All talk as usual. Nothing to show for it as usual.

They are talking about providing Live Mesh to OSX. And if that is free I think they might get some users to use it.
And with the iPhone SDK and it's Exchange support, I think they could offer something there as well.

Windows powers the vast majority of the computers out there and some "Microsoft" products for Mac could really be successful because of their integration with the rest of the PCs.
Example? Microsoft Project, Office, Messenger, Mesh.

I am a happy Mac OSX user and an Apple fan (iPhone, iMac, MobileMe, MBPro, TimeCapsule, hey... I even bought the AppleTV) but I defenitely see some potential for Microsoft somewhere. And maybe they might even be pushed to deliever better services to their own users, who knows?

Of course, they have to "slightly" shift from useless stuff like "Surfaces" and concentrate on the end user. But it is not impossible...

Facts speak louder than words though... And advising colleagues and friends to switch from Microsoft to Apple has become so easy lately it's not even funny anymore!
(completely converted a colleague to Apple and started (with the iPhone) the same process with another one).

Once you go Mac, you never go back.

It's really funny to see a huge software manufacturer who pretty much has a stranglehold on the market decide they need to go after a relatively small hardware manufacturer... No matter what MS does, it STILL can't compete with Apple because it doesn't build the machines! Balmer can talk about PC's and phones all he wants... until they build a PC or phone themselves, they'll always take a back seat to Apple. You'd think those Harvard guys would get that by now...

All talk. Whatever innovation or vision they may think they have, they always somehow manage to screw up it's implementation and totally miss the mark. What makes Apple products great is that they have a guiding light: Steve Jobs. His vision, his way of doing things, the way he sees it. He's the ring leader, the conductor, the man with the plan.

Microsoft is rife with too many big-wigs and clueless upper management. We all know what you get when you design by committee Right. A Donkey. We all know the saying. And Microsoft is a perfect example of that in action. They do not have a guiding light, or a ring leader, nor do they have a man with a plan. You know everything MS touches turns to crap. That's something you can put your money on.

Note to Steve Ballmer: Whatever it is you're "planning", the Apple community isn't worried.

What a cnut.

Apple had the end-to-end user experience planned and everything for that to work in place before they launched a product/service.
ballmer once again shows Microsoft approaching things backwards - "providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences".

Sounds like Vista all over again. We'll give you as much choice as you want, but half of it might not technically work, but you'll put up with that because we give you choice.....
Nope. I don't mind not having a choice, as long as it works the way I want and does so seamlessly.

it seems like Microsoft is talking big but not "carrying a big stick"

Microsoft's innovation typically consists of waiting for Apple to invent and release a new feature, getting the MS developers to replicate it, passing it off to a committee for additional feature enhancements and inclusion of support for 30 year old legacy hardware, and releasing the product to market without the customary testing by a QA team.

I'm looking forward to Microsoft's new commercials... It should be entertaining.

microsoft has never innovated anything. every product they have ever produced has been a copy of something else. they are a company with zero original ideas. even DOS was a copy of, i think CP/M (maybe or one of the early DOS's). granted, they are good at stealing other's ideas and driving the competition out of business. so, now they're going to copy the iPhone. sounds like they're going to copy iLife for the windows. they're going to copy apple ads. situation normal over at microsoft.

Microsoft needs to get back to basics and focus on fixing what they sell.

It boggles the mind that they are so threatened by Apple and that they need to crush it.

I believe Ballmer will be out within two years. He just doesn't have it.

One key fact is that consumers typically don't want choice. They want something that works and they feel is a good value. Apple does this, provides a great experience, with little choice, that just works so high value is perceived.

How come they are not content with even 30 to 1 sales!!!! Doesn't Ballmer get how some of us out here have used their software for years, still use it at work, and just want stuff to work when we are at home? I don't get it? Give him six months working on a Mac and HE wouldn't go back to his own crap!

How many times do you have to reinstall an operating system before you decide that you are tired of it? He is so frustratingly stupid for someone who went to a "nice" school.

Pathetic.

He sounds stressed. If they outsell apple 30 to 1, why should he care that much? he is either paranoid or a big liar, or both.

GO F**K yourself Balmer. You are an idiot. His employees are probably laughing at him in the back. I hope he drives MS down the hill even more and waste money on nothing. SHI* EATER.

Balmer begins by totally misrepresenting what is going on. There is no "competition between PCs and Macs." Macs ARE P[ersonal] C[omputer]s. By reframing this as being between "Pcs and Macs" he is attempting to say that this is a competition not between Apple and MS, but between MS, Windows developers and Windows users and the Mac. It is an attempt to say that if you use or develop for Windows you are automatically on our side, not on Apple's side.

