[In the address, Ballmer highlighted sales of 350 million Windows-based PCs in the last year, and used the number to criticize Apple without referring to the company by name.
"We've got a lot of competition in the Windows business," Ballmer said. "But we're driving hard with just in the last year alone 350 million -- 350 million -- new PCs sold. That might compare with numbers from other guys that are in the 20 million range. Now, 20 is too much, but 350, last time I checked, is a lot more than 20."}
When is Bawlbaby Ballmer going to realise that MajorCrap does NOT make hardware? It's time to separate the Windreck OS from the hardware. Apple makes the hardware and software. MajorCrap only makes softeare.
And yes there a number of companies that make PCs, and yes the sales of the PC hardware might be higher than a sole company that makes an integrated software/hardware product, but MajorCrap makes no computer hardware. So Bawlbaby can toute all the "I'm a PC" and "Make my home a PC store" commercials he wants. But he ought to really stop taking credit for the hardware.
Like they say, it maybe "Life Without Walls" but it's still a pane (pain).
Some of you guys are really going off of the deep end.
First off, to call all Windows PCs bargain, or low-cost, PCs is ludicrous.
Windows itself is far more expensive than OSX. A retail copy of Windows 7 Home is $230. Mac OSX is a fraction of that cost. However, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, because users of OSX (presumably) have already purchased Apple hardware.
I guess what I am getting at is that some of you don't seem to realize how significant and cutting edge Microsoft is. Anyone would concede that Apple is wins on a retail-customer products, and that Apple is brutalizing MS in the mobile phone segment. But MS literally dominates the market for servers, and other enterprise applications. The XBOX has been an overwhelming success (not financially, but in terms of brand recognition).
Moreover, while average PC is certainly cheaper than the average Mac, they share 99% of the same components (with the exception of the casing and Operating System). There is a reason why boutique computer builders only build Windows computers. There is a reason why my $3,000 desktop setup that I built myself runs Windows.
But I digress. It is plainly clear that Apple beats MS in profitability and in growth in the consumer market. That does not make MS a "low-end" company, nor does it mean that MS has failed to grow.
As an aside, I own both an 11" macbook air and a 13" MBP. I have Windows 7 on both. I cannot remember that last time I even bothered with OSX. I readily admit that OSX is the most user-friendly OS on the planet, but I am far more effective on W7.
[Ballmer's only mention of any apple in his keynote came in reference to the fruit, when he made a joke about the next version of Windows Phone, codenamed "mango."]
A few decades ago, Cleveland (Ohio) apparently ran a me-too campaign. Jumping on the successful "New York: The Big Apple", Cleveland billed itself as "A Plumb". That is until someone pointed out that dried out plumbs become prunes, and we all know what they are useful for. Needless to say, that marketing campaign seemed as ill-conceived and short lived as most of MajorCrap's campaigns and products. Not all fruit ages or travels well, Ballmer.
Then again, it is amusing to watch Bawlbaby bounce up and down like a preschooler last in line for a potty break...
Nokia once owned the phone market in the US Mobile space. With Apple moving heavily into China and being huge in the US, they have the two largest GDP markets in the world, followed by Japan.
Nokia never owned the US the way it owned the rest of the world - partly because the US was a morasss of competing wireless standards, partly because the carriers preferred to sell handsets under their own brands.
I don't think Nokia ever even cracked 10% in the US.
Quote:
Nokia is drowning and Microsoft's life boat has a hole in it.
Probably true, I'm just saying that they're not dead yet.
yup. but WP 7's tiles UI is too hip. very first world. i don't see it replacing Nokia's dumb phones globally. the local telcos will opt for something they can tailor more easily to their markets. Samsung and the rest will provide more generic OS options for them that they can localize.
Nokia is still big in the EU, and it's very strong in South America, which aspires to a first world status and products, though it's mostly a long ways off. 50% of people in the EU are probably still using dumbphones, and 50% of them are probably using Nokia dumbphones. Thats a lot of potential WP7 customers.
Sorry to correct you but the desktop market is not declining. At the moment its growing slower, to actually decline you actually have to sell less. The PC market is still selling more each year, and Microsoft still make record profits each year.
There's not many stats on it but the mobile phone market as a whole (i.e. not just smartphones) must also be doing the same thing. Rather than changing a phone every year, there a lot more 18 month contracts around indicating that there must be less sales. It would be couteracted by the fact people are spending a lot more on a phone, but in terms of unit sales I wouldn't be surprised if the growth rate was falling.
Hate to correct you, but unless you have some stats to prove your statement, it has been reported that the pc market declined by 4% in the March 11 quarter.
