Posted on 08/26/2009 10:20:19 AM PDT by Star Traveler
The iPhone & Steve Ballmer: It’s Time For Him To Eat Some Serious Crow
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
There are very few people in the tech world who annoy me quite like Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. It’s not just that he’s loud, dismissive and arrogant. It’s that he manages to be all these things while usually being spectacularly wrong, especially when it comes to Apple. Take for example his thoughts on the iPhone from a USAToday article in 2007:
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance,” said Ballmer. “It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.”
As you might imagine, I experienced a moment of pure schadenfreude last week when Canalysis senior analyst Pete Cunningham announced that not only did the iPhone have 13.7% of the global smartphone market, but that it had surpassed Windows Mobile devices which had slipped to only 9%. Even worse for Microsoft is the fact that in the last 2 years, Apple has sold more iPhones than all the Windows Mobile devices from all its vendors combined.
I can only imagine that somewhere in Redmond, behind a very heavy door…Steve Ballmer is throwing a good old-fashioned hissy fit, cursing Apple, sweating profusely and gnawing on the furniture.
The fact is that Microsoft has never truly understood Apple and that confusion has grown in part out of their unparalleled success with Windows. With Windows, Microsoft found a superior product in the Macintosh OS, produced a cheaper knock-off and then created a large ecosystem of partners for wide distribution and support. The result was global domination. Unfortunately, cheaper and more plentiful doesn’t automatically win in every situation. As computers sink into every facet of daily life and the costs of consumer technology continue to drop, more and more value is being placed on finding products which are easier, more capable or simple more enjoyable to use.
Microsoft was unable to stop the runaway success of the iPod and it’s looking more and more unlikely that they’ll be able to contain the growth of the iPhone either. Why? Because they cannot fathom a formula for success that isn’t a function of feature set divided by price. It’s how they think and it’s also how they ultimately view the products they compete against. No wonder Ballmer spends so much time shouting at the rain. From his perspective, anyone who willingly pays more for the same features is a brainwashed idiot. What he doesn’t understand is that the experience of a product is more than the sum of its component parts. It’s how the device works, how it feels and even more elusively, how it makes you feel. Can you think of a Microsoft product that is truly a joy to use? I don’t mean one that works well, because many of their products work well enough. I mean one that is a joy to use. Neither can I. That’s because Microsoft isn’t in the joy business. They’re in the “nearly as good for less” business and that isn’t an appeal to the heart. It’s an appeal to the wallet.
So Mr. Ballmer, here’s some friendly advice. The next time you feel yourself ready to mouth off about how Apple is doomed to fail because it doesn’t understand the realities of the marketplace, take a moment and think about Windows Vista and the fact that roughly 50% of Apple Store customers are new to the Mac. Think about sales figures for the Zune as compared to the iPod. Think about the millions of people ditching their Windows Mobile devices for an iPhone. Think about the $35 Billion that a zero-debt Apple has sitting in the bank and all the money it continues to make made through this harsh economic downturn. Then if you’re still confident that you’re the smart one and Apple is the delusional one, then by all means have your say.
Just understand that with your miserable track record in predicting Apple’s future, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll end up eating your own words. Better make sure they’re palatable.
You said — This is what you get when everything is filtered though a single source.
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LOL... sorry...., they’re not filtering according to political persuasions... :-) (unless you’re saying conservatives are sorry programmers and have more problems and errors causing their applications to be rejected... )...
I would imagine that the nature of the programs reflect the interests of the programmers themselves, and how much exposure or money they may get from it... and then it’s up to them to make them technically compliant with the programming requirements for the platform of the iPhone.
And..., if you look around, maybe you’ll find an iPhone app that counts the current number of sunspots, which would be the conservative counterpart... :-)
You said — MS does not “force” anyone to buy their products, unlike Apple that controls all software as well as its healthy liberal content.
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Well..., in all this time, since I first started buying Macintosh computers..., I haven’t yet seen anything giving me even a hint as to whether I should be voting Republican or Democrat or giving me “liberal lessons”... LOL...
