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Ballmer on iPhone Marketshare

I think that shows the mindset of microsoft: dominate the market as cheap as you can.

what a joke. of course he has to have a reply, which is strictly the corporate greed route.

Personally, its the small market share that attracts me to apple, its being elitist but in a good way :)
 
Small White Car said:
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.
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I'm just waiting for the £55 iPhone Shuffle - no screen, phone people at random.

EDIT:Bugger. Beaten to it by Evangelion
 
Macrumors said:
(Note that Ballmer assumes that the $500 iPhone is subsidized, but there has been speculation and rumor that this is not the case.)
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Can someone clarify this statement? Does it mean that the iPhone might not cost the consumer $500 if bought with a contract? (And will cost $500 if bought 'offline')?

Because if that is the case, I will most definitely buy the phone 'offline' and use my current simcard.
 
ok we all agree Ballmer is an idiot and a a$$hole.

but he has an interesting point:

apples strategy again is to capture a small profitable market share with an OS limited to their high price gadget.

microsoft would prefer to capture a huge market share by licencing their OS to whoever wants it and not be bothered with hardware issues.

in case of Windows M$'s strategy was more successful. In casr of the iPod Apples strategy was successful.

nobody can say now if apple or M$ or Symbian will dominate the smart phone market in the future. it will be interesting to see who's strategy will be the best.

i'm afraid that in future smartphones the integration with MS-Office, Windows and Outlook will at least dominate the smart phones used in business enviroments. there is a real danger to apple.
 
mr_matalino said:
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%
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Thanks for the post - kinda puts Balmer's comments into perspective.

However, if I were to guess, it's my believe that Balmer is attemping to say that their OS runs on multiple phones while Apple's OS will run on a single phone. That does give them a competitive advantage. Ultimately, time will tell how far MS mobile can go, but it's made some impressive strides in the past year.
 
nagromme said:
Who is the "you" you're referring to?

Apple aims for 1%, which is far less than Ballmer just predicted, and represents a massive number of customers.

Beyond the 1%, lower-end iPhones may well appear... and 3G is a definite, as already announced by Apple. So are other countries--on track for this year.

As for price... what's the monthly penalty you pay to subsidize those other phones that have nowhere near the storage (to pick just one feature) of the iPhone? They cost less for a reason.

I expect Apple will sell as many $500 iPhones as they can make. Then I predict they will sell cheaper versions.
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Exactly.

Apple wants to make its name as the best phone around. Be the product everyone really wants even if they can't afford it. When you are $200-300 more than your competition, you won't get large chunks of market share all at once. But if you are the recognized "best phone around" you will get all the buzz you need.

Then when they start offering scaled down less expensive versions, people will find the extra $50 to buy the iPhone nano (or whatever).
 
Remeber when companies made things because they liked to? Most corporations in the U.S. seems to be about nothing other than MONEY MONEY MONEY.

Well guess what Ballmer. Your OS may be in 80% of phones and you may be using cash for firewood, but does that make it suck any less?
 
Ballmer rarely has anything positive to say, if ever, about one of their competitors. He's a very bottom-line/financial focused person. I personally don't see him being a visionary like Gates or Jobs and it doesn't surprise me to see him poo poo and Apple or Google product. He's infamous for it. Just makes me smile when he's completely wrong. ;)

oh and after seeing that lovely shot with his tongue sticking out, I feel for his wife.
 
impierced said:
However, if I were to guess, it's my believe that Balmer is attemping to say that their OS runs on multiple phones while Apple's OS will run on a single phone. That does give them a competitive advantage.
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Not necessarily. Too many choices can often be a disincentive for the consumer.

Especially when the choices include mutually conflicting features as is the case with many windows powered smartphones and more obviously with the Heinz 57 versions of Vista.

Interoperability is the key feature.

B
 
" I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them"

Except Microsoft don't.

When it comes to smartphones, the clear market leader is Symbian ( with Nokia's S60 UI ).

EDIT: Ops, didn't see the above link showing market share of all major participants.
 
If there's one word that stirs up hatred and heated debate on these boards, it seems to be "Ballmer".

Most will probably largely ignore what he said, but what does worry me is those who will read it and get the impression Microsoft already runs on 60-80% of smartphones. Perhaps one way of embarrassing him would be for Symbian to demand he apologise and correct his statement to be Microsoft wanting 60-80% of the market and that those figures are currently enjoyed by Symbian.

