Ballmer on search: 'I don't like not being No. 1'
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said his company may be the only one with a chance to rival Google in search over the long term, but acknowledged that it will take several more years and a whole lot of money.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
"It's going to take us a while," he said, during a speech at the Churchill Club. "We've got a lot to do."
Venture Capitalist Ann Winblad, who was moderating the talk with Ballmer, noted that when Ballmer addressed the club in 2006, he said search was a five-year battle.
"It's a five-year task," he said, with a smile. "It's a long-term task."
To succeed, he said, the company will have to find a way to fundamentally change the experience and the economics of search. "You have to redefine the category," Ballmer said. "We've taken some steps in that direction."
"You don't really brute force your way into any market," he said. (I looked around, but I didn't see anyone choke on their water over that one.)
On the antitrust front, Winblad asked Ballmer if he had any advice for Google's executives. "I'd probably keep that advice to myself," he said.
He also stayed silent on several other topics, such as a question about "Red Dog," the company's rumored competitor to Amazon's EC2. He did promise Microsoft would have much more to say in six weeks at the company's Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles.
He did say that Red Dog and other cloud computing efforts are key to winning the battle for developers, particularly Web developers.
"I think at the end of the day, cloud computing will be dictated by the interests and the degree to which you capture the imagination of developers," Ballmer said.
On other topics:
The Seinfeld-Gates ads: "It was a two-week campaign but man did it get people talking for more than two weeks," Ballmer said.
The phone business: In five to ten years, Ballmer said all of the one billion cell phones sold a year will be smartphones. He said that means that software and hardware are likely to separate, at least in the mass market. He said of the players in that area--Windows Mobile, Symbian, Linux mobile and Android--Microsoft's is the most mature.
He said RIM and Apple may have nice and profitable businesses, but they are likely to be niches. "We're kind of battling for the big part," Ballmer said. "That doesn't mean Apple and RIM wont make lots of money."
On Windows-related headaches: "Every version of Windows statistically... gets better than versions before," he said. "I'm not saying that we are there yet."
With Vista, Ballmer said Microsoft made a choice, right or wrong, to change some things that caused compatibility issues in the name of security.
He said that it would be easier if Microsoft was trying to build a fixed-function device rather than an open, general-purpose platform. Still, he said, the goal is a system that everyone likes. "Every day we've got 5,000 people...that come to work just focused on that single challenge."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
Stupid users.... no idea that computers are used for so many more things than email, web and picture editing.
we were given choice, we chose mac, we get just as much done... stupid elitist.
Linux and Windows PC's can do this without any issue. The Apple platform cannot and that was by Apple's choice to limit your 'choice'. Deal with it. Don't fixate on an 'us vs. them' mentality. You pick your OS and use it as you need to.
Adding complexity subtracts quality. It is time for all software vendors to start selling simplicity.
[1] Aero and XP Themes come to mind immediately
Google has built its brand on these qualities.
Microsoft is fat and the fit and cool companies have a better image than you.
In short, you have an image problem. Try changing that one in 5 years too.
I dont understand,,when google start office alike for free,people say that google is going to kill microsoft and microsoft is stupid,,,but when microsoft start to compete with google,they say microsoft should do what they are best in or they are totally fool...
Mac users are against microsoft,,,i dont understand why ....where as there nothing much different,other than UI,,and in real its microsoft OS which is best,,,dont you know that microsoft got the most share in OS.
And Microsoft not only reach its peak,,it also have accomplish its mission,as more than 90% of computers uses Windows,it is apple product which reach its peak.
I dont understand you people have to say windows is stupid and apple is great where as you people knows the truth.
Linux, BSD and OS X don't count CALs. Linux, BSD and OS X don't make non corporate users type in a serial number. They don't require an internet connection for activation (They don't have activation). Operating system configuration with Linux, BSD and OSX is not done with some stupid registry. it is done with well documented and well commented text files. Want to uninstall an application, just delete it's directory.
If you want to run a server, your only good choice is Linux or some color of BSD. If you want a front end for that server or a platform for users to run applications OS X is the best choice. If you want to play games, get Windows.
"Architecturally Windows is randomly thrown together garbage. We don't like Windows (or any Microsoft products) memory footprint. We don't like the percentage of clock cycles it eats. we don't like the number of processes it runs. We hate the registry We don't like the licensing. "
Please defend iTunes which has exactly the same issues that you pointed out, plus a plethora of more. The last time I checked, Microsoft wasn't installing Media Player or Zune software, or even IE and other applications onto your computer without your knowledge or approval. Quicktime installs all of that extra stuff unless you are quick enough to disable it. Even then, you still get iTunes and its content even if you don't own or use an iPod.
