Comments on: Ballmer: Google, Google, the economy, Google

In an interview with CNET News, Microsoft CEO talks about Windows, taking software to the Web, and competing with the search king. But there's no escaping the bad economy.

[rshimizu12]

Will a full version of the interview be published...?

[solitare_pax]

No surprises here - still after Google and anything else not aligned with Microsoft. But a "reset" of the economy? Gee, I'd like to have my credit card reset if that's possible.

I do think Mr. Ballmer's looking rather sickly in that photo you have of him. Why aren't you trumpeting the imminent demise of Microsoft because of his unhealthy looks as is the custom with Mr. Jobs and Apple?

[MafiaPenguin]

"Gee, I'd like to have my credit card reset if that's possible."
lol.

[CDubber]

Agreed. Someone floats a rumor of Steve Jobs (the skinny vegan), of all people, having a heart attack, of all things, and the market has a freak attack.

Sweaty Ballmer comes out on stage bursting at the sweater seams like a sausage in a casing and nobody even blinks.

That this man is a billionaire is one of fate's greatest pranks upon mankind. Ever.

[MMC Racing]

Silly Apple people - if Ballmer got so sick he had to leave his job, the stock would probably rally. He is viewed as holding the company back more than helping it.

[dhavleak]

Exactly (what MMC Racing said).

To be precise -- MS isn't short of leadership, and especially not of leadership that has public exposure. Steve Jobs is just about the only guy at Apple that ever announces any new stuff. There's a difference.

Besides - Ballmer was looking like his usual self - he always looks sweaty and he's always been a bit 'robust'.

[Penguinisto]

Actually, MMCRacing has a point - Ballmer is often a bigger detriment to MSFT than a help.

While MSFT isn't short of leadership, it is short on vision, drive, and the guts required to make Windows more than the mediocre product that it is.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Pengunisto;

It's ironic that Apple suffers from having a perceived lack of leadership outside of Jobs, whereas Microsoft has the leadership but not the drive for new products from start to finish.

If only we could combine the two, we'd have... well, nothing would actually work then since it would be like putting two cats in a bag tied shut, but it's a silly thought.

[Ian_Joyner]

Microsoft are headed for a big fall the same way MS did to IBM, which is why they are paranoid. Instead of seeing Google as bringing something to their Windows platform, MS sees Google as foe, because no one else is allowed to have a good idea. This might appeal to corporate types who just want to control the flow of money in the world, but that paradigm is breaking down big time.

Point is that MS can't keep Google off their platform the same way they did with Netscape (and yes they were found guilty of this). Technology is becoming the level playing field and those who cooperate will flourish. Those who think it's about competition are doomed to fail.... Discuss!

[Super2online]

There you go again, trumpeting the imminent demise of Microsoft just because Google does search well, has a few web apps, and released a phone OS. Competition is alive and well, always has been, always will be. Microsoft has massive cash cow businesses in 50 times more places than Google has. There is just no comparison.

Microsoft keeps Google at the top of the list as a competitor because of the income they generate, and that comes from just one place- search, no where else. The reason Microsoft is pushing hard to catch up with search is because when they really begin to compete in that area, Googles one trick pony income begins to wane. Microsoft has a long way to go to get there. But they will, they have a long history and corporate DNA of coming way behind to take the top position.

That being said Google will be around forever. They have created something that generates that kind of money, and hired the kind of talent that gaurantees it. Microsft will be here forever and so will Google. Is one of them going to knock off the other- it will never happen. Will they compete- fiercely. It's all well and good. Take the tired Google will rule the world and put it where it belongs- in the wishful thinking pile of rubbish on the street curb waiting for pick up to the landfill.

[dhavleak]

@ Ian_Joyner

It's not that nobody else is allowed to have a good idea. It's just that if (as everyone has been predicting for years now) web-apps start replacing desktop apps, then MS will be out of business. So it's better for them to compete in the space now, and have viable market share if and when the switch happens.

btw: MS didn't do anything to IBM. MS is still much smaller (by a factor of 3 in terms of revenue and by about the same factor in terms of head count).

Further -- MS cannot, and did not keep anybody "off their platform". If a user installed Netscape and ran it there wasn't a damn thing Netscape could do. Firefox has pretty much proved that Netscape's flaw was simply that it was not a good enough browser. If you want to beat the apps that ship with Windows you have to create a better app. Simple. It's absolute bollocks to say that MS can't bundle a web browser with their OS -- it's a fundamental requirement that users have, and MS recognized it a long time ago -- hence the bundling of IE4. The DOJ case against MS *said this was ok*. They were found guilty of not allowing OEMs to pre-install other OSes as part of their contractual agreements when purchasing OEM windows licenses. That practice was banned by the DOJ.