I would love to see him squirming over having to retract earlier lies, sorry, statements. It makes Microsoft look desperate and running scared.
 
BSL4 Guy said:
3% of 1.3 Billion in 39 million. Ballmer is actually more optimistic than Apple.
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That 1.3 billion figure is the entire cellphone market. The smartphone market is considerably less, more like 100-120 million (90 million in 2006). So 3% of 100 million is only 3 million, not 39 million. Even if the iPhone is a success as a smartphone, there is no way it will be that popular by phone standards.
 
I officially call ******* on Macrumors. I hate Microsoft, but that quote is COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT. Balmer's next sentence said "..but then again the iPhone will probably sell very well, even if I don't understand it."

Check your ****ing sources, the interview video is on youtube.


I hate MS and Balmer, however lying about him is just wrong.
 
danny_w said:
That 1.3 billion figure is the entire cellphone market. The smartphone market is considerably less, more like 100-120 million (90 million in 2006). So 3% of 100 million is only 3 million, not 39 million. Even if the iPhone is a success as a smartphone, there is no way it will be that popular by phone standards.
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Which also doesn't change the fact that Symbian based smartphones have ~15x the market share of Windows based ones.

B
 
steve_hill4 said:
If there's one word that stirs up hatred and heated debate on these boards, it seems to be "Ballmer".

Most will probably largely ignore what he said, but what does worry me is those who will read it and get the impression Microsoft already runs on 60-80% of smartphones. Perhaps one way of embarrassing him would be for Symbian to demand he apologise and correct his statement to be Microsoft wanting 60-80% of the market and that those figures are currently enjoyed by Symbian.

I would love to see him squirming over having to retract earlier lies, sorry, statements. It makes Microsoft look desperate and running scared.
Click to expand...

I interpret that as a forward-looking prediction: that Microsoft WILL have 80% of the market instead of 4%, in future, while Apple will have 3%. (After all, Apple currently has 0%.)

He's not claiming 80% today--although I'm sure he'd love to create the impression that they're getting close, which they're not.
 
inkhead said:
I officially call ******* on Macrumors. I hate Microsoft, but that quote is COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT. Balmer's next sentence said "..but then again the iPhone will probably sell very well, even if I don't understand it."

Check your ****ing sources, the interview video is on youtube.


I hate MS and Balmer, however lying about him is just wrong.
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Deep breath... :p MR is not "lying," the sentence you quote (from an entirely different interview) doesn't change what he said about market share anyway, and here's his next sentence in this USA Today interview:

In the case of music, Apple got out early. They were the first to really recognize that you couldn't just think about the device and all the pieces separately. Bravo. Credit that to Steve (Jobs) and Apple. They did a nice job.

But it's not like we're at the end of the line of innovation that's going to come in the way people listen to music, watch videos, etc. I'll bet our ads will be less edgy. But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we'll get him to own a Zune.
 
He really has to hate the fact that Apple is getting thrown in his face at every turn.

Apple coming out with a Gaming console would make him go Ape-S***!

Its great to see Apple succeed in markets where MS can't compete very well.
 
chaslam said:
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.:rolleyes:
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Sounds like you've never seen a Mac television commercial :D
 
Gee, what a surprise, Ballmer would rather have cell phones running Microsoft's software than Apple's. It's like asking a die-hard Yankee fan what he thinks of the Boston Red Sox.
 
nagromme said:
I interpret that as a forward-looking prediction: that Microsoft WILL have 80% of the market instead of 4%, in future, while Apple will have 3%. (After all, Apple currently has 0%.)

He's not claiming 80% today--although I'm sure he'd love to create the impression that they're getting close, which they're not.
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But if Symbian demanded he retract his obviously misleading statement, he would have to clarify and that would be awful PR for MS.

Ballmer: "I actually meant to say that we would like 60-80% of the market, not to imply we currently enjoy that."
The world: "Hmmm, wouldn't all companies want 60-80% of the market."
 
alexprice said:
Oh god those videos make me cringe.
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No kidding. They're brutal. I don't like to watch them.

Anyway, it really looks like Ballmer is setting himself up to be the next Michael Dell. Next week I suppose he's going to say that Apple should close their doors and give the money back to the shareholders. :D

Someone should archive all these negative iPhone quotes (from Ballmer and Dvorak and whomever) on a site somewhere and keep it up when the iPhone comes out. The same stuff was said about the iPod, but Apple seems to know what consumers want. When Apple nails that, no amount of whining from geeks or moaning from the competition can stop them.
 
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