Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shills Windows 7 on U.S. national TV in front of Apple Mac (with video)

Mac Daily News ^ | 10/24/2009

[Swordmaker]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared on NBC's Today Show on Thursday to shill his company's Vista service pack, er, "Windows 7" and spent the entire segment in front of an older model (note the latches above the screen) Apple MacBook Pro (courtesy of an NBC graphic designer — Mac user, no doubt — who must have a wicked sense of humor):


Direct link to video via Hulu here.



Of course, it's easy to run Windows 7 (or any other Windows version, Linux, etc.) and non-Mac applications on OS-unlimited Macs natively (via Apple's Boot Camp) and/or via fast virtualization (VMWare Fusion, Parallels Desktop for Mac) which is just another reason to Get a Mac. But, Ballmer T. Clown doesn't like that concept very much at all (a href="http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9412/">Couldn’t you just buy a Mac and run Windows? Microsoft CEO Ballmer: ‘No, we prefer real PCs’) because he knows that when people get a Mac and really begin to use it, they never want to boot up Windows again if they can help it. Then they start to use iWork in place of Office and... suffice to say, it's bad for Microsoft's sales. Microsoft banks on ignorance; without it, they have nothing.

MacDailyNews Take: It must suck to work for Microsoft where important details routinely go left unchecked and, no matter where in the world you go, you're constantly surround by professionals who all use Apple Macs. Plus, every time you try to promote your inferior products, Apple's keep showing up in your TV appearances and even in your sloppy company's own ads that are, of course, also creating on Macs.

[Fresh Wind]

"Mac's" haters is illiterate's!

And so are the illiterates who wrote the posted article:

"Apple's keep showing up in your TV appearances and even in your sloppy company's own ads that are, of course, also creating on Macs."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Monopolies are usually profitable. If you want to run Apples OS you have to buy a Mac. Same with ITunes. And probably IPhone.

To the contrary, I have a bit of an issue with Apple not supporting iTunes on old, pre-Tiger Macs. Current iPods don't play with any version of iTunes which can run on a 10.3 version of OS X. And yet a PC running Win XP which is older than OS X.3, can run a late-enough version of iTunes to be able to support new iPods.

I would assume that iPhone plays with any XP or better Windows, as well.

[Richard Kimball]

Yeah they did. He got very defensive about them in an interview, and it’s obvious that a ton of the MS marketing was in reaction to the “Get a Mac” ads.

[Moltke]

I'm not familiar at all with the Mac Daily News, but it seems your comment is spot-on. Thanks.

[left that other site]

Oh well. I learned all my Audio Production Programs (band in a Box, PowerTrax, CuBase, Pro-Tools, Finale, Sibelius, Loops, etc) on a PC. Now I go out and consult, and all my students have Macs! So I just adjusted my brain a little and rfeworked how the mouse works.

We are BORG. WE ADAPT. LOL. :-)

[discostu]

He ALWAYS gets defensive in interviews, remember when he threw the chair in the 90s, he’s just not comfortable in an interview. There wasn’t a “ton” of MS marketing in reaction to it, there’s been two campaigns, and the first one didn’t hit until “get a mac” had been going on for two years AND Gates had retired.

[Richard Kimball]

Sure you’re not thinking about Bobby Knight?
Yeah, I agree that Gates is an odd duck. I think that was one of the reasons for their Seinfeld ads, was to make him more likable.

As to being retired, he may be from active participation, but the Seinfeld ads were from after he retired also, so he’s still very much the face of MS.

As to him getting defensive, that’s part of the whole personality thing that made the “Get a Mac” ads so annoying to him.

[discostu]

1993, Connie Chung interviewed Gates for her Eye to Eye thing, said one of his competitors described competing with Gates as being in a knife fight and he freaked out. Stormed off set, chucked a chair, screamed at her.

Of course he’s the face of MS, because he was the face of MS for a quarter century. “Time to make the donuts” was the tag for Dunkin for almost a decade after the Mr Whipple guy retired.

But again, why would he get annoyed. Even when Apple is doing great they’ve got 1/5 the market of MS. All he’s got to do is look at the bank account, Jobs might be congratulating himself every new commercial, and certainly the Mac cultist get a rather perverse pleasure from them, but in the REAL battle MS keeps winning.

[cardinal4]

Come back in a month when MS on service pack 3 for 7.

[Richard Kimball]

Jobs might be congratulating himself every new commercial, and certainly the Mac cultist get a rather perverse pleasure from them, but in the REAL battle MS keeps winning.

Microsoft still has the majority of the desktop OS and MS Office, which are their two cash cows. Apple, though, has the part of the PC market it wants, which is the high end. In other areas, Microsoft's record is not good. In 2004, Microsoft launched the MSN music store to compete with iTunes. After a few years, they pulled the plug, and also left their "partners" high and dry by killing "plays for sure." Then they started the Zune project. Now they're starting MS Stores and are planning an App store for the Zune. They've tried several search engine challenges to Google without success, and the Android system seems to be making a better inroad into the smart phone market as a challenger to Apple than Windows Mobile.

Finally, over the last five years, Apple's stock has gone from $25 to $190, while Microsoft's has gone from $28 to $28. Microsoft is still larger, but not by as much as many think. Their last quarter sales were 13 billion, compared to 8.6 billion for Apple.

