMER: I don’t know how you position against something that just doesn’t exist.
Mr. ARRINGTON: That’s fair.
Mr. BALLMER: Really, I don’t. So, when you do it, can I do Android or do Linux?
Mr. ARRINGTON: You can do either.
Mr. BALLMER: I think, well, because I sort of understand if you look at the competitive vectors – here’s Windows and Windows is a very successful product. How do you attack Windows? Well, you attack with the high end, and hardware. That’s an attack. That’s – I won’t call it the Snow Leopard attack. I’ll call it the Mac attack of which Snow Leopard is a piece. You could attack from the side. That’s the Chrome – Firefox attack. You can attack from cheap, from below. You’re not from the side. You’re one on one, but that’s kind of a Linux, Android, presumably Chrome OS, who knows, attack vector. You can attack through phones that grow up. You know, mama don’t let your phones grow up to be PCs or something. I don’t know. But that’s another attack vector. So, you could say how do I feel about all these attack vectors? Strong, I feel very strong here.
Mr. ARRINGTON: Yeah.
Mr. BALLMER: I mean, we’re gaining share. Apple is expensive. And in tough economic environment, people get it. Their model is, by definition, expensive. And we’ve actually held or maybe even gained just a tiny bit of share relative to the Mac in the last 12 months. And it’s not really Snow Leopard. It’s really Windows PCs versus Mac.
That’s the trade-off. We’ve done extremely well versus Linux-powered machines with the Androids or Linux and we’ve done that primarily by having a better solution and being willing to do the right thing from our pricing perspective. And Windows 7 will only make this, I think, more competitive here.
Mr. ARRINGTON: And part of what we’re talking about here is Netbooks, of course.
Mr. BALLMER: Yeah, well, Netbooks are just the first battleground.
There’s no question that there was a Linux PC battleground and then it became “the MID” and if you remember that mobile internet device. That’s what they call Netbooks before Netbooks, is in the new battleground. We’ve done a very good job and I think we’ll continue the job.
Phones, I think the jury is out. Nobody has yet tried to take the phone and turn it into a PC or take a PC and turn it into a phone. But this is where we have to be. We’re going to have it and we’ve got to have our phone act together. I like our 6.5 release. I like our plans for the future. But you know, we’re certainly in a period now where competition has got a lot more commotion.
Mr. ARRINGTON: As you said the market there is just getting started.
Mr. BALLMER: It’s still awfully nascent. People don’t think about it that way because phones aren’t nascent. Smart phones are more nascent. And then this attack is perhaps the most, I don’t mean this in a negative sense, but it’s the most insidious because some people don’t even know that it’s really an attack. Those are operating systems. They all run their own proprietary rich-client code and we’re competing against them.
The most successful by far is Firefox. Chrome is a rounding error to date. Safari is a rounding error to date. But Firefox is not. The fact that there’s a lot of competitors probably is to our advantage. Yeah, we’re right now about 74 percent overall with the browser market, roughly speaking. But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features. The other guys are getting more and more unanticipated competitive attack factors, the thing that Google announced yesterday where they replaced IE but they don’t tell you.
I mean that’s how I would say it. For all intents and purposes of what they’re doing IE is not there. It’s their operating system. Instead of now masked as browser, it’s masked as a plug in basically to IE. So, you know, we’re going to have to compete like heck and you know, see where things go. The one thing that’s unclear is what’s the economic play for anybody else competing with us at the browser level. Is this all about kind of controlling the search box or is it about something else?
Even Firefox – all the economics from Firefox come from that box.
Mr. ARRINGTON: The search box.
Mr. BALLMER: The Google search box, yes.
Mr. ARRINGTON: You have, I think Silverlight has — 35 percent of computers have Silverlight on them.
Mr. BALLMER: Yeah. That’s right.
Mr. ARRINGTON: Is Silverlight essentially competing with Windows? I mean, the way you described some of this here, it’s like they’re competing with each other.
Mr. BALLMER: No, it depends on what the strategy is. IE only runs from Windows. Anybody who uses IE uses Windows. So does it compete with Windows? No it helps Windows.
On the other hand, when we tell people the right applications which are not unique to Windows that doesn’t particularly help Windows. And so we’ll continue to see and do things that are standard-based because that’s important. And you continue to see us encourage developers to do things that run uniquely on the Windows platform. You know, with the new Silverlight, you can build Silverlight applications that are flash-like in the sense that they run across platform. But you can also do things which are even nicer which really narrow down and run only on Windows. And given that Windows is a billion units, you can afford to make optimizations as long as they bring value and do your applications that are Windows unique.
Interesting..
