To Ballmer, Grabbing iPad's Market Is 'Job One Urgency'

Barence writes "Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has vented his frustration at the success of the iPad and said developing a Windows alternative is 'job one urgency.' 'Apple has done an interesting job of putting together a synthesis and putting a product out, and in which they've... they sold certainly more than I'd like them to sell, let me just be clear about that,' Ballmer told analysts. The Microsoft boss said the company plans to deliver a range of tablet formats in the next year, some based on Intel's next-gen Oak Trail processor. 'It is job one urgency around here. Nobody is sleeping at the switch. And so we are working with those partners, not just to deliver something, but to deliver products that people really want to go buy.'" In Microsoft's vision, slates will run a derivative of Windows 7.

Comments

Good luck with that.

[MikeFM]

Did you see their crappy looking Windows tablet mock-up? That's pretty much everything right there. Microsoft has no idea how to make a stable, secure, easy-to-use, attractive product. If it runs standard Windows apps it's just a tiny hard to use PC. If it doesn't then you may as well go with the better made iPad with it's huge lead in apps or even an Android based device. Their only hope is to offer a cheap device for people to dumb to know the difference - it works on the PC.

Bill Gates

[hey]

Bill was into tablets for years
http://www.google.com/images?q=Bill+Gates+tablet

Re:Anger.

[sdpuppy]

Haven't you heard the news?

Market caps are almost the same.

They're both around 200 B and change.

http://www.everythingicafe.com/aapl-passes-msft-in-market-cap/2010/05/26/

http://247wallst.com/2010/05/27/apple-beats-microsoft-in-market-value-msft-aapl/

http://www.9to5mac.com/AAPL-MSFT-345345332

Re:Anger.

[beelsebob]

What are you talking about? Apple is worth more than Microsoft.

Apple: $235.77bn
MSFT: $222.18bn

Bullshit

[Space cowboy]

I really doubt you can find them because that's all complete bullshit.

MS bought a small (150M, I think) as part of a settlement deal, to prevent Apple cleaning their clock in court - MS had been caught ripping off Apple's code and selling it as their own. They later sold all those shares at a profit. From Apple's perspective, by far the larger concession they got from MS was a promise to keep making MS office for 5(?) years as well... They had $2B in the bank when MS bought those shares.

Simon.

Re:Bullshit

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Did you follow your own link?

In 1997, five years after the lawsuit was decided, all lingering infringement questions against Microsoft regarding the Lisa and Macintosh GUI as well as Apple's "QuickTime piracy" lawsuit against Microsoft were settled in direct negotiations. Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer their default browser, to the detriment of Netscape. Microsoft agreed to continue developing Microsoft Office and other software for the Mac over the next five years. Microsoft also purchased $150 million of non-voting Apple stock, helping Apple in its financial struggles at the time. Both parties entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement.

To resolve the QT code infringement lawsuit, as well as the look-n-feel lawsuit, MSFT agreed to give Apple $150M and continue to make Office for the Mac.

Re:Bullshit

[R3d M3rcury]

They didn't have "billions" in the bank at the time, and according to the news $150 million kept Apple from going out of business or being bought out.

As I understand it, Apple did have "billions" in the bank at the time. The problem was, though, they were having to spend those billions.

Back in 1997, Apple was going out of business. Everybody knew it. And Nobody wanted to be left holding the bag. Which means that Apple was getting really bad terms on parts. Nobody wanted to ship Apple a million hard drives to make Macintoshes and then have Apple go belly-up and have to stand in line with the other creditors for pennies on the dollar in bankruptcy court. So everyone was demanding lots of money up front for parts.

The 150 million, while paltry, gave the impression that Microsoft was backing Apple. So Apple wouldn't go bankrupt--they'd get bought out by Microsoft. So you could sell stuff to Apple and not worry about getting paid.

I'm a Mac developer and I'd just quit at a company back in 1997. I went away for two weeks to a foreign country so I was pretty far out of the loop. When I got in the plane to return home, I grabbed a copy of the Asian Wall Street Journal. And right there on the front page was a headline that heavily implied that Microsoft had bought Apple for $150 Million. I almost had a heart attack in my airplane seat. As I read the article, it became a bit more clear what had happened. But I wouldn't necessarily trust the newspapers at the time to get the details right.