Comments on: Ballmer stumps for openness in bid to beat Apple

Microsoft's CEO is suddenly a friend of openness, when it gives him a stick with which to beat Apple. He seems to have a short memory on Microsoft's strategies.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Apple is a Walled-Garden...exactly why I will never use anything Apple. And Mac doesn`t play my games.
Windows is THE gaming platform.
And besides , Macs are known to give you pancreatic cancer ;)

[The_happy_switcher]

"Macs are known to give you pancreatic cancer" Just when I thought you couldn't say write anything stupider you have proven everyone wrong--again.

[Dalkorian]

Pancreatic cancer? Wow, I knew M$ slaves were dumber than dirt, but I had no idea you were THAT stupid.

I feel sorry for you. Truly I do.

[nixermac]

I never like to comment on your comments though this time I find that you are being rude with your personal attack on Steve Jobs' health. Frankly cancer is not something anyone wants or gets as an infection. It happens. We must be appreciative that Steve has withstood it all and has helped the IT change its course. He is a visionary and we must refrain from personal attacks.

AFA your preference of Windows is concerned for playing games is concerned, it is good what you like. I am no game player so I do not worry about it. What is good for you is good for you. It may not be.

I appreciate that you have some really good view about many other things on CNet.

[MaggieRed]

Ever consider that his objective is to get others to open up and provide their work free to MS which allows them to jump ahead of the competitor and pull down the price while doing so. This way he gets around all those patents and licensing to make competing products. The are unable to innovate themselves, but they sure like to redefine the word innovate.

[dumbspammers]

"I have no love of MS. That said, there is a reason that MS dominates the desktops of the world"

Yes, and that reason is unlawful marketing practices, which is how MS established their monopoly on OEM computers. This is a matter of legal record, not merely my opinion.

U.S. v. Microsoft Corporation, Civ. Action No. 94-1564 (SS) (D. DC, filed May 15, 1994) was the first filing I could find. There have been numerous others in both the US and Europe.

[dumbspammers]

Then sell, sell, sell. That's classic stock market strategy: Buy on a rising trend, sell on a falling trend. Microsoft is losing market share, and has been consistently for over a year. Hanging on to MSFT stock is a losing strategy. I have a professional investor handling my portfolio - I don't own any MSFT any more.

[developerdude2]

mmm Allot of your comments and this storey seem hypocritical maybe more than Balmer. You are criticizing somebody who is for openness albeit his history. But more to the point he comments seem to focus on Balmer being scared that Apple have a better product and that Balmer is scared. But isnt an argument for openness the fact that Apple could then have a better product if it was open otherwise why else open it up unless you admit that a closed product performs best. So Balmer is siding with the open community to help Apple have a better product and if Apple open it up MS wont sell a produt on the iphone as nobody is going to pay for it when it is open because everyone can build those products. You guys just seem to enjoy complaining and I think if everything ever was open would still complain.

[Dalkorian]

Reading this post, the reading the poster's "name" - well, I had a good laugh. For a "developerdude", your spelling and grammar is atrocious. Did you go to school at all? If so, sue your former teachers, for they have failed you.

Did anyone understand what was said in that post? I got lost somewhere after the second "sentence".

[richard-head]

Part of the success of the original MSDOS PC relative to Apple was arguably due to it's open hardware platform. Maybe that's an indication to MS that openness is good - just a shame that they've not really grasped the concept when it comes to software. Ballmer is probably just using openness as the precursor to MS traditional approach to standards: "embrace and extend".

[wheresjbob]

Hey, I sympathize with Ballmer. Apple is making it way too hard for him to steal their IP!! The hen house is discriminating against the fox. ;)

[fhaidacher]

I remember Microsoft whining about the right they had to innovate, at the time that they were being investigated by the DOJ. All their mumbo-jumbo about innovation went so far as to appease the public and manipulate the media. Where is the innovation in Excel for heavens sake??? I love Excel, but have worked with the same raggedy chart object for decades. Same old piece of junk that should be light years ahead by now. So this innovation excuse was only the same foul stench that comes out of their filth holes (as another collegue brilliantly puts it in another post), blabbering nonsense disguised as very intelligent eloquence that only the smart minds as Micro$oft understand.

So why should this new openness nonsense be different from their usual BS we have always heard from them? Well, to me it's not different at all, same unbearably disgusting breath ... It is because they would like to be in the exact same position as Apple that they are talking like this. If they already were in that position, they would be talking about innovation ...

Apple has proven to everyone in the planet that they are masters in finding ways to make better products in a way that M$ will never be even close. Has Apple made mistakes? Yes, sure, undeniably. But none comparable to the flops of astronomical magnitude that M$ has made in the recent past (Millenium and Vista just for starters). And I remember this same Steve Ballmer in a well known trade show a few years ago, catastrophizing about the grim fate that the iPhone would have due to all sorts of problems he said he found in it. A couple of years later, he is pathetically eating all his words! I hope he does not get sick - just to imagine the sort of things he has to put back in his mouth!