The only areas where Apple leads Microsoft are Revenues, EPS, Market Cap, Growth Rate and Customer Satisfaction (not to mention Security and Stability as well.)
Does anyone really think any of those are all that important?
Well, you forgot to include Smart Phones, Tablets, MP3 players, Media Centers, Songs, Movies, Apps and actual computers.
Microsoft does sell more OS licenses to OEM compared to Apple which it doesn't bother with and they sell a lot of Xboxes at a loss, to sell games and online memberships.
We've got a lot of competition in the Windows business, but we're driving hard with just in the last year alone 350 million -- 350 million -- new PCs sold. That might compare with numbers from other guys that are in the 20 million range. Now, 20 is too much, but 350, last time I checked, is a lot more than 20.
That's more or less what he said with the iPhone was first announced!
1) Hey, Steve B. Apple's computers are Windows computers, too. MS sells an operating system that Macs can run - and many do because they need both Mac OS X and Windows.
2) MS sells Office for Mac OS and Windows. It's a very popular product on both platforms.
On the PC side, Apple is as much a target platform as a competitor. How about focusing on the former?
3) In the cell phone market, yeah, MS has an uphill climb. Better get on that.
When Bill Gates turned his back on Microsoft to devote his life's work to charity, his most charitable act was leaving the company in the hands of his mentally handicapped college roommate, Steve Bummer.
Windows itself is far more expensive than OSX. A retail copy of Windows 7 Home is $230. Mac OSX is a fraction of that cost.
You forgot to add in the additional expense of all the virus software and subscriptions required to run Windoze.
You also seem to mistake cost for value.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SchnellFowVay
I guess what I am getting at is that some of you don't seem to realize how significant and cutting edge Microsoft is.
Maybe because, M$ isn't significant and cutting edge?
Quote:
Originally Posted by SchnellFowVay
There is a reason why my $3,000 desktop setup that I built myself runs Windows.
Probably because you weren't clever enough to install a real OS, like BSD or Linux.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SchnellFowVay
As an aside, I own both an 11" macbook air and a 13" MBP. I have Windows 7 on both. I cannot remember that last time I even bothered with OSX. I readily admit that OSX is the most user-friendly OS on the planet, but I am far more effective on W7.
Being set in your ways and unable to become proficient with a more sophisticated and modern tool is nothing to brag about.
I disagree, Apple is a Software AND Hardware maker. They excel at both, which is what gives them their edge over others who specialise in one or the other.
Apple used to excel at both, but they've taken a step back on the software front, at least with computer software. the Final Cut X disaster, the new iMovie, QuickTime X (ugly interface and so limited that they still offer QT7), Mobile Me, even iTunes (the artwork for music in a list is now very small and ugly) - big mistakes with all of them.
Computer software is the one area that Apple is not excelling in - maybe the Final Cut fiasco will lead Apple to put better software designers in the computer division instead of sending them to iOS.
Nokia is still big in the EU, and it's very strong in South America, which aspires to a first world status and products, though it's mostly a long ways off. 50% of people in the EU are probably still using dumbphones, and 50% of them are probably using Nokia dumbphones. Thats a lot of potential WP7 customers.
my point is the UI is wrong for that. the general reaction in the USA is that WP 7 is "cool." well that's nice. but "cool" does not translate across cultures well. Nokia went to great lengths working with local telcos around the world to localize its products, inlcuding their top level of Symbian UI. that is one big reason why it had so many different models and strong global sales. i can't see WP 7 being as easy to localize, even if Nokia can keep its experienced global marketing team in place. and will MS give it the flexibility it would need to cut deals that give those local telcos' in house servies priority over MS services (assuming they can be reformatted into tiles)? i don't think so.
my point is the UI is wrong for that. the general reaction in the USA is that WP 7 is "cool." well that's nice. but "cool" does not translate across cultures well.
I think iOS kinda proved that was wrong. That was certainly the old view, that interface needed to be localized and customized. I very much doubt that Nokia will go down that route again. At any rate the modern clean tile look of WP7 should work perfectly well across a lot of markets.
Er there about even, although Windows profits are a lot more secure than iPhone profits.
I do not agree with that statement unless you are referring specifically to the corporate market and even that might be open for debate in the future.
Apple has completely dominated MS in the high-end and now in the low end it is coming after them with the iPad. Along with their ecosystem Apple represents a serious threat to business as usual at MS.
Balmer is much more than raging chunk-o-chub - he is the standards bearer of MS that will milk their market position and patents for years to come. Will their dominance continue to erode? YES indeed there is nothing they can do now to markedly shift the momentum in the market place. MS stands for Milking the Status woe. With some valiant attempts at creating inspired products.
Comments
Apple would never partner with Microsoft on licensing Windows on every Mac. You do get that they compete at the OS level, right?