Can you explain to me what is interesting about it? Im not a tech strategist, but I’m not naive about the tech world either, but he comes across as essentially having no clue whatsoever about
(A) What the competition are up to
(B) What his own company is up to
He’s all over the place and not making any clear sense about anything. If he cant say much because he needs to keep company secrets then that could make it difficult, but he could still be alot clearer than this… If this is the man running Microsoft then its no surprise to me that their company can’t create and get behind a unified vision of anything, this interview is a perfect example of how scatterbrained the whole Microsoft operation is… lots of talented engineers with crap leadership, I’ve seen lots of good concepts lately from Microsoft and few of them are ever going to be released, and even if they are they will be half baked.
“In the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right.”…….
in another news…..
Ballmer Admits Microsoft “Screwed Up” Windows Mobile
Does Microsoft even matter any more? Apple is kicking their butt, and Ballmer is either too dim or too arrogant to admit that MSFT is playing catch-up to Apple’s runaway success.
And yes, the Ballmer pay cut makes sense, since he has failed to keep his company thriving during tough times. Apple on the other hand, has a runaway success and runaway profits while the rest of the industry is struggling to stay alive during this disastrous economy. Apple’s leadership deserves a pay raise, because they are the rare company that has managed to keep their company thriving, super-profitable, and robust in these hard times.
I wouldn’t exaclty say that Apple is “kicking Microsoft’s butt.”
Apple is around 10% market penetration and Microsoft is around 90% Market penetration. And, and this is a big ‘And,’ Apple is JUST starting to penetrate the corporate world via the iPhone.
Don’t get cocky, jr.
I guess that depends on the definition of “kicking butt.” A look beyond simple “market penetration” shows a lot more than that simple 90/10 dichotomy. Apple’s margins and EPS are amazing, and AAPL shareholders are very pleased. While income investors might like MSFTs dividend, think about their engineers. Take a look at 5 year stock chart, who’s options would you rather have?
You know Microsoft always looks good when drinking the kool-aid but reality is when you stop choosing very carefully “what the market is” Apple is kicking their butt. Market penetration for Apple is much higher when you look at every where these companies compete iPhone + iPod + Personal Computer + peripheral sales. If you also choose installed base Apple does better. Finally if you add Linux into the mix and include servers and netbooks the break down at least locally in my customer base is about 50 MSFT 35 Apple 15 Linux. And in recent sales through our store Apple is within a hair of being even with MSFT in units sold. Face it the dinosaur is on its way out.
I don’t know about windows 7. I tried vista and there were so many things I had to change that were irratating. Not to mention, when I had all my regular stuff running, it was much slower than XP.
I think Microsoft is going to have to step it up in the future because other places, as mentioned, like google aren’t messing around.
As the saying goes. The wolf at the top isn’t as hungry as the ones below it.
i’ve never heard that saying. Is Microsoft the one on top?
From how I see it, yes, the OP meant that Microsoft is on top and Google is below it and Google is hungry for more market. Their main source of market share used to be the web and now they’re heading for the desktop and other “playgrounds”. It may be “a house of cards”, but it has enough cards in it to withstand hurricanes.
With Google being almost one fifth the size of microsoft, isn’t it pretty obvious who is on top.
obviously sarcasm, smart guy
They are 1/5 of Microsoft in terms of employees. But dont forget that Microsoft is on a lot of markets that Google didnt even touch yet : xbox360, hardware (mice and stuff), zune…
If you look at market cap, Microsoft is not that far above Google. There might be a factor 2 maybe.
I never heard that saying either. But I love it.
It does not always work that way you know. The wolf at the top may not be as hungry as the ones below it, but he has a very vivid recollection of what being hungry is…
Paraphrasing Arnold Schwarzenegger from Pumping Iron (1977).
Here is the famous reference to the saying from Pumping Iron:
http://www.yout...53ogTeA#t=1m25s
Arnold’s answer to the saying is just as good
.
Yep! After all, he is quite a wolf, isn’t he
.
I have had an early version of Windows 7 Ultimate. I have to say it’s shockingly good. Shocking because I didn’t expect something like this from MS. The apple fan boys are going to say much has been copied from OSX and to a point it has. I guess if I can run a PC and have OSX usability and PC cost as Kramer would say….giddy up!
PS: Mike, I think I speak for many when I say, next time show the whole video please!
I’m with you on this one Dan! Mac OSX usability with PC cost is a homerun!! It has always amazed me that Mac can charge such a high premium for their computers, when they offer just a small margin of usability over Windows. OSX locks you out to so many software applications, especially on the professional level. Not to mention games, middleware, and enterprise class software. Apple seems to be focusing more and more on being a consumer electronics company and content distributor. If they don’t keep their OS fresh and superior to Windows, I think it will be hard for them to keep their computer price structure in place, especially during these frugal times. Of course, somehow Mac is growing marketshare, but I’d say that that growth is not guaranteed for the future.
“when they offer just a small margin of usability over Windows”
The “small margin” translates into pretty compelling numbers. In pretty much every study (i.e. any study not funded by Microsoft) Macs turn out to have a lower TCO and Mac users have substantially higher productivity than Windows users.