[Penguinisto]

@dhavleak: Not exactly correct about Netscape. You forget that in those days, a 14.4k modem was about it for speed, and for most folks, downloading a multi-MB package was nearly a day-long ordeal... MSFT also committed antitrust crimes by demanding that OEMs either cut off Netscape, or end up not selling Windows on their systems.

This threw two artificial barriers in front of Netscape: The download issue, and folks not even knowing Netscape existed in the first place.

[ckurowic]

@Super2online: "Microsoft has massive cash cow businesses in 50 times more places than Google has. ". Like what? The ONLY cash cow they have is Office. I'm pretty sure that is common knowledge. Microsoft doesn't even make 50 products!

[CBattery]

"MSFT also committed antitrust crimes by demanding that OEMs either cut off Netscape, or end up not selling Windows on their systems."

Can you site a source for this? I followed the case pretty closely and I don't ever recall this being an issue.

"Microsoft doesn't even make 50 products! "

You need to get off the couch and enter the IT world. Microsoft sells 100s of products that run everything from small handheld devices to cars to nuclear submarines. You probably touch Microsoft code 15 times a day and don't even realize it.

[dhavleak]

@penguinisto

You're revising history a bit when it comes to Netscape:
1. Netscape, by virtue of being the first commercial browser, was the dominant browser with virtually 100% market share before MS started its push with IE. That's a serious position of strength to start from.
2. MS did not do deals with OEMs prohibiting them from installing Netscape -- their deals (which were halted by the DOJ) excluded OEMs from installing other OSes if they wanted to continue to install Windows. Not a defense for Microsoft, but not a disadvantage for Netscape either.
3. Netscape was available *eveywhere*. It was impossible to pick up a magazie that didn't barf out a CD with a netscape on it.

Without regurgitating the entire timeline, suffice it to say that between Netscape's demise, and Phoenix's (Firefox's) arrival -- IE enjoyed a *long* reign in which there were simply no credible competitors. It's no wonder that IE's rendering quirks became defacto web standard. The rest of the industry is just as guilty as MS for this -- for something they thought was really really important, they sure took their own sweet time to come up with competing solutions.

Now here's the kicker -- what did Firefox do differently than Netscape to win marketshare back? They *stopped whining* about defacto standards. They *didn't waste time paying lobbyists* to get the DOJ to pressure MS over antitrust BS. They just said -- hey, our quirks mode has to mirror IE's quirks mode well enough, so that a bad html site that renders in IE should render in our browser as well.

Well played, Firefox dudes -- well played!

The thing I like most about FF -- they didn't ***** in court or to the EU (ala Opera) about say, IE not being standards compliant. They just made it a point to mention that they do a good job with standards compliance. Well played again.

Now the only area where I'll grant Netscape was disadvantaged -- they didn't have an easy way of monetizing their product once IE became a viable competitor. But again that goes to my main point. They started out with virtually 100% of the market. Their quirks mode was the defacto standard back then (prior to August 1995). It was absolutely imperative for them to just keep grinding away to have the fastest, lightest, bestest browser so that they remained the "must have" because of those random sites that won't render with IE that keep popping up because site developers would have to target Netscape first and worry about IE next. The squandered that position -- and the blame lies squarely on them.

And the worst part of it all! The lobbying money from Netscape, Sun Micro and others to get the DOJ to investigate MS. These are all companies that were resting on thier laurels thinking that past success entitles them to future profits. They turned MS into a political company. Bill Gates himself has said in an interview that MS was non-political and did not pander to lobbyists until the DOJ case, when they realized that they got screwed because of other companies that were spending lobbying dollars. Google is on the verge of learning the same lesson (think antitrust investigations into the DoubleClick acquisition). Both sides have to pay the damn lobbyists to neutralize political forces otherwise the non-paying party will get screwed. It's extortion, plain and simple.

[MSSlayer]

Quirks mode is the worst idea ever. No wonder MS loves it. Nobody other then MS loves to tolerate incompetence. What is funny is that web page design is so bloody easy to do correctly.

If a page isn't standards compliant, the browser should throw up an error.

That would fix the issue of crappy web page design pretty damn quick.

[dhavleak]

MSSlayer -- it's just not that simple. Not even close to it.

1. The HTML rendering spec is a moving target. It's been revised countless times since 1995. If you design a page that was compliant in 1995, it might not be compliant right now. Businesses can't skip the rope every time the spec changes (however minimal the change might be) -- there's bound to be a gap in spec updates, and pages getting updated. For some computer novice trying to run a website for say business purposes -- he/she might never update it at all, might never even know how to make it standards compliant. Erroring out on such pages dis-empowers such novice users.