[discostu]

Dell might wish Windows did better on high end machines, but MS doesn’t care, a Windows license is a Windows license if the computer cost $400 or $2000. MSN music was a silly idea, too much competition. Zunes are selling, not well but they’re selling. The MS Store is actually a really good idea, MS has a pretty wide product selection and there’s nothing wrong with cutting out the middle man, they been successful selling stuff direct online for a while now. As for search engines (not that it has anything at all to do with their competition with Apple) MSN launched around the same time as Google and rebranded recently as Bing, nothing several about it. Android seems to be doing well.

In the modern age stock prices are the most meaningless thing on the planet. This is the post .com world, stock prices only relate to how much somebody thinks they can sell the stock for tomorrow. Meanwhile they’ve paid dividends every single quarter for the last 5 years, Apple steadfastly refuses to pay them, if you want to buy and hold you’ll get MS. Funny all that great press for Apple and their revenue was still only 2/3 MS, thus proving my point, if Gates thinks about getting annoyed all he has to do is look at the bank account.

[Swordmaker]

Mac OS 9 runs on Mac OS X up to Panther, Mac OS 10.3. New Macs have newer versions of OS X that do not run Mac OS 9. I have gigabites of BookUp files that run under Mac Classic (OS 9) only. I also have lots of games and some outstanding work applications for OS 9. I would have to spend a lot of money trying to reproduce this capability, in those cases when it is possible to do so.

Classic will still run under OS X.4 Tiger, but not on Intel Macs, only PowerPC Macs. It is not included with the distribution of Tiger but it will work with the install from the previous version of OS X.

There is no reason that Apple has to maintain support for a ten year old, obsolete version of the OS. They have bent over backwards to maintain compatibility for six years beyond the introduction of its replacement. That should have been plenty of time for you to upgrade your apps and convert your files. You had plenty of lead time and warning.

Microsoft tries to maintain backwards compatibility and it is a major problem in letting them upgrade their OS. Too much legacy stuff must be retained for efficient improvements. So yes, they do a better job of backwards compatibility. . . but that may be more of a curse than a blessing because it gets in the way of moving toward the future of computing.

[Swordmaker]

Mac OS 9 runs on Mac OS X up to Panther, Mac OS 10.3. New Macs have newer versions of OS X that do not run Mac OS 9. I have gigabites of BookUp files that run under Mac Classic (OS 9) only. I also have lots of games and some outstanding work applications for OS 9. I would have to spend a lot of money trying to reproduce this capability, in those cases when it is possible to do so.

Classic works well under OS X.4 Tiger but only on PowerPC Macs, not Intel. It does not come with Tiger but will work with the already installed version of Classic from Panther. It was removed completely with Leopard. Apple is not responsible for the writers of BookUp's chess programs for not upgrading their product. Apple has made every effort to make it easy to upgrade.

Microsoft makes backwards compatibility one of the primary sales points of their newer OSes... but that may be more of a curse than a blessing as the complexity of maintaining legacy code gets in the way of designing a modern OS. So, yes, Microsoft does do legacy code better... but a lot of older code does not work in any case.

It looks as if you will have to keep an antique Mac around for those legacy apps. Sorry about that.

[Swordmaker]

Well I will. My daughter has a mac pro laptop we bought about a year ago. She 'wants' to use it for mixing music. Problem is her new software is not compatible with the newest OS... her choice is to downgrade to a previous version of the os or just "Learn to live with the panic notices" (quote today from on of their geniuses. Also had another swollen battery issue. Fourth time in a year-1/2 she's had to take it to the "genius bar" because something's wrong.

What software?

If she has had to take a Macbook Pro back to Apple four times in 18 months, there's something hardware wrong with that computer. Take it to them and ask for a replacement. Her experience is certainly not the norm. Mac notebooks have the highest customer satisfaction of any notebook... and by quite a few percentage points.

[Swordmaker]

My Mac is in the shop, for the third time this year.

Why? What's wrong with it?

[antiRepublicrat]

That's all they are is a bunch of losers screaming that their product is better but keep scratching their heads wondering why everyone else is using the competitor.

Nobody's wondering. Kia sells a lot more passenger cars than Mercedes, too.

[sonic109]

New Macs are untouchable. I was a PF fantic until I actually spent a little time with an i mac . The Macs of 8/10 years ago did in fact suck big time . That being said , any of you PF folks , sit with an I mac of Mac Book Pro and you’ll never go back. You;ll get the hang of it in a half hour

[sonic109]

Worth evey cent of it too my friend. PC laptops are toys next to tne Mac Book Pro .

[Swordmaker]

Monopolies are usually profitable. If you want to run Apples OS you have to buy a Mac. Same with ITunes. And probably IPhone.

In exactly what market is Apple a monopoly?

Can't be in the market for their own products because the courts have ruled that is not possible. Besides, 10% of the US personal computer market is hardly a monopoly when you are competing against the 90% and three competitors have a larger market share than does your company. iTunes? Nope, iTunes runs on Windows as well as Macs. iPhones? Again, it's Apple's product—that competes against all the other smart phones on the market.

[Swordmaker]

And so are the illiterates who wrote the posted article:

There's irony going both ways in this article... The editor of Mac Daily News was twinking Rob Enderle about not knowing how to use commas properly. Then he produces this ungrammatical sentence:

"Apple's keep showing up in your TV appearances and even in your sloppy company's own ads that are, of course, also creating on Macs."

In all fairness, in doing quick editing, it is possible to cut something in one part of a sentence that changes how the grammar of another part of that sentence should be formed. That does not excuse poor editing, but does provide an explanation. I've done it myself.