So yes, if it were such a “small margin of usability” you’d be right. But it isn’t.
“Macs turn out to have a lower TCO and Mac users have substantially higher productivity than Windows users.”
Care to provide links to those studies? Because you’re actually wrong unless you’re talking about specific circumstances.
Oh and I would avoid any references to CIO magazine and ancient studies at Australian universities if you want to be taken seriously.
So… you game?
“OSX locks you out to so many software applications, especially on the professional level.”
Lol–oh you mean all that crap I’m forced to use at work that amounts to an employment program for IT and training staff–in my case at tax payers’ expense. Of course that’s not all the apps fault, it’s also the OS.
“OSX locks you out to so many software applications, especially on the professional level. Not to mention games, middleware, and enterprise class software.”
Yeah I hate being “locked out” of Logic Pro, MS Office, iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, Safari, GarageBand, Firefox, Final Cut, iWeb, Keynote, not to mention Windows and Windows apps. Oh wait–I use a Mac, w. OS X–so I’m not.
“just a small margin of usability over Windows”
That’s the most hilarious thing I’ve read all day. Thanks!
Locked out of what? Last time I checked, Macs run Windows, as well as OS X.
Did you guys see Becky Grant’s photos…?
lol…you should have made some kind of animal analogy…I think she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing (or lack thereof) maybe?
A wolf without sheep’s clothing is just a wolf
Windows 7 is orders of magnitude better, faster and more polished than Vista. It’ll make the difference.
if there were competing against Mac OS X 10.2 and Fedora Core 1 sure. But OS X is 10.6 and Ubuntu is the new kid in town that makes netbooks fly. Windows 7 barely runs on some netbooks and not at all on ARM, Windows 7 does not come close in TOC and reliability to RHEL on the server side and OS X is snappier (on same hardware) with a more consistent UI than Windows 7. MSFT has a long way to go yet before they are actually competing on a level playing field
…”and OS X is snappier (on same hardware) with a more consistent UI than Windows 7″
on same but choice limited (apple preselected) hardware sadly…
Enter the geek. For about 95 % of the users the choice of Apple hardware is quite enough. Do you really believe that mom and pop would (does …) understand the meaningful differences between a ASUS K50IJ-C2B and a MSI X340-021US (apart from their sexy names, that is)?
This thing with choice rests on the very (to say the least) shaky assumption that regular users can, are able to and WANT to compare umpteen zillion similar computers to get something nice to browse the net on, arrange the family photos and send the occasional e-mail, maybe edit a home movie and synch their iPod on. Something that preferably works with a minimum of fuss. That’s why Apple continues to grow as more and more people actually realize that Macs are an alternative, see through this misplaced “choice” crap and makes it easy for themselves. The geeks may have all the geeky choices they want and build their own rigs and whatnot. But the rest of us aren’t really interested in spending our time on that. That’s why Apple is raking in the lion’s share of the profits in personal computers.
I always thought Microsoft’s PR approach to browser integration was pretty stupid. If they had simply said that Windows didn’t come with a browser because browsing was built into the operating system, they probably could have saved themselves years in court and millions of dollars. But that IE brand name was just too much to give up.
… didn’t they try to argue in (european) court that IE was impossible to retrieve from the OS, because … the browser was built into windows??
I think that microsoft is doing well thesedays especially with IE8 and its automatic cookies & history deletion
.. it is awesome.
Windows 7 adds a big advantage for microsoft.
MICROSOFT ROCKS !
Put that koolaid down and step away, showing your hands all the time…
+1 @Yawner.
Oh, and this gem:
“In the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right.”
Hahahahahahaha. Yeah, right. Like with that OS called “Vista del Mojave”…
(BTW, “I’m a PC” and I can take as negative of a view of Microsoft and its monopolistic waste of resources as I like.)
IE8 is just plain awful. Good luck trying to compete against new versions of Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Times are changing and MS share will keep shrinking.
As a Microsoft Client I always felt like a “rounding error”
Hey! thanks so much for the post. Not sure that I would agree that Chrome is a ’rounding error” but I guess that is an interesting turn of phrase to use when describing it.
Is it better to be a “rounding” error or a “rendering” error (like IE)? That fact that there is interest around Google’s Chrome Frame for IE should be an embarrassment for Microsoft. Congratulations Microsoft, the masses use your browser because they’re largely computer illiterate and just use the defaults. IE 8 is a nice improvement but it’s still VERY far behind the competition in terms of capabilities and performance.
hell yeah
That’s totally right!
As an IT support, I haven’t yet see a Windows-Vista PC which doesn’t crash regularly. I seems like Windows users are just used to it.
I find it interesting that Ballmer attempts to say that Mobile Windows and Desktop Windows are the same OS. He tells us that Google must have gotten something wrong because they rename their desktop-designed OS to differentiate it from their mobile OS. Claims that there will not be interoperability between the two!
