Steve Ballmer says Microsoft plans to compete with Apple in every market - Page 4

To sum up, the "tale of two Steve's"

Steve (Visionary, Genius) Jobs, most people see him as a visionary who changed the world.

Steve(idiot, blamer)  Balmer, I can't think of anything to say about him really, can you?

that's  all you need to know really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbryanh 

How odd that Ballmer feels it necessary to announce that Microsoft will attempt to copy Apple on all fronts.  When has it ever for a moment been otherwise?  

 

What is it that's so unspeakably crass about the man?  Despite having no such pretensions myself, Ballmer always inclines me to sneer something devastating about arrivistes.  Every time he opens his mouth I find myself responding as though I were Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, encountering some equine byproduct on her shoe.  Perhaps it's living in Seattle, where the two-ton, brick-in-the-face subtlety of Microsoft's nouveau riche, self-styled aristocracy slaps one in the face on a near daily basis.   Opportunistic hoarders whose only principal is wealth are many terrible things, and while boring isn't the worst of them, they're still sufficiently tedious to inspire daydreams about the bloodless erasure of Bellevue from the planet.

 

The only thing that's different this time around is MS's failure may be very telling.  It's alienated its already panicked hardware suppliers, iOS is eroding its Fortune 500 market, and consumers are deserting its mediocrity in droves.  Android is an increasingly fragmented mess with poor security, and rumor has it that the fondlement of Windows 8 is anything but a pleasure.

 

Far from being smug, I'd love it if having MS's feet held to the fire inspired it to get off its fat ass and dance.  Competition is a crucial spur to creativity, and Apple is now disturbingly powerful.  The first thing the Kind of the Hill does is grow fat and complacent.  It'd be lovely to finally see MS get lean and creative, but one wonders if such a thing is possible after so many decades of depending on monopolies, marketing, and the bizarre protection racket which is Windows security.

 

It'd be interesting to see Apple slap down a glove and release a real iWork.  God knows they've left it sitting for long enough.  Seeing MS forced to address the staggering, gaseously bloated cow which is Word is a consummation devoutly to be wished.  Nor has any significant evolution of spreadsheets occurred since Excel either bought or crushed its competition.  Despite the endless hype over little apps, most folks still spend much of their time reading, writing, and counting (and - shudder - giving presentations about it).

+1 Well said good sir or madam.  Well said.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ash471 

100% of the success of MS is from corporate IT departments.  These people are rabid MS fans and can't fathom anything else. 

IMHO it's not that Enterprise IT departments can't fathom anything else; it's job security.  Other than the day-to-day tasks of setting folks up with equipment and answering the odd question, an IT department in an Apple-centric company would employ half or less of the folks that are currently required to keep the über security vulnerable dinosaurs of Windows-based software and hardware up and running.  The HR and equipment cost savings are there for the picking.

                            Good Ballmer

                            Bad Ballmer

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleInsider 

Ballmer said Microsoft intends to make it "absolutely clear" that the company plans to compete in any market against Apple, according to CRN. 

What he really means is this:

We'll wait and see what Apple does, then we'll kind of do the same thing so we can keep up with Apple.

Marketing checklist-wise, that is.  Just to keep our investors more or less happy-ish.

And we'll continue to put the Windows(tm) brand on everything whether or not it makes any sense.

Because we want to keep the Windows + Office brand alive.  Because it's our only core competency.

@ GadgetCanada re: 

LOL.  Who says Ballmer isn't a showman?  

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 


Aside from the idiocy of his statements, I have to wonder what's wrong with their PR and marketing people. They have umpteen bazillion dollars and Ballmer has plenty of money of his own. Yet they couldn't come up with a picture that looks better than a drivers' license photo?

What can you do? He just isn't very photogenic, is he...

All I can really say in response to his "declaration" is, "Good luck with that, Steve…"

When M$ was still king of the roost he poo-poo'd Apple's efforts as those of a small-fry startup… now it's the company to beat?

Forewarned is forearmed, Steve… you had all the warning you needed, and instead fiddled while Rome burned...

Now you just have to play catch up and hope Apple can't keep their lead without Jobs in the saddle...

Personally, I think you've been dusted and won't recover. But that's just me...

Ballmer makes a fool of himself, but what is more important is that the company behind it is unable to deliver in the mobile arena. They seem to have the wrong people, not just at the helm, but generally. And whatever Ballmer says, does, plans, envisions, there is no company behind it that can make it true. And they are not able to provide by themselves, so whatever they think up, he'll try to sell it to the audience because he does not seem to get it ('it' being: what makes good user experience). It fails over and over again.

I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft retreats to server on the corporate side (sharepoint, exchange, etc.) and application software (office, etc.) on the client side, dropping the client hardware and OS altogether. It will take a long time (after all, Corel is still around too), but a long slow slide seems to be the most likely.

That has always been Microsoft's business model - compete with Apple. They inherited even more of it from IBM - compete with and kill every other computer company, even though their product is superior to ours.

Apple's business strategy - let's make great products.

IBM failed, and Microsoft is also failing.

Stories like this on Ballmer just emphasise this difference in business strategy.