Microsoft's battering ram is coming

It had momentum. It had the chant. But in the end, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer didn't get off his stage chair to do "the developers dance."

Ballmer, who delivered a keynote speech Wednesday at Software 2007, was on a roll when answering a question poised by Madhavan "M.R." Rangaswami, the founder and moderator of the event.

Ballmer, who spoke of the value of Microsoft's Office Business Applications, came alive when asked about Microsoft's drive to strive for dominance in markets it competes.

"It's hard for me to run a company that doesn't aspire to be No. 1...and in those markets that we aren't, we are willing to be patient, said Ballmer, who then launched into a passionate retort, "We'll keep coming, and coming, and coming, and coming...and where we aren't No. 1, maybe someday we will be."

Does the image of a battering ram come to mind?

On the issue of a possible Yahoo-Microsoft acquisition, Ballmer's response to Rangaswami's question was more opaque.

Without mentioning the name of a recently rumored Microsoft acquisition candidate, Rangaswami asked Ballmer if the software giant would consider swallowing a $40 billion company, or stick to smaller deals.

Ballmer responded with a non-committal comment that Microsoft typically has not acquired large companies in relation to its massive size, but, then again, its willing to snap up deals that fulfill its ambitions.

[Jesus#2]

Ballmer is..

an idiot.
He will be the death of Microsoft.
He has no vision... and is completely out of touch with the
consumer market.

[coryschulz]

MS go down the hooooole....

Ballmer really is a major part of the reason MS fails at so many things. It's kind of sad, really, because if they got rid of him, I still think MS has a lot of potential. Bill Gates probably didn't help much either... But I think Ray Ozzie is doing a lot to transform the way MS functions. He's very smart, especially at internet based things, and we should not underestimate him. In the end, Apple is still way ahead of them in so many priceless ways that no matter how much money they spend, they'll always be a little behind companies like Apple and Google. It's sad really....

[Sniche]

"To Be Number One"

You need Steve to do his "developers dance", because without their
developers and a good OS, they are nothing and Apple know this.

[oakwoodbaseball]

correct me if im wrong

But everything Microsoft has used the "Battering Ram" on has
ended up in failure. The Zune was the suposid iPod Killed it
failed at that. Vista which is a copy of Mac OS X was poorly
copied and people realized that. The only thing that has been
half way sucessfull is the xbox 360. Microsoft can spend as
much money as they want trying to attack there compition
A.K.A. Apple. But they wont be sucessfull cause they have no
real creative side to them. Microsoft likes to copy products and
rename it and market it as their own. Thats the micrsoft way. If
they do actually create a product it takes them a short time to
devlope but end up delaying it several times "to work out
problems" after a competior releases something better. Once it
is released it usally winds up failing and makeing Microsoft look
stupid.

[ismaelc]

huh

HAHAHAHA!

very tired arguments man. i'm so sick of hearing the same things over and over. please be unique, i beg everyone.