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.'"

Comments

Inquiring minds want to know...

[Locke2005]

How many tweets has he sent out containing just the word "Developers!"???

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately for us, he's limited to throwing 140 chars at a time.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[CannonballHead]

I'm not going to defend all of MS.

But to say it's stagnated is an overstatement. Windows 7 was decent. Windows Live Essentials is pretty decent (and free). Windows Live Mesh is pretty nice. That new kinect thing seems to have gotten favorable first impressions. Even IE 9 seems like it's going to be a huge improvement (perfect? of course not, but huge improvement).

Could they be better? Oh, definitely. Did they have rough years? Totally. Could they have done better? Of course. Are they actually "stagnated" right now? I don't really see that.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[samkass]

to say it's stagnated is an overstatement.

Windows 7 and Microsoft Office make up 95% of their profits, so the rest are-- to use an Apple phrase-- hobbies. They have subsidized XBox and Windows Phone 7 development with Windows/Office profits to the tune of billions of dollars. In 25 years they haven't created a new product line that's made more than a tiny fraction of their two big products. In comparison, Google didn't exist at all back then, and Apple gets 60% of its profits from products that didn't exist 4 years ago.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[MyLongNickName]

Please turn in your geek card, Slashdot ID, and stay 50 feet away from any electronic device.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[michelcolman]

No, he's just very private about who he really is at Apple.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[NatasRevol]

Functionally, usefully, what do Win7 & Office 2010 have that WinXP & Office 2001 didn't have?

What functional difference would your parents notice?

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[Late Adopter]

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.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[jekewa]

I was being a little facetious, thanks for picking up on that, but the ribbon bar (of which I'm no fan) is a bit more than a change of a menu bar with changing icons. There are interactions that can be made right on the ribbon bar that make it a bit more than just a menu bar + tool bar.

Fundamentally, I agree that any tech savvy user will see it as just a re-worked menu and/or more useful tool bar, but it is a tremendous functional change in the way the programs operate beyond the main input window (e.g., the Word document). It's 80% eye-candy changes, 20% rearrangement, and 90% more annoying.

More to the point...it's what everyone (not just parents) notices is different in the newer versions of Office, since it's so present, and there's not an easy way to opt out of it.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[bazonic]

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."

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[CannonballHead]

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.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[kaiser423]

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.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[CrashandDie]

140 characters ought to be enough for anybody.

Re:Inquiring minds want to know...

[sootman]

Here are some numbers not from someone's ass.

Windows and Office are major, Server is a rather distant third (judging by history, it looks like the the top of the purple part is mistakenly cut off at the end), online services are a loss, and "entertainment and devices" is a small positive (at the moment.)

And, for fun, here's a similar graph for Apple.

Even more pointless

[Hatta]

Isn't the entire point of twitter communicating with a large audience? If no one knows who you are, then what's the point?

Re:Even more pointless

[garcia]

Isn't the entire point of twitter communicating with a large audience? If no one knows who you are, then what's the point?

I don't care about the dude behind @ShitMyDadSays (the Twitter account, not the absolutely horrendous TV show) but I love what he puts out there (I follow him by RSS though). Hell, a lot of the people I follow on Twitter I don't know anything about but I find what they have to say interesting.

YMMV.

Re:Even more pointless

[thethibs]

The point is quietly following people who talk too much and using whatever information falls out.

Actually twitter link

[iONiUM]

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?

Re:Actually twitter link

[BadAnalogyGuy]

why is this on slashdot?

Stockholm syndrome.

Re:Actually twitter link

[Locke2005]

why is this on slashdot? Because it's a great jumping off point for stupid one-liners like "How could Steve use any service where he is confined to only throwing around 140 chars?"

Re:Who would want to follow...

[Locke2005]

Is the number one tech loser the guy that can't spell "Business" in a URL?

Really...? That more interesting than...

[Nethemas the Great]

Ballmer selling off $1.3B worth of Microsoft? With plans to clear 75 million share before years end? I must say, I'm thoroughly confused...

Re:Really...? That more interesting than...

[thethibs]

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?

Re:Who would want to follow...

[MyLongNickName]

I really wish Slashdot would create a preview option.