Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer On Microsoft's Search Goofs
An anonymous reader writes "AP reports on CEO Steve Ballmer's regret over Microsoft's failure to get into the search market early on. Best quote? 'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.' Nice to see they're still user-oriented."
Sounds like my kind of search engine!
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
from ballmer on microsoft's goofs, to balmer acting like a goof
I can counter that by saying, "I will make sure I never have an online experience again!"
Suckers.
Billy Mac, of Mac trucks, had this to say:
... a busy highway without getting hit by a Mac truck."
"I want to make sure (Steve Ballmer) can't get through
Setec Astronomy
I can pretty much guarantee that I'll see one on Slashdot every other story.
don't you think Ballmer kinda looks like an evil Dr. Phil?
'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.'
That's gotta be a mood killer for people surfing pr0n.
If you click Microsoft's ads does Microsoft have to pay more?
This will solve more problems than one. Really. If Microsoft makes everyone's online experience the digital equivalent of being pestered by sales calls 24 times a day, on the hour, every hour, then maybe people like myself will turn off the computer, get up, go outside, and get some more exercise, loose weight, defeat the obesity scare, live longer and have a social life! ...or, realistically, develop better ad-blocking software.
Who am I kidding.
Though it would be funny to see what ads would pop up when searching for "Windows XP 2004 Server Keygen"
I rue the day that you can't even get through slashdot without seeing some kind of "Buy Microsoft Software at www.microsoft.com" ad.
.
.
.
Damn!
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.
Sounds like the online experience I'm having right now as I type this message.
Go tablet PC go!
Search: Linux
i d= kb;en-us;314458
/ un ix/tco.asp
m l
........"
results 4
1.)http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?sc
"How to remove Linux and install WindowsXP
2.)http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate
"Linux more expensive to operate then Windows"
3.)http://www.sco.com/scosource/linuxlicense.ht
"Linux contains SCO Unix intellectual property
4.)http://www.linuxsucks.com"
"Boy those guys at Microsoft sure know how to make great products
http://saveie6.com/
I want to make sure Steve Balmer can't get through a doctor's visit/border crossing/stop light without getting a full rectal exam.
BlackNova Traders
That last quote in the article is wierd, IT'S A YAHOO TROLL!!
Seriously, it doesn't attribute that quote to anyone, it just sort of ends the article. Also whenever you see "..." in a quote it means something important was cut out and the quote is wrong (this is common when advertising movies for example).
I'm not trying to defend Steveio I just think it's a lame way to end an article.
Serious, this is the funny quote I like:
"That's probably the thing I feel worst about over the last few years -- not making our own R&D investment," Ballmer said at a conference for online advertisers held at Microsoft's Redmond campus. "
COME ON! 75% of their software is developed by outside companies, then Microsoft just buys them out. I think he should have said "The worst thing is, we waited so long to aquire google, now it's extremely over-priced for us".
Mod +5 Drunk
REDMOND, Wash. - When Microsoft Corp. entered the Internet browser war in the 1990s, Netscape Navigator was the early leader and Microsoft's Internet Explorer the late-blooming upstart.
Now, Microsoft is gearing up for a similar brutal and pointless battle in search technology.
Chief executive Steve Ballmer conceded Thursday that one big misstep by Microsoft over the past few years is that the company did not put resources toward the 'embrace and extend' - Microsoft's term for wholesale copying and stealing - of search technology.
"That's probably the thing I feel worst about over the last few years -- not destroying a small competitor in a wave of litigation and threats," Ballmer said at a conference for online advertisers held at Microsoft's Redmond campus, as sunlight bounced off his fat bald head.
Instead, he said, the company had kind of assumed that it would be fun to wait for a while to see what ideas others came up with, before stealing them. Joking that the pervasive software giant is often stereotyped as "a bunch of blood-sucking vampires" he said: "This is a case where we didn't destroy it all -- and I wish we had."
But Microsoft is now turning its considerable might toward catching up. It's a move that puts Microsoft head to head with Google, the world's most popular Web surfing vehicle, and Yahoo, the Internet's most popular destination, in what many see as the next depressing confirmation that there is nothing that can be achieved that Microsoft won't wreck with some awful code, a stack of ripped-off eyecandy and several billion dollars worth of marketing.
"I think you'll see some blood on the wheel in this area," Ballmer said.
Ballmer mentioned the European Union (news - web sites)'s ruling against Microsoft only in passing, when asked about rumors the company may be making some big acquisitions. He said he hadn't heard that; he'd been too busy paying attention to rumors coming out of Europe, as he made bunny ears with his fingers.
