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.
I wouldn’t have an I phone if they paid me to have it!
You said — Silly fanboi article. Wonder if this is at all news.
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It’s news when you see all the people switching over to Macintosh from the PC/Windows platform. See even these Free Republic members switching over...
Parallels to make switching to the Mac easier, safe and painless
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2324524/posts
And also when you see Microsoft saying this now...
“APPLE HAS CHANGED THE WAY THE GAME IS PLAYED”, says MSFT Win Mob chief
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2320869/posts
And then, when you see Microsoft employees throwing away their Zunes... LOL..
Letters from Microsoft: An Employee Tosses His Zune
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2319063/posts
That's funny. I was doing all those things on multiple smartphones long before the first iPhone.
I guess I just didn't drink the Apple memory-erasing, history-altering kool-aid.
Well, there are always a few who are “left behind”... :-)
There isn’t a damn thing on an i phone or a blackberry that I would have under ant condition.
You said — I guess I just didn’t drink the Apple memory-erasing, history-altering kool-aid.
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Well, the average consumer (of which there are lots and lots out there... :-) ...) — does *get it* ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2324964/posts?page=23#23
Well, I hope you don’t have trouble back there in the dust, then... :-)
Go into comedy because you are hilarious!
Apple's policies on what software you can have on your iPhone is really not a company degrading your experience, is it?.
Biggest screen at the time....they get bigger all the time.
Opera browser has been around for WM for years.
Fart noises on my music player.
I’m glad someone is being called on their predictions. Too often big names make big predictions, knowing the rhetoric won’t matter because nobody will call them on it.
You said — Apple’s policies on what software you can have on your iPhone is really not a company degrading your experience, is it?.
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LOL..., 50,000 apps on the iPhone and the consumers have a “degraded experience”.... you’re really funny there... :-)
Just because Apple makes the developers for iPhone apps conform to certain things in order to keep the iPhone working, working right and not degrading the experience that the consumer has — doesn’t mean that the “developers whining” about creating *anything* is somehow degrading the user experience...
Heck! I remember one developer that was selling his app for $1,000 on the iPhone that did nothing but say that if you bought his app and were able to afford it, you were “something special”... LOL... (the app did *absolutely nothing* except that...)
Apple *killed it* in short order... it’s no longer there.
I guess that’s the kind of “user experience” you would prefer that Apple “let go through”... :-)
Heck, I might even go with another keyboard, myself, if I can get it (I tried several times in the past, but they were out...)...
Matias TactilePro
http://matias.ca/tactilepro/
It’s actually a “remake” of an older keyboard that Apple used to make, but no longer does so... and I lilked it... :-)
Paradigm change?
I’ve nearly abandoned my main computer because most everything I need (browsing, email, applications) is in my pocket and very usable despite tiny size. Give me the rumored “iTablet” and I’ll abandon the PC model outright.
Game-changing applications ecosystem?
All applications are available thru a single icon, most can be bought under $10 (lots free), and with two taps are installed & running within seconds of first desire.
This in contrast with trying to find the application exists, finding a source, ordering it with several pages and lots of typing (or driving to a store), waiting to get the physical media (or waiting for the download), running a prolonged installation process, fighting with EULAs and incompatibilities and device drivers and just plain stuff not working.
Tell me: what applications can I get for my Motorola Razr?
Answer: next to none, what exists is crippled and painful to obtain.
True, Apple is getting a lot of flack for refusing some apps - but they’re resolving the issues, and what’s there is orders of magnitude better than other non-iPod platforms.
Tell me: what phone or MP3 platform has a _wider_ range of apps available, demonstrating superiority to Apple’s admittedly imperfect policies?
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