The software and hardware has all been “content neutral” — and surprisingly, has allowed me to conduct all my “conservative affairs” without interference... :-)
You said — Since Microsoft does not force you to buy everything from them, I am sure it will be less.
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Well..., it’s more like — considering that Microsoft doesn’t make any computers, it’s unlikely they will ever match Apple’s sales... LOL...
Put me in that group. PC/Linux guy here. I love my iPhone. Using it right now as a matter of fact. I would probably get a MacBook, but I absolutely cannot stand the trackpad mouse. Now if they had a TrackPoint (UltraNav) setup like my ThinkPad, I’d get one.
I am recomending a MacBook for a friend who has absolutely no computer experience outside of a POS system he had when he owned a franchise store.
What, you want someone to pay for an app saying "your carbon footprint is irrelevant"?
There has been no indication any apps are being rejected for being "conservative". If anything, Apple has been criticized for being too conservative! - they've rejected apps because they _might_ display a naughty word or do something else objectionable.
Not true. The earliest Palm PDAs(no phone) already had virtual keyboards with auto-complete. The Treo phone kept those features and improved on them....as did the Blackberry systems and WM systems.
I did not say "auto-complete, " Erik. I said, "context and application sensitive." In other words a keyboard that could change layout, language, purpose, or characters according to the dynamic of the moment. Auto-complete has nothing to do with that capablity. I owned early and late Palm PDAs... and the keyboards they had were capable of none of that. In addition, they were touch sensitive only with a stylus.
My point was that the iPhone brought functionality, in combining all of those features and capabilities, something no previous phone had done... and, I submit, no subsequent phone has done as well as the iPhone has.
And you personally have inspected all 70,000 iPhone apps to be able to make such a sweeping statement? Erik, you are making up your "facts" as you go. I call it BS.
This is what you get when everything is filtered though a single source.
A simple search for "conservative" brings up a list of conservative applications including, among dozens or hundreds of others:
Are you saying that Apple is dragging people off of 5th Avenue, making them buy an Apple product, and then chucking them back out onto 5th Avenue? I assure you that Apple is not making anyone buy "everything" from them. You are making yourself look ridiculous to those of us who actually use Apple products know the facts.
You are suffering from Apple Derangement Syndrome.
Do you think we are idiots, Erik? Apple does not control all software... or the "liberal content" of that software. You are burying yourself deeper and deeper in your BS.
I didn't say that. Microsoft has been convicted in court of marketing practices that strongly discourage putting alternate OSes on machines.
I walked into a store wanting to buy a generic notebook running Linux or at least without an OS that I didn't want to run. They wouldn't sell me one, so I walked out with a Mac. And unlike the Lenovo I had from work (originally running Microsoft Windows XP), which grew progressively more painful to use (and I was eventually allowed to wipe and install a decent RHEL on), I've grown more and more fond of my Macbook Pro over the years I've had it.
Why is it that in the US, I can't get anything other than Microsoft Windows on a generic x86 machine, but in Manila I can?
The only way I can vote on that sort of absurd situation is to not buy anything from a US store. Whatever.
Defend Microsoft. Lose more jobs. I don't care. My job got relocated to India.
Heh. I think it's more like Stockholm Syndrome. Microsofties cannot believe that there are people who actually enjoy using the electronics they purchase.
(And to return to the topic) I don't have an iphone myself, but I have friend who has one and he loves using it. Mrs. Altair loves using her ipod nano and Macbook, etc. etc.
You said — I didn’t say that.
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Yeah..., the first name is the one who says the quoted item and the second, third and so on names are the “pingees”... :-)
iPhones I have demoed are just awesome. Wish the data/minutes plans were cheaper. Going to go to Sprint and the Pre in October. Matter of cost rather than a matter of preference. The iPhone is the best device of its kind I know of. Just can’t afford the plan AT&T offers.
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