"The last time I checked, Microsoft wasn't installing Media Player or Zune software, or even IE and other applications onto your computer without your knowledge or approval."
Are you kidding me? What planet have you been on? Did you miss the antitrust suit that was brought against M$ over their software bundling, specifically IE? And yes it comes preinstalled on every damn Wndows PC out there. More fanboy FUD on the boards...
I do not use Windows Desktop search no matter how hard they try and try to install it on my pc.
MS search technology is worse than infoseek back in 1997.
And you can even compare it to infoseek in 1997 - which you didn't install either, I believe...
Google rose to the top because their main product is consistently tops in quality. No, not perfect, but certainly better than anything else out there.
Apple is rocketing in the consumer market because they set out to deliver a top quality product - not because there's some drive to somehow prove that their corporate pen!s is larger than everyone else's. Linux rose to prominence in the server room for the same reasons - the drive to deliver elegant solutions and to provide the best performance.
In the Cell space, RIM and Symbian are top-slot for the same reasons - they delivered products that people wanted and liked... and the iPhone is rising rapidly for the same reasons. Windows Mobile is languishing because, well... by and large, they don't.
There was once a time when Microsoft focused on quality (to a degree), plus a combination of luck, marketing, and timing which got them to where they are today. Judging from Windows' falling marketshare in the consumer space, and the debacle of Vista, it seems that quality is something Microsoft is having a harder and harder time with. Folks don't want to merely put up with Windows anymore... they want more. Apple and Linux are giving them more.
If Ballmer wants his company to survive 10 years hence (and not go the way of, oh, Unisys), Quality had damned well better become his top priority, not this infantile drive to become top dog.
/P
It doesn't do well in a business market for desktop use. The adoption rate simply isn't there as Apple doesn't have a support model available to give the guarantees needed.
Linux is good for servers. Again, not so much for business use in desktops for the same reason as for Apple.
Use whatever product works for you and your needs. Badmouth everything Microsoft as Penguinisto is wont to do, and you are only fooling yourself. Face facts and the reality of the situation. Deal with it. Use what works for you.
Note that I'm not saying all of this (or the original post) to "badmouth" Microsoft, but because they actually have an opportunity to make a positive difference, but MSFT is consistently failing to recognize, let alone implement necessary changes.
They had a chance to break with the shackles of the past w/ Vista (as OSX did from MacOS), but instead they keep stretching NT to see how far it can stretch. The cracks are showing, and it's all beginning to falter for them. Nowadays, MSFT appears to just be praying that Moore's Law can eventually do what they themselves are failing to do: provide performance to go with the featureset (what features they do provide, that is).
Dude, that's no way to run a biz - and it's a sure way to insure one's own decline as a market force.
No skin off mine, but it'll be interesting to see where the MSFT defenders are as its marketshare gets smaller and smaller, in more and more markets...
If you commit a crime and get convicted for it, you forfeit whatever benefits you got from the crime. If you stole money, you are forced to return it. If you kill your parents, you cannot inherit their wealth.
Microsoft was convicted of committing a crime namely,
(i) that it monopolized the market for operating systems of personal computers and took anti-competitive actions to illegally maintain its monopoly;
(ii) that it attempted to monopolize the market for Internet browsers because such browsers would create competition for operating systems;
(iii) that it bundled its browser (Internet Explorer) with Windows; and that it engaged in a number of other anti-competitive exclusionary arrangements with computer manufacturers, Internet service providers, and content providers attempting to thwart the distribution of Netscape?s browser.
And yet the benefits they got from that crime were never taken away from them. They still have an OS monopoly, they still have a browser monopoly. And I doubt very much that they are now upstanding corporate citizens when it comes to predatory monopolistic behavior.
That's why I am against Microsoft.
upstanding corporate citizens == predatory monopolistic behaviour
Assuming the definition of upstanding corporate citizens is to make profit, and most shareholders would be assuming that :)
On Search: No you don't need to redefine the catagory unless you like being Number 1 in a small niche. If you want to be number 1 you provide relevant search results in a format that is useful. Just do it better than the other guys. Simple eh?
To get back to the subject: I haven't seen a Microsoft spawned search yet that I've used willingly, if Google is there.
I do think that MS spreads themselves really thin by trying to be a "jack of all trades" and they turn out being a "master of none".
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by zmonster
September 26, 2008 10:59 AM PDT
- Microsoft is unfortunately a bankrupt company -- bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of talent, and bankrupt of leadership (most importantly). They are dying a slow, ugly death. The Windows installed base will steadily shrink over the next decade in favor of Linux and Mac OS. I predict the company will be forced into financial bankruptcy even before that, possibly by 2015.
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