If they are both open source, then there should be tremendous interoperability, way more than with the Windows Mobile and Windows 7 platforms.
Please Mr. Ballmer, do not treat us like morons. Stop spreading the FUD.
Arrington, I understand wanting to make us read the article but why can’t you just give us the complete video interview? Its very frustrating.
Hey Mike, I would love to see the entire video/audio – can you post it somewhere?
I went thru the first 13 min from your first post on M$ but after that reading it piece by piece is a bit jarring.
if Chrome and Safari are rounding errors, does that mean Bings search share is a rounding error?
No since Bing’s share of its market is bigger than Safari and Chrome’s combined share of their markets.
that’s why he did not mention Firefox. If 25% market share = rounding error, then Bing (with Yahoo!’s blessings) is a rounding error.
It is stupid to call Bing a rounding error right now. It is not even worth mentioning yet.
Um, huh?
>>The most successful by far is Firefox. Chrome is a rounding error to date. Safari is a rounding error to date. But Firefox is not.
Read the article next time.
G, forget the article … did you even read my comment?
He did mention Firefox, did you even read the article?
Umm… he did mention FF and said that it was NOT a rounding error.
Damn, beat me to it!
Thank you. That’s what I meant.
That makes the Zune HD a rounding error. And while we’re at it…
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” – Steve Balmmer April 29, 2007
http://www.usat...orum-usat_N.htm
That quote may make Mr. Ballmer and his ability to head a large technology corporation a “rounding error” in the eyes of the shareholders.
“And Microsoft’s competitors are doing exactly what Microsoft is prohibited from doing – bundling an operating system and a browser.”
Really, that’s your understanding of the Microsoft bundling problem? Isn’t there the teeny bit difference that Microsoft had a monopoly over the OS market while doing the said bundling? I wouldn’t have minded if this were a quote from Ballmer, since its a lovely way to spin the core issue in MS’s favor, but coming from the writer of this article, it smacks of (IMHO, shocking) ignorance of the facts surrounding perhaps the most important legal case involving the tech world. (To ram the point home, there is an equivalence to Google only if, at least, both of the following were true: (i) Chrome had a monopoly on the browser market, (ii) the Chrome OS disallowed the use of alternative browsers.)
+1
MS is in this position because of what they did when the difference between a browser and an OS actually mattered a heckuvalot. Had they played ball back then when they had all the power they wouldn’t be so far up shit creek now. You reap what you sow. At least to some degree, as MS are still much better off than they would have been if they had not lied, cheated and bullied their way through the 80s and 90s.
Oh I love this – “Phones, I think the jury is out. Nobody has yet tried to take the phone and turn it into a PC or take a PC and turn it into a phone. But this is where we have to be. We’re going to have it and we’ve got to have our phone act together. I like our 6.5 release. I like our plans for the future. But you know, we’re certainly in a period now where competition has got a lot more commotion.”
Um, iPhone anyone? It IS a computer and you can do anything you can on a Mac or PC on it. I love how he completely ignores it.
The rest of his rambling shows why Microsoft is finally starting to lose ground on all fronts. He doesn’t get that Windows is old, outdated, unstable and not secure. No matter how you dress it up, it’s still Windows and still has the Registry which is the single biggest failing of the OS’ design. Linux is growing fast and already considered a mainstay for servers, now it’s getting on desktops as more people want to just have an Internet and OpenOffice device. Macs might cost more, but TCO is much lower than owning a PC for the common user (not thinking geeks here).
If MS wants to stop losing ground they need to get rid of Windows. It’s days are long past due and they either need to develop a completely new OS (like how Apple went OS9 to OSX) or they need to just give it up and make apps for other systems.
>>Um, iPhone anyone? It IS a computer and you can do anything you can on a Mac or PC on it. I love how he completely ignores it.
Technically, my old ass TI calculator is a computer. But anyway, there still has yet to be a smartphone that could replace a PC. If you really believe that, can you realistically throw away your Mac/PC and still do everything that you need to with just a iPhone? I didn’t think so.
He didn’t ignore anything, WinMo has been able to do more than the iPhone (albeit in a much more unattractive way) since day one. Yet nobody including him wouldn’t consider any of today’s smartphones as PC replacements.
iPhone is *NOT* like a computer, its a controlled device with very tough restrictions on what you can and can’t do with it. Stuck with AT&T, Locked to vendor approved apps, forced into network and bandwidth restrictions mandated by both apple and the provider.
Oddly enough, MS doesn’t do any of that. While Moible 6.1 and below is terribly rough around the edges out of the box Samsung & HTC et all have really made it shine and are doing some cool stuff with 6.5. I hope the .NET development tools continue to grow beyond the crappy SDK’s of yesteryear and maybe the App store will help give some formality & ease of use to compete against Apple.
