Ballmer on iPhone Marketshare

[MacRumors]

USA Today interviewed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about his thoughts on the iPhone. While Ballmer gives credit to Apple's early move into the music arena, he doubts the iPhone will gain any significant marketshare:

Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

(Note that Ballmer assumes that the $500 iPhone is subsidized, but there has been speculation and rumor that this is not the case.)

[OwlsAndApples]

Everyone's a critic...

[chris.niziolek]

It figures that a Microsoft CEO would say that.

[FJ218700]

3% of 1.3 Billion in 39 million. Ballmer is actually more optimistic than Apple.

[jwa276]

Wasn't the iPod "destined to eventually fail" as well?

[Johnstkr]

I imagine apple would be happy with the 30 - 45 million phones that 2-3% would represent at a 50% profit margin you are looking at 75+ billion dollars

[chaslam]

God I really cant believe this guy. He pisses me off to no end. You dont see apple commenting about what microsoft are doing and badmouthing them do you? I remember reading an interview with Steve Jobs about the Zune. Not once does he badmouth MS saying they are terrible, yet Balmer seems to do this all the time. He reminds me of someone in denial, who cant accept that someone might have something better then he does.

[GanleyBurger]

.

[Glenny2lappies]

Balmer's talking out of his hat! Typical of the sort of things "he would say".

Whether we like it or not (thinking delays to Leopard, etc.) it's going to be massive.

Hopefully Balmer will eat that hat.

[mr_matalino]

Ballmer: Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

That's ironic-

As sited from MacDailyNews.com:

Canalys worldwide total smartphone device market - market shares 2006 Q4 2006:
Symbian - 72.5%
Linux - 16.9%
PalmSource - 2.0%
Microsoft - 4.6%
RIM - 3.8%
Others - 0.2%

[tadunne]

Great we now have the Ballmer blessing, nothing can stop us now!

[emulator]

Originally Posted by chaslam

God I really cant believe this guy. He pisses me off to no end. You dont see apple commenting about what microsoft are doing and badmouthing them do you?

I assume you've completely missed Apple's recent ad campaing, did you?

[Glenny2lappies]

From The Register:
A modern-day Gerstner is needed to cure all of Microsoft’s ills
Time for Ballmer to move on...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04...ds_a_gerstner/

They've had their day.

[raggedjimmi]

So Microsoft thinks it is Symbian all of a sudden.

[Max Payne]

I am beginning to hate this guy.

[Small White Car]

I like that Microsofts is assuming that ALL iPhones will forever be top-of-the-line, $500 phones.

Good plan there, guys. They'd better hope that Apple doesn't come out with a $199 iPhone Nano next year to go hand-in-hand with its older brother.

[CmdrLaForge]

As long as Apple makes a ton of money and they sell 100 million phones in the next 4 years - I guess they don't care either and Ballmer is an a$$. Thats just a fact. Everyone knows it and nobody likes the guy. Its a shame that Bill works together with some guy like him.

[Corrosive vinyl]

I also heard on appleinsider that he said, "Would I trade 96 percent of the market for 4 percent of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody." What ballmer doesnt realize is that while their software is on more of a percent of computers.... apple has both hardware AND software which are combined.... something which MS fails to realize or understand or impliment.

[Clive At Five]

Does any one phone have significant market share??? Especially in the "Smart Phone" department!!

Anyone have stats on the Moto RAZR? I would imagine that is one of (if not THE) most popular phone on the market today.

Anyone? 5%? One out of every 20 people? I doubt it. Throw in the RIZR and KRZR and I still doubt you'll hit 5%.

3% would be a FEAT.

80% market-share on phone OSes? Big whoop. Even if MS had that, they wouldn't be making any cash on the hardware... so they aren't making the big money.

-Clive

[yg17]

The guy's right, as much as I hate to say it. The iPhone ISN'T going to grab that much marketshare. Limited to one carrier in one country, lacking 3G, expensive as hell. This is not going to get the amazing market share you think it will

[tristan]

Of course if it was an ugly monstrosity with a plastic chiclet keyboard running some buggy version of Pocket Vista Explorer with Windows Activation, DRM handcuffs, and forced MSN integration, Ballmer would be its biggest cheerleader.

[Glenny2lappies]

Originally Posted by mr_matalino

As sited from MacDailyNews.com:

Canalys worldwide total smartphone device market - market shares 2006 Q4 2006:
Symbian - 72.5%
Linux - 16.9%
PalmSource - 2.0%
Microsoft - 4.6%
RIM - 3.8%
Others - 0.2%

Amazing that the 'executive jewellery maker Blackberry (RIM) has almost the same market share as MS. And that's despite Sony Ericsson effectively giving up the PDA market place when they stopped making the P910 and released the awful P990.

I hate to say this, but the iPhone's going to be this year's must have fashion item. As long as it works OK, Apple's on to a complete winner here. It will be desirable for all sectors of the phone market place: executives, geeks, youfs, you name it, they'll all want one!

[nagromme]

iPhone aside, the whole article is a gold mine!

I love how Microsoft is challenging the Wii (I guess?) by targeting the growing casual-gamer market with the XBox 360, instead of the small hard-core-gamer market.

Just HOW have they gone after casual gamers? Watch and learn

* "With Xbox 360, we're broadening the audience. You may notice the color is white with faceplates, not black. It actually rounds out the audience appeal of the product."

* "If you look at the game selection: Viva Piñata is targeted at a more female and a younger demographic than anything else we've done."

* "Our arcade games, traditional board games and card games target casual gamers."

Sounds like they're well on track to reversing their entertainment division's 5.4 billion dollar loss

[Eraserhead]

The most interesting thing is this:

Originally Posted by Ballmer

Q: When can we look forward to a Zune phone?

A: It's not a concept you'll ever get from us. We're in the Windows Mobile business. We wouldn't define our phone experience just by music. A phone is really a general purpose device. You want to make telephone calls, you want to get and receive messages, text, e-mail, whatever your preference is. The phone really is kind of a general purpose device that we need to have clean and easy to use.

Sounds like MS is gonna make the same mistake with the iPod again.

[sjo]

well that's just too funny, ballmer has tried to enter the mobile phone market for more than five years, spend billions while trying and has thus far haven't achieved the 1% market share of the 1.3B devices sold yearly. ballmer mentioning windows mobile and market share of 40%, 50%, or 60% in the same sentence is even more crazy than throwing chairs around the office or dancing the monkey dance.