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March 27, 2007

rivals

More wisdom of the Steve Ballmer variety

Posted Mar. 27, ’07, 8:49 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Apple » Rivals

Steve BallmerI wonder if Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer might be a robot that Bill Gates controls from his remote Washington state lair. Perhaps Ballmer-bot can even be switched into an automatic “spout the company line” mode. It’s hard to believe that any real, live autonomous being would say things like this:

[Smart Money:] Steve Jobs’s iPhone announcement stole the thunder from Bill Gates’s keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show. Do you wish you had the iPhone?

[Ballmer: ] No. Apple has put its brand into a new category. That doesn’t mean it’s a good product. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of our partners came out with a device that looks exactly the same at a lower price in six or seven months [near the time when iPhones will ship]. There’s a notion that there’s magic with Apple. IPod is a hot brand — not Apple.

Yep, those iPod TVs are selling like hotcakes, I tell ya. At least it’s a good thing that he doesn’t try to defend the Bill Gates snoozefest at CES—that event was deader than Weekend at Bernie’s II. Ballmer-bot continues:
It’s a romantic notion that Apple has the lead. People who build overpriced, underpowered equipment and then market it in an edgy way do not have a formula for broad success. In the home there are PCs; Apple has no presence. There are videogame machines; Apple has no presence. TVs: Apple has no presence; Microsoft has some presence. Music: Apple has a very large presence [via the iPod]; Microsoft has an interesting presence in the high-end market.
Seriously? An “interesting presence” in the high-end market? Like an “oh, wait, I guess you do make a music player” presence? And as far as TVs, the impact of the Apple TV has yet to be seen, but I wouldn’t say they have no presence, being the largest vendor of downloadable TV content around.

Now, I know: we shouldn’t expect too much from the guy robot that doesn’t let his children listen to iPods or use Google. But I ask you, what happens when the Ballmer-bot gets out of control and starts wreaking havoc on Tokyo? Think of the children.

[via MacDailyNews]


5 Comments

Jack said:

Sounds like he's getting scared. He should. My wife's IT guy couldn't understand why I bought a Macbook Pro a year ago. A month ago he bought one for his personal use. At my job, my boss asked the rep at our cingular store to be on the waiting list for the iphone the day it was announced. There wasn't one, so he started one. I'll be getting the second one the store gets in. A friend of mine just bought a macbook: he's been a windows guy since windows 3.1. Times are changing. Apple is hot, but its theirs to lose. I hope Apple can handle their success.

March 27, 2007 10:14 AM
jayH said:

apple has NO presence on the PC market? :dizzy:

here i was, thinking that all those shiny apples u see everywhere u turn meant something... they surely sell more computers than acer for instance... just because (thankfully) the apple computer isn't bundled with windows in it, doesn't mean apple has no presence. it only means that the other computer makers aren't good enough to ditch windows and use the mactintosh or an (god forbid) OS created by themselves...

March 27, 2007 10:26 AM
Mark U. said:

It's a good thing that Apple has no presence in the home. After all, nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. That sounds dangerous!

March 27, 2007 11:08 AM
horvatic said:

This guy is off his rocker. He sounds like he's on fantasy island and has no real clue how big Apple has gotten. Not to mention how far ahead Apple really is in the home and how much further Apple will be with OSX Leopard.

March 27, 2007 1:38 PM
Thomas GvL Author Profile Page said:

If Apple had no presence in the computer market, the employees working on Vista would lack a source of inspiration.

March 27, 2007 4:42 PM

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