2. The HTML spec. is relatively mature now. Back in the time of the Netscape vs. IE battles it was not quite as mature. It was possible to write standards complaint pages, that still had room for different interpretations on how to render them.

3. Would you (as a browser maker) chose to error out the page as opposed to making a best-effort to display the data? Can you imagine the reviews -- "xyz browser can only display 30% of the pages you'll encounter on the net. You as a user will suffer, but you should still use it because it's standards compliant". No browser maker can afford to make that leap first.

4. Standards-compliance for HTML (HTML/CSS/JavaScript/everything) is *still* not completely nailed. The acid tests are only a fraction of what goes into validating compliance. MS themselves contributed some 2000 or 4000 tests to the public domain for validating compliance recently. It's a super-complex spec. It's gonna be a while before a complete test suite is developed, that you can use to get real confidence about how your browser complies with standards. People tend to take the ACID tests way too literally. Compliance is a *much* more complex matter than running ACID tests.

[dhavleak]

@ MS Slayer:

I just realized that I responded to your comment with far more civility than I should have. I'm specifically referring to this comment of yours: "Quirks mode is the worst idea ever. No wonder MS loves it. Nobody other then MS loves to tolerate incompetence."

Nobody other than MS *loves* to tolerate incompetence???

Quirks mode has existed as long as browsers have existed, in one way or another. Deliberate non-recognition of standards has been taken to much greater levels by browsers other than IE. Think ECMAScript vs. JavaScript in Netscape. NCSA mosaic had it's share of rendering bugs that had to be taken into consideration for Netscape's quirks. Lynx probably had a similar effect on Mosaic.

You give MS far too much credit, and you're analyzing the matter with an attitude of assigning blame to a single party. A little historical perspective is necessary. When it comes to web standards, there's plenty of blame to go around. Part of the blame is simply attributable to the imperfect nature of software and standards evolution.

[sanjayb]

It will be interesting to see if the masses will embrace Windows 7. Heaven help MS if Windows 7 gets rejected like Vista did. MS will be wondering what the heck they have to do make it better.

I agree about the Google comments. Maybe MS should be working together with Google as opposed to fighting them.

[Renegade Knight]

MS will try to pawn off Vista as ME, but they can't. 7 is shaping up to be nothing more than Vista should have been. At worst 7 should have been SP1.

If 7 works people will go there. However they will remember that MS didn't stand by Vista and let it die and take peoples time, and money with it.

[robvme]

I think Google is probably as much, if not more, concerned about the economic condition than Microsoft. When you compare revenue streams of the two, Google really has the majority of its eggs in one basket which is driven by the advertising agency. A ***** in that and they could be in for trouble. They have to get beyond search and produce some more areas of revenue generation. The Google phone is a nice start. Microsoft on the other hand, has multiple streams of revenue and potential for more with piles of cash and no debt. Economic conditions can actually be an advantage as customers try to and find ways to save money with technology, something search doesn't really fit into when it comes to information work and productivity. Glad to see these two companies duking it out, it has made many things better and rasied expectations on the consumer end.

[robvme]

not sure why my comment was edited. "a c-h-i-n-k" is what I typed, does CNET think I was using an expletive offensive to asians? If so, my apologies. I was working from the definition below:

******? ?/t???k/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [chingk] Show IPA Pronunciation

?noun 1. a crack, cleft, or fissure: a ****** in a wall.
2. a narrow opening: a ****** between two buildings.
?verb (used with object) 3. to fill up ****** in.

[robvme]

I guess CNET doesn't like the word and edited the dictonary definition. Anyway, I think everyone knows what I meant in the context of my comment. CNET...get someone to fix your censor bots.

[jwissick]

WIndows 7. Meh.

MS is done. Emergency patches every few weeks. I am sick of insecure OSs. I am sick of losing 20% of my machines power cause of anti-virus software. Vista was the last straw. A 10 gig OS?? How big will 7 be? 20 gigs? 30? I am sick of BLOATware. I am sick of getting a fast machine then the next year I install the next version of Windows then it slows instantly to a crawl.

MS's day is past.

[7aji88]

most modern OSs are at least 6 GB when installed with most of their features. XP was more than 4GB. Therefore if Windows 7 is 10GB then it most comes with tons of built-in features and programs. Divx codec will be included just to give an idea about how much is inside 7

[Mark_Anderson]

@jwissick

Rubbish.

There is nothing factual about your post at all.

[Super2online]

Get a life!

[Penguinisto]

@7aji88:

Incorrect. For 4GB, Vista gives you an OS and a few basic apps - that's it. For 4GB in Linux, I get an OS (the average Linux kernel is only ~50MB in size), and literally thousands upon thousands of end-user apps. Ubuntu for instance can install off of a single CD-ROM if I desire, and take even less space if I choose to... and I'd still have more apps than Vista provides.

