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Ballmer Sounds Off

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the he'd-kick-my-ass-at-poker-and-monkey-dancing dept.

PreacherTom writes "Steve Ballmer shares his thoughts on the Web 2.0 phenomenon, Zune, XBox, Vista, Bill's upcoming 2008 retirement, the future of Microsoft, and other subjects. For example, regarding the GooTube deal: "Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion. And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that's up there is owned by somebody else. The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google." He's blunt, if nothing else."

2 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Uh... by sammy+baby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Uh. Surely if YouTube is the ticking time bomb of copyright infringement that it's claimed to be, then what's happening is Google transferring money from the hands of Google investors into a holding tank for eventual litigants.

    I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?

  2. Really interesting thing... by JustNiz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ballmer let slip at the end, (regarding European vista launch date):

    "...we'll have to push the button because our partners--hardware makers and retail chains--need time to ramp up supply chains, marketing, and demand generation."

    Demand generation. Vista itself has no demand (meaning no extra benefit over XP), so they have to artificially create demand now.