The European Commission (news - web sites) slapped Microsoft with a $613 million fine Wednesday for abusively wielding its near monopoly in desktop operating systems and ordered sanctions that go well beyond the company's antitrust settlement with the United States. The company has vowed to raise an army of the undead, to destroy the continent in a reign of fire, to sow its fields with salt and leave no stone atop another, pending an appeal by its lawyers.
Hell, even Bill Gates likes Apple.
http://saveie6.com/
"Why is this so important?" asked Peaches Kobbler, reporterette for High Times magazine.
"Visibility," said the phlegmy chief executive. "There might yet be tribal elders hidden in some lost corner of the South American jungle who has not yet heard of Microsoft. We need to subver- er, we need to reach those valued potential customers."
"Do jungles have corners?" asked Alia Bambara, reporter for the Pony Fetish Monthly.
"What do you know, worm?!" shouted Ballmer, the spittle showering people as far away as the Denny's dumpster. "We will dominate all markets. Do you understand me, bitch? You will all be our bitches!"
"Aren't you just trying to be annoying?" asked Enrico Cartmano from the Mexico City Daily Sombrero.
"Com'ere, you!" said Ballmer, and proceeded toi chase Cartmano around the parking lot with a tire iron that Ballmer has somehow hidden in his pants.
--- Ban humanity.
> Note that both news services are currently in
> beta.
The difference being:
Google will take the beta label off their service when Google News is stable and usable.
Microsoft will take the beta label off their service when Google News is stable and usable.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
"The newest search results are coming soon! Get a subscription to Google and see them before everyone else!"
...if he considers bluescreens and error messages as ads.
And the pictures! I usually don't think of Steve Ballmer as evil (just the company he works for), but those pictures make him almost look menacing and demonic.
There is a reason his friends call him Uncle Fester. Well, when I say friends I mean enemies, but that's the closest thing he's got to friends.
I can't think of *any* technologies that Microsoft got into early on.
I believe that they are the leading innovators in the field of talking paperclip technology.
That's a little cruel. There's a more flattering, cheerful looking one of him here.
'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through .. an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.'
Atleast he's honest about planning to be the number one cause of popups around the net...
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
I tell you, buy a Microsoft penis enlargment kit, and you'll increase in size by this amount in one day.
One World, One Party, One Operating System
When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you
A lot of bad things can happen to a company using non-windows Operating Systems, you know. We wouldn't want that to happen now would we?
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, we've got a customer who doesn't want to renew their software licenses. What are we going to do?
Are you sure the parent isn't just the original copy before the editor got his hands on it? :)
I worked at a paper as a co-op student and it was sick how they would butcher even a one paragraph article with inaccurate info for the sake of "making it interesting".
AFAIK, they were groundbreaking leaders in bringing certain conveniences to email clients, such as double-clicking on an attachment, causing it to execute.
Prior to Microsoft, nobody had ever thought to do such [euphemisms coming up] .. inspired and visionary things. Indeed, most of their competitors still haven't dared to even try matching these features.
Another one: They got the brilliant idea of taking an Apple menu, moving it to the bottom the screen so that it's slightly slower to get to, and then moving it up by one or two pixels, so that if you slam your mouse pointer against the edge and then click, you will still manage to miss the menu, so you have to carefully adjust upwards a little, and then click, if you want to hit the hotspot. That tiny little offset of just a few pixels, is an innovation where Microsoft not only led for years, but most of their competition still hasn't matched them.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
in the shower singing the theme songs to 60's sit-coms. The "joy" of belonging to the same health club as MS. BTW, he is tone-deaf and I may have bad dreams for months.
...Windows 2003 Server?
sig mind freed
if I search on "Balmer's monkey dance", what would I get?
Why oh why oh why oh why doesn't Google have a "Get Firefox" link?
Because the minute they put it up the name of the browser would change...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
"Off the top of my head, he's trying to cure AIDS."
Only so he has a bigger potential market.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
even worse, they'll have clippy help you search what you're looking for.
And the Constitution should be amended to require EVERY individual to have a Microsoft Windows logo tattoed somewhere on their body, taking up at least 9 square inches of space, and that all newborns should have that logo tattoed on them upon birth. Yeah. That's a good idea.
I have four words for you:
I love this company, yeah!
Your insightful comment made me realize why Everquest won out over the pioneer in the "really big graphical mud" genre, Ultima Online. UO made a lot of basic mistakes that the late comer could capitalize on, such as forgetting to make their game like crack-cocaine.
The enemies of Democracy are