Ballmer Babies Banned From iPods and Google

Valah writes "In a recent Fortune interview with Steve Ballmer, the newer kinder Microsoft CEO is not only ready to take on the videogaming, search, music download and mobile markets - but he's also laying down the law in his own house. Steve says that his kids are not allowed to use Google or have an iPod."

Comments

The difference between a monopoly vs competitive

[ron_ivi]

And that summarizes the difference between a monopoly and a competitive landscape.

In a monopoly, you're best off using

• fear (if I catch you using Google I'll throw a chair at you)
• and uncertainty (but can you really trust Google? It runs some free OS which can never scale as much as our expensive one) and
• doubt (but a small company like Google, will they be around next year?)

to keep your users.

Balmer knows this, and he's practicing it on his kids.

Exactly!

[Infonaut]

I'd take the other approach - if they choose rival manufacturers then study first hand why they do so.

Knowing your enemy is certainly preferable to willful ignorance.

Imagine Ballmer as a military commander: "No, I'd rather not examine the captured enemy secret weapon. From now on, all captured equipment shall be ignored! Any soldiers who say anything about the superior capabilities of the enemy equipment shall be placed in one of the suicide squads. Carry on, men! Carry on!"