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Steve Ballmer Reveals His Secret Twitter Account
alphadogg writes "'Quietly' is not a word that would usually describe any action performed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. But quietly is exactly how Ballmer has conducted himself on Twitter, a site he joined over a year ago unbeknownst to most of the technology world. Just a few days ago, Ballmer was speaking in Kiev, Ukraine, and according to a transcript on the Microsoft website, Ballmer responded to an audience member who asked 'when are you going to start tweeting?' Ballmer said: 'I have a Twitter account. I'm just very private about who I really am on Twitter.'"
Isn't the entire point of twitter communicating with a large audience? If no one knows who you are, then what's the point?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Once again I find the summary lacking. I had to read TFA to find the actual link to his twitter: http://twitter.com/stevebmicrosoft. There really isn't much there.. which explains why: a) he didn't announce it, and b) why we shouldn't care. Which of course leads to: c) why is this on slashdot?
Honestly it shows the difference between him and Bill Gates. Gates is tweeting all the time. Balmer 4 tweets in a year. Gates *LIKES* tech plays with it, it is his life. Balmer it is something to sell. It also shows quite clearly why MS has stagnated tech wise for the past 10 years.
Your confusion probably stems from your ignorance of tax planning rule #1: Sell when capital gains taxes are low and likely to go high.
What he's selling is a small fraction of his holdings. How do you think these guys pay for their toys?
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Functionally, usefully, what do Win7 & Office 2010 have that WinXP & Office 2001 didn't have?
What functional difference would your parents notice?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Only the difference between their Win 7 sales and the sales of XP/Vista they would have made if Win 7 hadn't come out matters. In other words, how much did the release of a new version of Windows inspire people to buy Windows more. Non-zero I'm sure, but not the full amount of Win 7 sales either. Likewise with Office.
Wow.
I get your sentiment, but you're just pulling numbers out of the sky now. Microsoft makes a huge chunk of cash from Server, SQL, Exchange, SharePoint, etc and the associated CALs for those products. They are also becoming a force in the small to mid-size ERP world with Dynamics. And you can't swing a dead cat without hitting another MS CRM installation.
As anyone that does anything near corporate IT shops knows, Microsoft's presence in the back office is not a "hobby."
I stopped reading your post as soon as I saw you type "Windoze" twice.
Grow up and realize that companies - all companies - exist to make money. Money comes even if you don't have the "best" product. Crying about it won't get you anywhere.
You're saying that the current Office is "demonstrably worse" than the 1985 version? I am having a very hard time taking that seriously :) But, for argument's sake: please demonstrate.
Also, when you say "worse," what do you mean? More RAM usage? More disk usage? Performance? Usability? Functionality?
Current user interface on "windoze" is nice. I like it. Please define, objectively, "garbage," otherwise your anecdotal "I hate it!" is just as worthless as my anecdotal "I like it."
I could always one-up the anecdotal evidence argument: I am comparing to extensive gnome usage (Ubuntu 10.10) and limited kde 4x usage (Sabayon). I'm able to move around and quicker in Windows. I like the pinned-to-taskbar program thing. Jumplists are nice on occasion.
no shit. His point was that they're not really having much success with new items. Hence the use of the word "stagnation".
Coming in and saying that they're successful leveraging their established brands really just reinforces the point.