I think MS will pull off the “general computing” device long before Apple. Those little apps are cute but they’re just a morsal of what can really be done when the customer approaches his phone the same way he approches his desktop. right now apple treats the iphone like a portal that it controls and to me that doesn’t seem very “computer like”
and yes, technically, it is a “Computer” but not in the sense of an open system that the customer can use as he/she pleases a-la windows or even linux & os x
The iPhone isn’t really a PC though. I can’t fire up Photoshop on my iPhone, I can’t write a meaningful article with it, I can’t game (meaningfully), I can’t really do all that much. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone is definitely leaping ahead with what is possible but it isn’t their yet.
As for your comments on Windows they are starting a new OS. Unless I’ve missed a further piece of news I’m fairly certain MS have said that Win7 will be their last true PC Windows. They’ve certainly already begun work on a brand new, from the ground up, OS to replace Windows in the next decade.
I sure hope this is true. XP, Vista and Windows 7 have been a disaster in my opinion in nearly every area. The GUI improvements are cool though, Windows 7 finally has a nice and handy taskbar. But that alone doesn’t make up for the rest.
This MS Courier tablet device on the other hand, would be well worth $700+ if it works like the videos make you believe.
The device would offer new handy ways of doing things not feasible before and at the same time save you a hell of a lot of time on things that can already be done on PDAs. It might be the first ‘PDA’ that significantly increases your working speed and effectiveness over the old pen and paper.
Yup, I would buy it immediately if it retails with such a price tag!
“XP, Vista and Windows 7 have been a disaster in my opinion in nearly every area. The GUI improvements are cool though, Windows 7 finally has a nice and handy taskbar. But that alone doesn’t make up for the rest.”
Whatever you’re on, I want some. XP, a disaster? Really? Vista I can understand, but XP? Reaaaaally? And Windows 7 hasn’t even been launched yet – how can you call it a “disaster” until the market reacts to it?
Windows 7 a disaster in nearly every area? No, I’d be your most avid reader if you started an OS review blog.
lol. the sarcasm is rife here in the comments section. i will get windows 7 when i can. i haven’t even downloaded chrome. i’m going to install it on another computer, and i’m observing how my friend likes chrome on his laptop.
i never thought i would like ballmer, but i don’t think he has it wrong here even if he doesn’t have the words to describe it. the iphone is not a computer. it shares functions/similarities/applications but no one can say truly that it’s the next version of a pc. the guy who said that crappy windows phone have been more computer like from the get go is right.
“Um, iPhone anyone? It IS a computer and you can do anything you can on a Mac or PC on it.”
Apart from third party multi-taksing, falsh video, high end gaming, mass data processing and any enterprise level application of note.
But apart from those small details sure.
Not to mention an accessible file system.
The iphone is a toy, if you want a phone with better capabilities, look for Android devices and heck…the n900 from nokia !!!! If for you, the n900 is not a “mobile sized PC” I dont know what you want…
And your comment illustrates exactly why everyone is NOT the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. *sigh*
“Um, iPhone anyone? It IS a computer and you can do anything you can on a Mac or PC on it. ”
I suspect you only use your real computer for email, Facebook and Twitter, so the statement may hold true for you, but until people develop iPhone software on iPhones instead of real computers this statement isn’t even close to being true.
Btw, thanks for bringing back the old “comment” field.
Steve Ballmer – very strong man.
strong… as in aggressive, paranoid (theyre all attacking windows from all sides), minimizing competitors’ achievements? surely not for his understanding of the evolution of the market… or for his respect of the end user
You never heard that saying?
Have you watched “Pumping Iron” with the battle between Lou and Arnold.
I remember that line from that movie. Its when Arnold’s buddy tells him that he isn’t hungry like Lou.
Anyway, it applies. Microsoft is at the top with the OS. I don’t see it going away anytime soon though.
Their main market is corporate systems which is driven by price, compatibility and applications and less by ease of use, reliability and speed.
I don’t see Microsoft being displaced as the main OS vendor however the OS is becoming more and more irrelevant with the Internet.
Ten years from now few applications will really be relying on the OS. I can see corporations using a hybrid environment where the choice of PC or linux will depend on the kind of application the end user will need.
Regards.
Yeah, why has Apple eschewed the corporate system market entirely? They will never gain substantial market share with their OS and computers if they can’t run enterprise class software like SAP and Oracle.
> “In the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right.”
