Microsoft's competition might be looking for a silent contender, but they won't find it in CEO Steve Ballmer. Rather than relying on the software giant's marketing professionals to dish dirt on competitors, Ballmer does it himself. And he does it quite often.
On Tuesday, Ballmer had some interesting things to say about Google and its upcoming Chrome operating system.
Steve Ballmer fielding a question from Fortune's Geoff Colvin.
(Credit: Screenshot by Ina Fried/CNET)Speaking in an onstage question-and-answer session following his speech at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, Ballmer told those in attendance that he doesn't "know if Google can't make up their mind or what the problem is over there...The last time I checked, you don't need two client operating systems."
Ballmer couldn't quite stop himself there. He had a few more interesting things to say about Chrome OS.
"Who knows what this thing is?" Ballmer said. "To me, the Chrome OS thing is highly interesting--it won't happen for a year and a half, and they already announced an operating system (Android)."
With all those zingers flying around, it made me start remembering other instances in which Ballmer has taken a company or product to task. So I decided to search Google for all results matching "Ballmer disses." Amazingly, the search returned more than 125,000 results.
Microsoft's CEO likes to hit the competition with some pretty tough comments. Here's what he's had to say about some of his most prominent competitors over time.
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Melinda Gates was recently interviewed in Vogue magazine and had some rather interesting things to say about her husband and the technology in her home.
According to Gates, both she and Bill have strict rules forbidding their children from having an iPod or iPhone.
"There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household," Gates tells Vogue. "But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids."
But it gets better. Gates went on to say that there is an "inevitable lure of forbidden fruit" and "every now and then" she looks at her friends and says, "'Ooh, I wouldn't mind having that iPhone.'"
Of course, the blogosphere has erupted, adding fuel to the Bill Gates fire that might never extinguish. In fact, commenters on David Carnoy's Crave article first reporting on this story have delivered some interesting takes on the issue.
"That is kind of a pathetic insecurity that demonstrates just how little confidence Gates and wife have in the products that built their lives," a commenter named ewlech wrote.
In Gates' defense, commenter David Dudley writes, "I don't think it's a confidence issue, they just don't see a point in using their own cash to increase market share of a competitor. You certainly would not espouse Apple to use Dell servers in their internal infrastructure despite opinions of what is 'superior' or otherwise, right?"
The argument could rage for hours. But I don't think it's as difficult an issue as some might think. If I were Bill Gates and I had three children running around my mansion, I'd ban all Apple products, Nintendo consoles and handhelds, Linux, and every single Zune competitor. There's something to be said about family loyalty.
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Is Apple recession-proof? It's possible. Oh, and sorry about the date -- I taped this the other day and forgot to post.
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