Ballmer - Trusting Vista and Battling Google

Carnivore24 wrote to mention a C|Net article discussing Steve Ballmer's morning keynote at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo. From the article: "'I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,' Microsoft's CEO said ... Ballmer also touched on a variety of areas related to Microsoft's competition with Google. The software maker will compete 'the good old-fashioned way, with innovation,' he said. 'There are many things--who knows?--Google may or may not do. If you read the papers today, other than curing cancer, Google will do everything.'"

Comments

Sh*thead Ballmer does another dance for us.

[smagruder]

Who believes this screwup and his FUD any more?

Rootin for Google

[LilGuy]

I'll root for google up until the day they become too big for their (b)riches, at which point I'll root for the next underdog.

VIVA AMERICA!

Re:Rootin for Google

[cmacb]

You have a bad memory.

Microsoft intentionally looked the other way regarding piracy, even of their own software. They did not join the BSA (a group that fights piracy) because they only wanted to selectively enforce their license, allowing individuals and small companies to spread the use of and become dependent on their products and then only clamping down once such organizations had full pockets. This is right out of the drug pusher's playbook.

BSA wanted to in fact conduct raids on even small companies engaged in piracy so as to not let them head down the wrong road. BSA's efforts were in fact thwarted by Microsoft who would not participate with them in prosecutions. To do so would have actually slowed the adoption of products such as Word and Excel which were still underdogs to Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3.

The other thing many people forget is that Microsoft was singing a tune that sounded a lot like open standards back then. Windows was going to make everyone's software work seamlessly together and interface easily to external hardware. This in fact happened to a certain extent, only the interfaces were never fully documented and whenever Microsoft had competitors, the interfaces magically became slower or more buggy for the competing products.

Finally, they did everything they could to slow TCP/IP adoption, preferring instead to push special Microsoft protocols with a view toward being the monopoly for what we now call the Internet.

Fortunately most of their efforts in this regard ultimately failed, but they count on people's short memories, ignorance, and the turnover in staff in the industry to perpetuate their preposterous claim as innovators.

I rooted for Microsoft in the early days. But I also paid enough attention to know when that was no longer appropriate. It's certainly not appropriate now.

As for Google, rich as they are, it is too soon to call them bad guys. Just having a lot of money to spend doesn't make you bad, it's all in how you spend it. My hope is that, due to the nature of their business model, Google will avoid the temptation that Microsoft succumbed to, namely, of getting lazy and attempting to lock-in a captive customer base using underhanded tactics.

oh they are helping cure cancer too

[museumpeace]

I don't know many cancer researchers who don't use Google, Google news or Google Scholar to keep tabs on their competition.

It's built right in!

[Valacosa]

From the article:
"...such as efforts to improve the Web browser and make the operating system more resilient."
Uh - could I uninstall one and keep the other? I doubt it.

Well...

[Sheetrock]

I think that, as yesterday demonstrated, the future of computing should not rely entirely on access to online services. That alone may very well determine the winner in this struggle.

For decades we've had to face losing important work to power outages. But Internet outages are just as menacing -- and indeed, where one can get a battery to power their digital workhorses there is no such analog for Internet power. Not to mention the inherent threat of viruses spyware or hackers that comes from Internet connectivity, or frankly the less than cohesive user experience and unconsistent interface websites present.

Despite being oft (and many times unfairly) maligned by self-proclaimed computer experts Microsoft has irrevocably broken the yoke of the client-server relationship that has held computing back and is single-handedly responsible for the microcomputer revolution. The last twenty-five years would not have been impossible without them, and it's pure fantasy to suggest otherwise.

Consequently, I don't think it will be a question of whether or not we will be using Vista but merely how Microsoft will have managed to improve upon the mostly unimproveable experience of Windows XP. If they compete with anything, it will be their own success.

Re:Well...

[JasonKChapman]

Despite being oft (and many times unfairly) maligned by self-proclaimed computer experts Microsoft has irrevocably broken the yoke of the client-server relationship that has held computing back and is single-handedly responsible for the microcomputer revolution. The last twenty-five years would not have been impossible without them, and it's pure fantasy to suggest otherwise.

That's a bit revisionist. Microsoft rode the personal computer wave. It didn't create it. Z-80-based CP/M machines had already broken the client-server relationship and had proven that stand-alone, even portable, computers would find business users waiting with open arms. Those of us who were selling, ready-to-go with WordStar, SuperCalc, and custom dBase applications, had already seen the future. It was coming no matter which OS came down the pipe.

And if any company can be said to be single-handedly responsible for the microcomputer revolution, it would be IBM. It was the weight of that name that got the second wave of people believing that there just might be something to this "personal computer thing."

Vista doesn't trust YOU!!

[RentonSentinel]

How can I trust an OS that doesn't trust me?

Vista doesn't trust my monitor enough to stream my glorious Blu-ray DVD to the screen... so how can I trust Vista?

In Sweden - yes

[ziggamon2.0]

MSN is the number one IM client for young people here, and through most of Europe. MSN here is both a noun - "Give me your MSN" and somewhat less frequently a verb - "I will MSN you"

But it refers to the IM service. Almost nobody I know uses the web site for anything productive.

Oh my gawd!

[DaveM753]

FTA:
"I'm going to trust Vista on day one," Ballmer said. "I bet most people in this audience will trust it day one--on their home computer," he joked. "I'm trying to be honest among friends."
/FTA

Sure he'll trust it. He profits from it. I just can't believe anyone would fall for this line of B.S.

Yeah, like he's one of our friends. And the worst part is, TONS of people actually DO fall for this B.S. There are too many sheep on this planet.

Blah! Okay, I'm done ranting now.

Re:Google To Cure Cancer!

[McCart42]

And they have. The google toolbar offers a service called Google Compute which allows the user's computer to work on Folding@home units.

http://toolbar.google.com/dc/faq_dc.html

When Will he Learn

[oztiks]

Ballmer said Microsoft needs to continue to invest in research and development to deal with open-source software, Google, IBM and other competitors

He sure likes to challenge the impossible, when will he learn OSS is not a business you cant make it go bankrrupt, when he faces the fact it will always exisit the better and _deal_ with it a bit more positivily and fairly you might actually find OSS developers actually using ms applications instead of trying to debunk it.

Never believe anything...

[Vryl]

until it's been officially denied.