The truth, of course, is that 90% of users don't care about the OS--they just want something that works. They couldn't care about "competitions" or sides. The real competition is between the Mac OS--which just works--and the Windows OS--which requires an enormous (and often bribed) IT infrastructure that must constantly update and frequently protect users from existent malware and enduser frustration and the failures of Windows.

Balmer is wrong. it's not about a fictitious "competition between PCs and Macs," it's about user satisfaction with the OS. If not for the IT infrastructure that depends upon the failures of Windows for its existence, and the illegal Windows monopoly that still exists, MS would have into appropriate non-importance long ago.

http://siliconapartment.com/english/0006.html

You have to wonder how long shareholders are going to remain quiet while Monkeyboy moves the stock lower and lower. MS has lost capital value over the past year. All the "window dressing" isn't going to change the reality of poor software coding, poor end-to-end experiences, and poor copying techniques.

Apple leads and Microsoft follows!!! Microsoft is in CFIT under Steve Ballmer!!!

That is an ugly picture of Steve, but I just can't stop looking at it.

Microsoft is too big to innovate, and it probably shouldn't be their main focus regardless of what the "competition" is up to. They've done well enough by absorbing smaller outfits that are nimble enough to provide true innovation, and besides, I'd posit that the bulk of MSFT's users do not appreciate a complete experience anyhow. Those that do, become "switchers," and the rest are content to merrily roll along with stuff that works well enough.

Don't the licensing fees from Office and Vista generate millions for MSFT annually? Just keep managing that. Keep the status quo going as long as you can, implementing poached features into your products to justify the rollout of incremental updates. Keep your legions of employees and their families in benefits and well-fed. You're where GM was fifty years ago. You have grown too large to compete on innovation. But you're such a juggernaut now that it'll be a generation or two before you become irrelevant, and a few more beyond that before you have to go Chapter 7.

Good luck.

What are we counting here? The number of unit sales? What's one Windows unit sale in Dollars? Anything from 42 Dollars to 400 or so. And one unit sale for Apple? Anything from a couple of hundred bucks to 6,000 or so. What the hell is he gibbering about?

He's not talking about the amount of cash income from sales. I believe in the last quarter, Apple sold 30 billion and Windows 250. There's no way that that's 30 to one.

So, what is he talking about?

Remember that Ballmer is "mathematically challenged," and was spouting that Zune (Canadian French slang for "female genitals") had 25 (twenty five) percent of the MP3 player market at one point.

This guy is so full of bullshit.

John Davis

What are we counting here? The number of unit sales? What's one Windows unit sale in Dollars? Anything from 42 Dollars to 400 or so. And one unit sale for Apple? Anything from a couple of hundred bucks to 6,000 or so. What the hell is he gibbering about?

He's not talking about the amount of cash income from sales. I believe in the last quarter, Apple sold 30 billion and Windows 250. There's no way that that's 30 to one.

So, what is he talking about?

Remember that Ballmer is "mathematically challenged," and was spouting that Zune (Canadian French slang for "female genitals") had 25 (twenty five) percent of the MP3 player market at one point.

This guy is so full of bullshit.

John Davis

Move along people...nothing to see here...

"Developers!, developers!, developers!" Maybe Mr. Ballmer should watch his own video and think back on WWDC.

The man does not have a clue.

Microsoft innovation is an oxymoron.

With their new Mojave Experiment thing, they try to make people think this Vista crap is good instead of make it good, like they always done. If I say to Microsoft, Apple has better products than yours they will say we don't care because people is still buying our crap.

Ballmer is a slob and a moron. He wants to "drive" and "push" developers to follow Microsoft's whims, rather than creating and expanding great platforms that are attractive to developers. From a consumer standpoint, He wants to "redefine the meaning and value of Windows" rather than do more to address Vista's glaring problems. In other words, he want to change peoples minds rather than fixing up the crap they are selling.

And what is his big "beat google" strategy? Buy up other companies that are already losing to Google? I can't see why Microsoft even wanted Yahoo in the first place, but I guess Ballmer is already looking for the next wounded search company they can rebrand as "Your Personal Windows Online World" or some other such nonsense. I think Yahoo really would be great if it just had that logo with the four colored boxes on it! Seriously Ballmer?

Which leads me to my next point. Ballmer seems to be a branding retard. Is everything Microsoft produces Windows somehow? What the hell is the difference between "Microsoft Live" and "Online Services"? I thought Live was an online service.

@Ballmer - invent names that mean something. Invent products people actually want. Do it better than the competition, or don't do it at all.

Meanwhile, you don't need to invent anything to compete better in your "Live" business. Let people send Hotmail email to their computers and phones with POP3 instead of forcing them to pay for stuff the competition is giving away for free. Thats just one way to give a better "end to end" experience. Unfortunately, competing seriously requires making a few "compromises", and giving consumers what they actually want. If not the free market will eventually kick your ass.