Ah! Windows 7 in all its glorious 6 versions…
Microsoft doesn’t need the best technology to win. They rarely are the best (or 2nd best) … but they will pull stunts and do deals to gain share. We as geeks want to believe the best tech wins. Or even the best priced tech. Microsoft does neither. They’ll do exclusive deals (hypothetical scenario) with a company like WebSense to have the appliance hijack DNS and send any failed queries to Bing like Comcast does with their “DNS Helper” to Yahoo. It could be anything like that, which is in a grey legal area. MS is a shrewd company and at their best out-hustles competitors on sales and bizdev. They make tech good enough to sell and difficult for people to leave for something else. The web 2/3 stuff – I believe Microsoft will surprise people again with a tech that glues people to a cash cow. Maybe not Silverlight but as cynical as it sounds they will have something besides IE to terrorize the Internet with for the next two decades. “nascent” he says. Indeed.
If there some sort of agreement between Apple and MS for NOT releasing OSX on pcs or is it only an Apple strategic decision ?
I bet Windows would lose some market shares (not saying it would automatically be beneficial for Apple).
Are you kidding? They wouldn’t sell all their shiny kit doing that (and I do find that most people I know who own one do so primarily because it’s shiny to look at and show off with, not because of what you can do with it which is a little sad).
If the only Mac using people you know do so primarily because it’s shiny to look at and show off with, then you need to get some more – and better – friends.
There’re plenty of uber-nerds with Macs too.
That’s right — we’re all just children enchanted by “shiny kit.” Do you actually know anyone who uses a Mac? Do you have a clue what they do with it? I’ll give you a clue what I do with mine — make money. Lots of money. Doing serious work. For real clients. Using professional software. Imagine!
No no no.
The main idea is that Apple is a hardware manufacturer. They produce software to ultimately drive hardware sales. Whereas (apart from X360, Zune) Microsoft is a software manufacturer.
When you walk into an Apple store, what do you see? Hardware, in all directions. Software is at the back of the store, occupying one wall.
Apple focuses on hardware design/aesthetics and tight coupling between the hardware they produce and having an operating system that deliberately tries to differentiate on things Microsoft does badly. The hardware price subsidizes a lot of the software & design costs. Apple has a retail strategy. Apple supports the whole box, OS and all, cradle to grave.
(Microsoft does not have a retail strategy but is starting to execute one now).
It would not help Apple to open up MacOS X to OEMs. The fear is, and it’s probably correct, it would ultimately corrupt the experience that users receive today on Apple hardware. If you bought it on a Dell, it would not be the same, nor would they support it the same. And there’s no profit at 8% market share, when your product becomes as difficult as Windows.
Ok, true enough. But you have overlooked the fact that Apple is as much a media distribution company as hardware company.
Media distributed on their hardware.
“Software is at the back of the store, occupying one wall” because they have so little of it to offer!
How many word processors do you need? How many spreadsheet programs does it take? How many games do you need to play?
Quantity does not equal quality.
What I don’t understand is that MS, the biggest software company on the planet, is too confused to jump into the hottest software platform on the planet, that is the iPhone/iPod touch. They are apparently blinded by their own delusions of grandeur (with WinMo) to see the opportunity. If WinMo had a dominant position in the market, that might be a strategic option, but it ain’t gonna work with a 9% market-share. And at the same time they’re practically bribing iPhone developers to port Twitter apps to WinMo. What? Can’t some of their own brainiacs do that type of thing on their lunch breaks, for crying out loud? Very bizarre behavior for a software company.
lol. they are not confused. why do they want to be on the iphone. theirs and apple’s plans are not merging any point soon and apple has done a good job of killing any potential relationship. if anything ms should partner with google because they look like they share the same values even though they are coming from different backgrounds.
Why you would want to buy Dell when you can buy a Mac ? Why buy hay-wagon when you can buy a car. The price is not that different and you get much better piece of hardware. Plus you get better OS and applications “for free”. Total cost of ownership is definitely lower with Mac.
You don’t seem to understand the basic issue with OSX and its tight integration to the hardware it runs on.
Windows supports driver for literally every hardware device on the planet while OSX runs only on a selected list of approved hardware by apple. Sure, there are hackintoshes which do run on grey hardware, but thats the main reason why Apple hasn’t released OSX for PC platform. That would also mean cannibalizing their premium Mac line of sales.
Steve Ballmer sounds so confused.
He is trying so hard to beat the competition that he is becoming the competition.
yeah i don`t like the way he`s phrasing things but i understood him enough to not misinterpret what he said/what he meant. i even understood the vector drawing from the descriptions. sucks he didn`t let arrington keep it.
Why just not put up the video of the interview (even by installments) !
Rounding Errors? Steve can I be your accountant?
Ballmer is George W Bush with a larger vocabulary.
Get it right the first time? Reminds me of the wonderful windows security model, they sure messed up that part, and can’t get it fixed. There are lots of other examples.
Oh right.
Do you want to explain why the security model is messed up and why they can’t get it right?
Please do so – it’s always fun when someone who doesn’t have the faintest idea what they’re talking about starts blustering.
Mark,
If you dont agree that Windows security model was broken, then you should not be touching the PC.
Recently they have improved a lot but it was not like that before.
