From Electronista:
Developing a Windows-based alternative to the iPad is a “job one urgency” at Microsoft, company chief Steve Ballmer said today during the annual Financial Analysts Meeting.
“Apple has done an interesting job,” he said. “They’ve sold more than I’d like them to sell. We think about that. So it’s our job to say: we have got to make things happen. Just like we made things happen with netbooks, we have to do that with slates. […] Not one size fits all. Been to too many meetings with journalists struggling to set up iPads for notes.”
Excuse me? What the hell did you do for netbooks? Netbooks were all Linux and your response to that was cutting your OS to bits and just reacting to it. And now Netbook sales are tanking. Taking the credit for Netbooks shows a dangerous level of delusion about your reactions to market churn.
Time for a new CEO.
I love your coruscating use of the accusative person.
It certainly points to the fact that Microsoft are reading.
They really need a high achiever like yourself 😉
I’m one of the richest people in the world with a personal wealth estimated at US$14.5 billion in 2010.
However Im interested in coding for pizza through FOIs to Translink. I want to start something.
Let’s talk, and you can ball me out personally.
@Des – have you been reading the stories (from miniMicrosoft and others) of the issues they’re having with senior folk inside Redmond all trying to be Steve Jobs/Jonathan Ive. I really miss the Gates days – love or hate, Gates had vision and balls. Steve is, as others said on Twitter, playing it safe. The KIN fiasco is an example of how Microsoft has managed to carefully disguise the purchase and ruin of a competitor (Danger, Inc) and make everyone think it was total incompetence. I’m not sure what was the intended result. Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 tell me that interesting stuff is happening there and at WWDC, I am 100% sure that a lot of developers switched to Bing that first morning. And obviously they’re big in the business software market (though again it’s being eroded). But are they a 90% market or a 70% market now. Or lower?
@Steve Ballmer – as you’re posting that from a Belfast IP address, I’d be very keen to meet up and buy you coffee, Steve. You can bring your friend “interested” along with you as you’re posting from the same address. Tell him to be less of a chickenshit though.
@Joseph D con – Steve is certainly coming from a different perspective. I love what I do and I love living here (50 weeks of the year). Thanks for your input.
@John – in a rising market and a rapidly growing market, if Microsoft (starting from a position of absolute dominance) had not made bazillions of moolah, then more direct action would have been taken by the shareholders. When you look at their position from a relative percentage of the market, you can see their share has been decimated. They’ve lost their sparkle. And if not for some excellent individuals within the company, more people would have written them off as the IBM of yesteryear. The KIN thing. That just makes me feel ill.
Whilst Ballmer has been CEO, MS has made more money than ever before.
Sure, the share price has tanked and remained in the toilet, but it’s hard to make the argument he needs to go when he has made so much profit.
That said, I’m not a Ballmer fan. It was different when Bill was there – lots more ideas and excitement and talk of “changing the world”.
Now it seems to be more “whatever you do, don’t do anything risky in case we fuck things up”. And when they do try something, in-fighting kills it *cough* kin *cough*
In 2008 less than 10% of netbooks in the U.S. were running Windows.
In 2009 96% of netbooks in the US were running Windows.
That’s the sort of effect I think they’re hoping for.
The only thing is, there is a massive difference between Apple and Linux as competitors, and it’ll be very interesting to see how that plays out.
As for calling for a new CEO, I don’t think that’s what’s necessary. In many, many respects Ballmer has done a great job and it’d be very hard to find a worthy successor. I think what Microsoft needs is someone at the higher levels (Ozzie, Sinofsky etc) who has the design clout and taste to drive the company forward in that direction.