@MArk_Anderson: Depending on his A/V suite, it can eat 20% easily (esp. during scanning).

[ckurowic]

I agree. You just don't get that bloat and slow down with Linux and Unix based machines. Sorry M$oft, Unix was here first. Your cut-throat marketing gimmicks can only last so long.

[Mark_Anderson]

@Penguin

Then he needs to change his AV software which is clealry the problem. As for scanning, most good ones do it real time and if you do want to do an in depth one then schedule it for when you're away or asleep.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Penguinisto:

Yes, you can indeed install Ubuntu from a single disk- just as you can with pretty much any OS today.


I'm curious how you can have 2000+ applications fully installed in that 4Gb Linux setup. Could you please list them? I'd like to see some sort of evidence to back up your claim. Otherwise it is complete heresay and considered gibberish. I don't even need a list- just some sort of evidence. Now remember these would need to be installed apps- not ones in packages or compressed archives waiting to be installed. Don't bother including 'apps' like 'mail' or 'ftp' either. People are too smart to fall for that sort of deception. I want to see a real world list. A directory listing would suffice.

Doing that would greatly substantiate your claim and really help to promote Linux.

[MSSlayer]

"most modern OSs are at least 6 GB when installed with most of their features."

OpenSuse 11.0, which is one of the more bloated Linux distros can neatly fit the OS in under 2 GB, even all the eye candy crap. While running it uses less then 1 GB of RAM.

There is no excuse for the bloat of MS operating systems.

[MSSlayer]

Vegehead,

Mail programs and FTP aren't "real world"?

Idiot

[t8]

In an economic downturn people spend less so that is bad for Microsoft. That includes advertising which is Google's revenue stream, however advertising is essential and it may turn out that revenue from other forms of advertising will drop and Net advertising remain the same or increase. Why? Because it is measurable down to the click. In a good or bad economy, companies know what a click is worth to them and people will spend if they make a profit.

[dhavleak]

Online advertising pays different rates based on views, clicks, and purchases. Purchases pay the most, clicks second and views fetch the lowest rates (though obviously views outnumber clicks, which in turn outnumber purchases).

In a slow economy it's conceivabe that purchaces decline, and clicks do as well. That would result in less revenue for Google (and MS's Live Search, Yahoo etc.). If advertising budgets tighten, Google might have to offer more competetive (lower) rates as well. At the same time, online advertising continues to be a growth space.

Bottom line -- it's premature to predict what will happen to Google's revenues during the economic downturn.

[Mark_Anderson]

I wonder if the ABM brigade hang around Ina's blogs, feverishly waiting for anything at all to type their poorly formed sentences about?

Yes, I suspect they do.

[yangpu6]

Very nice interview Ina, thanks.

Based on the above publication, I think that there is nothing new in substance from Ballmer, as others have also remarked. And this is exactly why Ballmer's talk was easy to give; and this is, in fact, exactly what is wrong with Microsoft.

Ballmer constantly thinks about catching up with Google. Why doesn't he think about changing the game altogether? It's not about catching up with your competitor. It is, in fact, all about already starting with your nose over the finishing line of another race.

[QcColin]

All this talk about the "new improved Vista" is just talk. After Vista, i could no longer be a fan of microsoft. Microsoft 7 will have to be something astounding to go back. As for google, if they put out anything i am a fan of it because it works, effortlessly.

[MSSlayer]

Google apps are very poorly written and are nothing more then a trojan horse used to snoop on you.

[dascha1]

Frankly, I'm surprised his answer was about the economy, the economy, windows media drm, the economy...

http://google.com/search?q=windows+media+drm+diagram

[ckurowic]

The biggest problem I have with Microsoft these days is their push for cloud computing. The US just does not have the infrastructure. I can't hardly rely on the Internet to deliver my mail in a timely fashion. How can I trust it for creating documents?

[smilin:)]

It's called forward thinking. Don't worry, while you criticize them for doing it, someone else on here will criticize them for not doing it.

Meh.

[MSSlayer]

Of course MS pushes cloud computing since it is a meaningless marketing term. It is nothing new. See: mainframes and thin clients.

[jtjt145]

Moon-face Ballmer wants Micro$oft to get on par with Google's search engine.

After Micro$oft has demonstrated for years that they are a monopolist, and are willing to eat babies to maintain their market share, can anyone really imagine that the world is interested in them ever reaching that goal?

[odaynasser]

Windows 7 Facebook Fan Page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Microsoft-Windows-7/39012423321?sid=7ba85d510748c78fc91287ae28bdd38d&ref=s