Bing, Windows 7, IE 8, WMP 12: MS is on the march to radically improve some of its core products. It’s about time, right? Apple & Google & Mozilla must be concerned, to say the least.
Apple’s “I’m a Mac & I’m a PC” ads are starting to look very dated, and frankly quite stupid. The bloom is way off the rose there. Meanwhile MS’s tv ads are rather nice. At least they feature some life and color. The white cyclorama Apple ads lack eye candy.
Always found it interesting that Apple was the computer company that was supposed to challenge the status quo and change the world. Steve Jobs is viewed as the hippie do-gooder with everyone’s best interests in mind. Bill Gates is seen as the evil genius out to rip you off. Yet Gates is actually out there now changing the world via The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Turns out he’s truly the #1 do-gooder in the entire technology sector as he saves baby’s lives in developing countries.
“Yet Gates is actually out there now changing the world via The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Oh please, have you look deeper at what this Foundation do ?
Bill Gate steals so much money with his MS monopoly that finaly, his consciousness wake up and he wants to become the “cool guy that help the world”.
Agree that Bill G has changed.
I think that the law suite and the public reaction at that time changed him.
Also, big fight bet him and Steve B on running the company too gave him a pause.
But that has less to do with topic here.
Where did Bill get all his money for his foundation? That’s right: he stole ideas from other companies and/or stomped them into submission. His foundation is nothing more than a way for everyone to think he’s a great guy after getting into trouble with the Feds.
And what makes you think Steve Jobs doesn’t give to charities? Just because he doesn’t advertise that he does?
The recent MSFT ads are “rather nice?” A five-year-old girl who can’t pronunciate words pushing MSFT’s brand new OS? Seriously. MSFT has resorted to cute and cuddly because…their marketing department is out of ideas, just like the rest of the company. Why not show Win7 in action? Why not show us why it’s better? Similar to the iPhone commercials where they show someone actually using the product? Nope, let’s go for cute. That will sell millions of computers at $399 a piece!
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
“Pronunciate”
Yay!
I do agree though
Steve Ballmer is nuts. All his predictions go horribly wrong. Iphone was supposed to be a disaster according to him. It is the biggest cash cow for Apple now. Chrome has almost 4% after 1 year and it is still in beta for Mac and Linux. IE is dominant only because it is the default browser. But still almost 30% people dont use IE. Ballmer should worry about improving his products. Vista sucks big time and the less said about Windows Mobile the better
Android is 1000 times better than Windows Mobile and almost all big Windows Mobile manufacturers (HTC for one) are focussing on Android. This will ensure that Google captures the mobile search market the way they have captured the desktop search market.
Steve get a reality check. Its nice to live in isolation but man get real. Wake up and stop dreaming
Yeah, Windows Mobile is crap.
The plan is that post Win Mo 7, which is based on CE 6, there will be Win MO 8 based on NT technology.
That is what he is talking about when he says, he would like to see Windows on PC and phone.
“This will ensure that Google captures the mobile search market the way they have captured the desktop search market”
The last I checked Google Desktop was still getting its ass kicked by the default Windows Desktop search client. I think you’re trying to talk about “online search,” not “desktop search.”
Anything that any other computer company does ends up as a rounding error to Microsoft numbers. No company has a big a market share as Microsoft. It’s understandable. In a year or two Apple’s market cap will catch up to Microsoft’s and Apple’s desktop market share will still be under 20% and Ballmer will still be talking about rounding errors. It’s not about the market share, it’s about how much money you can make.
Ballmer, and so Microsoft, has become the great follower. I mean, really: “I’ll say that it is certainly clear that in the year 2009, the notion of operating systems being independent of internet access and internet ability to render important things in the internet is kind of not a sensible concept.” Oh, what a novel idea. Where’d you get that? From Google, five, six years ago? There is nothing Microsoft has done, is doing, or will do, that is not an entirely borrowed concept at this point.
Actually Ballmer has spent the better part of the last 10 years trying to convince first the DOJ and then the European Commission that operating systems and browsers were inextricably linked.
your comment makes absolutely no sense.
What Ballmer is admitting, all the while trying to debunk it with highly opinionated forecasts, is that Microsoft has a lot of competitors.
Where 10-15 years ago, it ruled the roost and made everyone goose step to its demands, today, in just about every phase, the Boys of Redmond are challenged, even surpassed as the leaders.
He can belittle his competition all he wants, but the truth is they’re not going away…only growing in power and size.
“In the OS business, it’s generally advisable to get it right and stay right.”
Hey Steve, we’re all still waiting for you to produce an OS that is even half as good as OS X or Linux…
Not much talk about “customer”, “customer experience”, etc..
it’s a shame that customers are just people who pay for your stuff and not your cherished object that inspires to drive forward.