... and, of course, M$ would have a courtroom battle over licensing terms at some point to try shut Apple out and have only Windows on Mac machines...
"We've got a lot of competition in the Windows business," Ballmer said. "But we're driving hard with just in the last year alone 350 million -- 350 million -- new PCs sold. That might compare with numbers from other guys that are in the 20 million range. Now, 20 is too much, but 350, last time I checked, is a lot more than 20."}
When is Bawlbaby Ballmer going to realise that MajorCrap does NOT make hardware? It's time to separate the Windreck OS from the hardware. Apple makes the hardware and software. MajorCrap only makes softeare.
And yes there a number of companies that make PCs, and yes the sales of the PC hardware might be higher than a sole company that makes an integrated software/hardware product, but MajorCrap makes no computer hardware. So Bawlbaby can toute all the "I'm a PC" and "Make my home a PC store" commercials he wants. But he ought to really stop taking credit for the hardware.
Like they say, it maybe "Life Without Walls" but it's still a pane (pain).
First off, to call all Windows PCs bargain, or low-cost, PCs is ludicrous.
Windows itself is far more expensive than OSX. A retail copy of Windows 7 Home is $230. Mac OSX is a fraction of that cost. However, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, because users of OSX (presumably) have already purchased Apple hardware.
I guess what I am getting at is that some of you don't seem to realize how significant and cutting edge Microsoft is. Anyone would concede that Apple is wins on a retail-customer products, and that Apple is brutalizing MS in the mobile phone segment. But MS literally dominates the market for servers, and other enterprise applications. The XBOX has been an overwhelming success (not financially, but in terms of brand recognition).
Moreover, while average PC is certainly cheaper than the average Mac, they share 99% of the same components (with the exception of the casing and Operating System). There is a reason why boutique computer builders only build Windows computers. There is a reason why my $3,000 desktop setup that I built myself runs Windows.
But I digress. It is plainly clear that Apple beats MS in profitability and in growth in the consumer market. That does not make MS a "low-end" company, nor does it mean that MS has failed to grow.
As an aside, I own both an 11" macbook air and a 13" MBP. I have Windows 7 on both. I cannot remember that last time I even bothered with OSX. I readily admit that OSX is the most user-friendly OS on the planet, but I am far more effective on W7.
A few decades ago, Cleveland (Ohio) apparently ran a me-too campaign. Jumping on the successful "New York: The Big Apple", Cleveland billed itself as "A Plumb". That is until someone pointed out that dried out plumbs become prunes, and we all know what they are useful for. Needless to say, that marketing campaign seemed as ill-conceived and short lived as most of MajorCrap's campaigns and products. Not all fruit ages or travels well, Ballmer.
Then again, it is amusing to watch Bawlbaby bounce up and down like a preschooler last in line for a potty break...
Nokia once owned the phone market in the US Mobile space. With Apple moving heavily into China and being huge in the US, they have the two largest GDP markets in the world, followed by Japan.
Nokia never owned the US the way it owned the rest of the world - partly because the US was a morasss of competing wireless standards, partly because the carriers preferred to sell handsets under their own brands.
I don't think Nokia ever even cracked 10% in the US.
Nokia is drowning and Microsoft's life boat has a hole in it.
Probably true, I'm just saying that they're not dead yet.
yup. but WP 7's tiles UI is too hip. very first world. i don't see it replacing Nokia's dumb phones globally. the local telcos will opt for something they can tailor more easily to their markets. Samsung and the rest will provide more generic OS options for them that they can localize.
Nokia is still big in the EU, and it's very strong in South America, which aspires to a first world status and products, though it's mostly a long ways off. 50% of people in the EU are probably still using dumbphones, and 50% of them are probably using Nokia dumbphones. Thats a lot of potential WP7 customers.
ccess!
Sorry to correct you but the desktop market is not declining. At the moment its growing slower, to actually decline you actually have to sell less. The PC market is still selling more each year, and Microsoft still make record profits each year.
There's not many stats on it but the mobile phone market as a whole (i.e. not just smartphones) must also be doing the same thing. Rather than changing a phone every year, there a lot more 18 month contracts around indicating that there must be less sales. It would be couteracted by the fact people are spending a lot more on a phone, but in terms of unit sales I wouldn't be surprised if the growth rate was falling.
Hate to correct you, but unless you have some stats to prove your statement, it has been reported that the pc market declined by 4% in the March 11 quarter.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart...AI_COTD_052711
It will be interesting to see what the June quarter for PC growth/retreat will be.
I think Steve is right 350 is bigger than 20.
The only areas where Apple leads Microsoft are Revenues, EPS, Market Cap, Growth Rate and Customer Satisfaction (not to mention Security and Stability as well.)
