Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer Pleads For Openness To Compete With Apple
mjasay writes "At the Mobile World Congress, Steve Ballmer took aim at Apple's closed iPhone ecosystem with an ironic plea for openness: 'Openness is central because it's the foundation of choice.' Ballmer has apparently forgotten his company's own efforts to vertically integrate hardware and software (Zune, XBox), its history of vertically integrating software (tying SharePoint into Office, IE, SQL Server, Active Directory, etc.), as well as years of illegally tying Windows to Internet Explorer that only the US Justice Department could undo. Indeed, Microsoft's effect on the browser market has pushed Mozilla to get involved in a recent European Commission action against the software giant, with Mozilla's Mitchell Baker recently declaring that 'A number of illegal activities were also involved in creating IE's market dominance,' now requiring government intervention to open up the browser market to fair competition. Putting aside Microsoft's own tainted reputation in the field of openness, is Ballmer right? Should Apple open up its iPhone platform to outside competition, both in terms of hardware and software?"
>>Apple's brand is based on a tight vertical integration of hardware and software...
Which is what made them lose the PC war. Which is what will make them lose this one, in the end.
They won an opening salvo; a single battle. That's it. It won't last.
>>Apple lost the PC war for a lot of reasons, this wasn't one of them.
Incorrect. It's the only reason.
If you have a better one, say it.
Vista is running on more personal computers than OSuX and Linux combined. Failure? Not in relative terms.
Truer words have never been said, or in this case, posted.
Is this just typical MS hypocrisy or is Ballmer turning into a Communist?
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
You, or your employer, can choose to purchase computers without Windows installed. There is no MS tax. Netbooks and PCs without any OS or with Linux pre-installed are very easy to get.
Apple decided that by closing the system, they would avoid all these problems, and users would have a better experience.
That and be certain that they could gouge their userbase.
Whereas you can sync your iPhone to an Exchange server perfectly, (and indeed even the address lookup works better on the iPhone than on a wm6 device), you can't sync a windows mobile device to Mail.app or anything. Makes you go "hmmmm"...
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Apple did in fact close the source to some areas of Darwin. For example, certain low-level hardware drivers where the vendor didn't want the code to be published.
LOL. You believe that? What features would they be? "Use Maps", hmm, on my phone, "Menu Button > Maps" - hard! Pair a Bluetooth device, "Settings > Bluetooth > Add Device", and I'm pretty sure the iPhone is identical there. Send picture messages? Oh, wait, iPhone can't do that, because apparently no-one really wants to send picture messages...
Please, name a few features that no-one used on their cellphones until the iPhone came along. I'll wait here with bated breath.