Vista sucks with stupid almost daily updates, works slowly, difficult UI, stupid security pop ups, etc.. gee, i wish MS for once comes up with something more workable.
If ever there was a reason for Google to declare war on MS, this adds fuel to the fire…
And your grandma is a pokémon…
So whose statistics is Mr. Balmer quoting when he says that internet explorer has “… 74 percent overall with the browser market, roughly speaking”?
http://marketsh...re.hitslink.com shows IE with 67%, Foxfire 23%, safari 4.07% and Chrome 2.8%
http://www.w3schools.com shows IE 8, 7 & 6 having about a 39% share, Foxfire with 47%, Chrome with 7% and Safari 3.3%.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikip...s#Summary_Table) has the best compilation of data on this and presents six sources for browser market share and present a median percentage for each of five browers. The median market share is as follows:
IE – 65.29%;
Firefox – 25.69%;
Safari – 3.74%;
Chrome – 2.84%
Opera – 1.62%
In any case, Safari and Chrome are not rounding errors and Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera are chipping away at IE’s share.
Man, I can not believe he is the CEO of microsoft. I would think twice to give him any position if microsoft was my company.
Get grip my friend. If you resist change there is high probability that you would be wiped out. Learn from GM, Chrysler
Look at these products before jumping in front to reporter to give your opinion
So Chrome’s a rounding error, eh? Well, we need more rounding errors, because that particular one is fawkin’ awesome.
Ballmer is wrong, as Chrome is a browser interface to other apps, both web-based and desktop-based. Netscape only had plans for this. IE was still latched onto Windows 98.
I image Mr. Ballmer at a MS creativity meeting:
-Shmmmmm- a Mac powers on…
Ah, I want that, and that…
And that too.
If you are a multi OS user, you will easy see that WIndows is always two previous behind Mac’s OS current version.
Instead of “attacks” to MS, I what really is going on is MS trying to make every piece of true creativity going out of business**
The true reason why MS have the larger share of OS market is because it they sell a garbage that runs on any piece of &$%^.
And that created the well known “standardization”
The OS wars, at least on the consumer level, will be fought and won via the cloud computing model. With better web technologies offering greater functionality coming out every day, there aren’t many tasks your average user won’t be able to indulge in via a cloud os. Websites like http://pixlr.com have already demonstrated photoshop (basically) inside your browser. Obviously, this will extend to and compliment the mobile os market as well. Google is well aware of this, and innovating as usual. I see Apple and Microsoft following suite here, but I do not expect them to be paving the way.
The man is a product of decades of too much red meat and private jet flight. What do y’all expect?
Maybe they should get a CEO who understands and uses computers/phones?
Microsoft is on a roll. Zune HD, Windows 7 and the Courier. I can’t wait.
The Courier is gonna kill any iTablet Apple can dream up. Check out this post.
http://www.meta...omputer-re.html
I visited your link.
Normally, I would argue against acid and blogging, but for you, it seems to have worked out well.
It’s amazing how much this interview sounds like that interview Charlie Rose did with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ballmer personifies the reason why Microsoft has been a Windows + Office company after all these years. His whole view of competition and technology is through a business man’s point of view, not a visionary’s. This is what distinguishes him from Steve Jobs and even Eric Schmidt.
Ballmer looks at market share and calls Chrome a “rounding error.” Just 3 years ago, people thought the iPhone would be a rounding error. When the Google search engine came out, it was just another search. The thing is that groundbreaking technology moves quick, especially in today’s world. Today’s “rounding error” is tomorrow’s majority market share.
The Chrome OS is not even out and Ballmer is already talking about it like it’s a failed product. I hope that, in reality, he sees the writing on the wall. If Microsoft doesn’t want to go the way of Xerox or IBM (when they were a computer company), they need a new CEO pronto.
Uh, Safari runs on iPhone and I’d love to have that kind of rounding error… it’s that kind of shortsightedness has MS in a bind now.
good feature. can you do more please and thank you?
i actually thought he wouldn`t get it, but he`s not too off with what he`s saying. i think that ms knows exactly what it`s doing and i hope that this competition from all sides drives them to be a better company. i think they should partner with google, work with google or steal google`s ideas. google is the way of the future even if they are based mostly around search.
IE the least standards compliant browser on the planet…Balmer is a joke.
When are Microsoft shareholders going to realize this bozo is living in an echo chamber and oust him? Maybe a Steve Jobs’ like ousting, and going out into the world and trying something new, might wake up this guy who seems completely out of touch with reality.
After reading all of the posts I have come the following conclusion: Microsoft users are not only cheap, they are very very stupid.
The big deal about internet explorer being bundled with windows was because it drove the stock price of Netscape way down. No one wanted to invest in netscape because msft just destroyed them. As long as google does not destroy another company by bundling their os/browser then it should be OK. It might hurt microsoft but I don’t think it will destroy them because they are not a one trick pony like netscape was.