Ballmer on Apple-Intel news: Whatever

ORLANDO, FLA.--Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's reaction to Apple Computer's decision to use Intel processors can be summed up in two words: "What's changed?"

Speaking Monday at Microsoft's TechEd customer conference, Ballmer questioned whether Apple's move to Intel for its PCs changes the competitive dynamic between Microsoft and Apple.

"Will there be more device drivers because of this? No, Apple has their device model--we have ours. Will there more hardware manufacturers that build Apple machines other than Apple? That's a whole business model change. No reason to believe so," he said. "Frankly, if people wanted to do that, they could have been buying parts from IBM. What changed?"

Ballmer also suggested that the chip change could reduce the number of applications available on Mac OS.

"There's more applications available for Windows than there are on Apple. All a chip change could do is probably slow that down because maybe there would be a big disruption with your ISV community...There's more training, knowledge, management on how to implement networks," Ballmer said. "What changes? I don't know."