Steve Ballmer - Visionary.

[onehandle]

This is the year that Bill Gates' college roommate will finally be axed.

“No chance the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.”
— Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, 2007



Note: That's iPhone ONLY. No iPads, No iPods, No Macs, No Monitors, No Apple TVs, No software, accessories, services etc...

[unblock]

1. doesn't microswift own something like 20% of apple?

i seem to remember them bailing apple out in their darker days.

[onehandle]

4. They invested a substantial amount of cash to keep the feds off their back. They sold it.

When the feds were trying to break up Microsoft, Gates had to help the newly returned Steve Jobs keep Apple alive to 'prove' that they weren't a monopoly.

A few years later Microsoft sold their stock, and made money, but just a Fraction of what they could have made if they had held onto the stock.

[randome]

2. People can make all the excuses they want for Windows 8 but the general public does not like it.

That plus his other missteps, like the one you cited, will be his downfall.

[onehandle]

5. The company I'm contracting with is having enough problems with Windows 7.

Windows 8 will never see the light of day in enterprise.

[Panasonic]

6. My dad made the sad mistake of upgrading to windows 8.

It's still grinding away in upgrade mode.. never to finish.. even though his computer is a i3 with 8 gb.

[sadbear]

3. I still have a flip phone.

I'm with you, Steve.

[TheManInTheMac]

7. One could compile a very large book

of boneheaded predictions made by well-known people throughout history. Seems to me that Ballmer's predecessor predicted that the Internet would just be a fad.

[BlueStreak]

8. Garrison Keillor once had a joke about a doctor who specialized

in "diseases of the rich".

That is the difference between Apple and Microsoft. Jobs was brilliant in creating what amounts to a religion of people who were willing to grossly overpay in order to be in the club. I never would have thought this could be successful on such a sustained basis, but it was.

When you compare the two companies, Microsoft has made a far greater impact on society, essentially transforming the whole world of IT over the past 30 years. Everything Apple has offered, other than iTunes, is just a gussied-up, priced-up version of a product that had already been in the market for years.

Many of the world's business run on Microsoft technology. Most of the desktops do. The one thing Microsoft didn't do is create the love for their products.

[onehandle]

9. LOL! Funny. You should do stand up. nt