Ballmer Admits Microsoft Whiffed Big-Time On Smartphones 278
Nerval's Lobster writes "During an executive Q&A at Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting on Sept. 19 (video), outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that Windows Phone had a minuscule share of the smartphone market, and expressed regret over his company's inability to capitalize on burgeoning interest in mobile devices. 'I regret that there was a period in the early 2000s when we were so focused on what we had to do around Windows that we weren't able to redeploy talent to the new device called the phone,' Ballmer told the audience of Wall Street analysts and investors. 'That is the thing I regret the most.' Back in 2007, Ballmer famously denigrated the first-generation iPhone as an expensive toy that would fail to gain significant market share. He was forced to eat his words after the iPhone became a bestseller and ignited a huge market for touch-screen smartphones. Google subsequently plunged into that smartphone arena with Android, which was soon adopted by a variety of hardware manufacturers. While the iPhone (running iOS) and Android carved up the new market between them, Microsoft tried to come up with its own mobile strategy. The result was Windows Phone, which (despite considerable investment on Microsoft's part) continues to lag well behind Android and iOS in the smartphone wars. Even as he focused on discussing Microsoft's financials, Ballmer also couldn't resist taking some swipes at Google, suggesting that the search-engine giant's practices are 'worthy of discussion with competition authority.' Given Microsoft's own rocky history with federal regulators, that's sort of like the pot calling the kettle black; but Ballmer's statement also hints at how, in this new tech environment, Microsoft is very much the underdog when it comes to some of the most popular and lucrative product segments."
Re:Ballmer (Score:4, Informative)
what do you expect? ballmer got his MBA at harvard at the same time the current GE CEO was there. and that's where the ranking system was born, at GE
Re:Ballmer (Score:4, Informative)
Which party is it that's in favor of cutting food stamps to give tax breaks to the rich?
Ballmer's rich, he may be a Democrat, but he has a vested interest in seeing that conservative policies are followed. As those policies are how he was able to accumulate so much wealth without contributing anything of value. Under a more liberal economic policy and regulatory set up, MS would never have been allowed to grow as big as it has, without earning that size. They would have been broken up in the late '90s when they used their size to stifle innovation across the industry.
Bottom line here is that it's the conservatives that are always trumpeting this sort of maladaptive business practice so that they can easily scare voters.
Re:Let's be clear (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's be clear (Score:4, Informative)
Those "apps" were hard to find, didn't work on half the phones, buying them (if for-pay) was real achievement, and for a lot of things they would do less than a web app could have done.
Yes, one of the things Apple got right when they added Apps was the App Store. It took all of the hard work out of finding and installing apps. I suspect that even on Android, most people use the Google Play store. On Slashdot, we view the App Store with disinterest because we've been using repositories and package management systems forever, but to most of the public the concept was pretty new.
While I'd _never_ have spent the price of an iPhone on it, a proper, useable browser was something rather new and significant.
It really was something. It blew away anything else at the time.
Steve Ballmer's quotes (Score:3, Informative)
http://allthingsd.com/20130824/beyond-monkey-boy-its-a-steve-ballmer-quote-tacular/ [allthingsd.com]
On iPods (2006): "No, I do not [have an iPod]. Nor do my children. My children - in many dimensions theyâ(TM)re as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed - you don't use Google and you don't use an iPod"
On Android (2011): "You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. I think you do to use an Android phone ... It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones"
On the iPhone (2007): "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item"
On Linux (2001): "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches"
On the iPhone once again (2007): "$500, fully subsidized, with a plan! That is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn't appeal to business customers, because it doesn't have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine"
And, a vid, for all to enjoy ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U [youtube.com]