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

As usual

[Beer_Smurf]

"Don't worry, we will copy Apple like we always have."

Re:I don't get it.

[JediTrainer]

Really? Ask Wordstar, Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBaseIII, Netscape, and countless other companies what fat lot of good the early lead did for them?

I'm no giant MS fan, but at the same time with most of these should serve as an example as to why if you're in the lead, you can't rest on your laurels. Stop innovating, and your product becomes inferior over time. Your competition will catch up (and with that momentum, quickly leave you in the dust). I stuck with Wordperfect, Lotus and Netscape for the longest time. I resisted, but eventually the realization came that something better has come along and everyone else has moved on already.

So I used IE for a while. Then Firefox came along. Et al, et al.

Re:Anger.

[negRo_slim]

Can you imagine what it's like to be a small child, seeing Steve Jobs hold a piece of candy in front of you, to hold it before you and tell you how great its going to be, how it's everything you could possibly want. And then lick his tongue all over it just before giving it to you? This is what it feels like to be someone who reallly wants a nice, tablet form-factor device without a sodding keyboard attached to it, and then find that the only one that is pretty much decent is locked down and made into a device for consuming games and media. Microsoft are going to make a tablet? About fucking time. I want to take notes on it with a stylus, not wave my fingers over the screen going 'oooo, I can make pictures big'. I want to be able stuff a USB stick in the side of it and put directories of data on it, not sync it to a fucking iTunes program running on an entirely separate computer (because, amongst other things, my Gentoo box really loves running iTunes). The iPad is pricey, pre-licked candy. Until someone else opens a sweetshop and starts selling their own candy, the only way you're getting any is with Steve Job's drool over it. Bring on the rivals, I say.

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