Does anyone really think any of those are all that important?
Well, you forgot to include Smart Phones, Tablets, MP3 players, Media Centers, Songs, Movies, Apps and actual computers.
Microsoft does sell more OS licenses to OEM compared to Apple which it doesn't bother with and they sell a lot of Xboxes at a loss, to sell games and online memberships.
Microsoft market cap = 227 billion
Apple market cap = 332 billion
Done and done.
Let's not forget Apples on hand cash asset approaching 70+ billion, and they are debt free.
More like Done and Doing!!
We've got a lot of competition in the Windows business, but we're driving hard with just in the last year alone 350 million -- 350 million -- new PCs sold. That might compare with numbers from other guys that are in the 20 million range. Now, 20 is too much, but 350, last time I checked, is a lot more than 20.
That's more or less what he said with the iPhone was first announced!
every time somebody buys their first mac, that's one less sale for MS.
At least one less, because many of those people will never go back to Windows.
1) Hey, Steve B. Apple's computers are Windows computers, too. MS sells an operating system that Macs can run - and many do because they need both Mac OS X and Windows.
2) MS sells Office for Mac OS and Windows. It's a very popular product on both platforms.
On the PC side, Apple is as much a target platform as a competitor. How about focusing on the former?
3) In the cell phone market, yeah, MS has an uphill climb. Better get on that.
- Jasen.
Windows itself is far more expensive than OSX. A retail copy of Windows 7 Home is $230. Mac OSX is a fraction of that cost.
You forgot to add in the additional expense of all the virus software and subscriptions required to run Windoze.
You also seem to mistake cost for value.
I guess what I am getting at is that some of you don't seem to realize how significant and cutting edge Microsoft is.
Maybe because, M$ isn't significant and cutting edge?
There is a reason why my $3,000 desktop setup that I built myself runs Windows.
Probably because you weren't clever enough to install a real OS, like BSD or Linux.
As an aside, I own both an 11" macbook air and a 13" MBP. I have Windows 7 on both. I cannot remember that last time I even bothered with OSX. I readily admit that OSX is the most user-friendly OS on the planet, but I am far more effective on W7.
Being set in your ways and unable to become proficient with a more sophisticated and modern tool is nothing to brag about.
I disagree, Apple is a Software AND Hardware maker. They excel at both, which is what gives them their edge over others who specialise in one or the other.
Apple used to excel at both, but they've taken a step back on the software front, at least with computer software. the Final Cut X disaster, the new iMovie, QuickTime X (ugly interface and so limited that they still offer QT7), Mobile Me, even iTunes (the artwork for music in a list is now very small and ugly) - big mistakes with all of them.
Computer software is the one area that Apple is not excelling in - maybe the Final Cut fiasco will lead Apple to put better software designers in the computer division instead of sending them to iOS.
Nokia is still big in the EU, and it's very strong in South America, which aspires to a first world status and products, though it's mostly a long ways off. 50% of people in the EU are probably still using dumbphones, and 50% of them are probably using Nokia dumbphones. Thats a lot of potential WP7 customers.
my point is the UI is wrong for that. the general reaction in the USA is that WP 7 is "cool." well that's nice. but "cool" does not translate across cultures well. Nokia went to great lengths working with local telcos around the world to localize its products, inlcuding their top level of Symbian UI. that is one big reason why it had so many different models and strong global sales. i can't see WP 7 being as easy to localize, even if Nokia can keep its experienced global marketing team in place. and will MS give it the flexibility it would need to cut deals that give those local telcos' in house servies priority over MS services (assuming they can be reformatted into tiles)? i don't think so.
so yeah, that leaves the EU. Nokia's last stand.
my point is the UI is wrong for that. the general reaction in the USA is that WP 7 is "cool." well that's nice. but "cool" does not translate across cultures well.
I think iOS kinda proved that was wrong. That was certainly the old view, that interface needed to be localized and customized. I very much doubt that Nokia will go down that route again. At any rate the modern clean tile look of WP7 should work perfectly well across a lot of markets.
Er there about even, although Windows profits are a lot more secure than iPhone profits.
I do not agree with that statement unless you are referring specifically to the corporate market and even that might be open for debate in the future.
Apple has completely dominated MS in the high-end and now in the low end it is coming after them with the iPad. Along with their ecosystem Apple represents a serious threat to business as usual at MS.
Balmer is much more than raging chunk-o-chub - he is the standards bearer of MS that will milk their market position and patents for years to come. Will their dominance continue to erode? YES indeed there is nothing they can do now to markedly shift the momentum in the market place. MS stands for Milking the Status woe. With some valiant attempts at creating inspired products.