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Steve Ballmer Mocks iPhone-Toting Microsoft Employee

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Balmer ain't worth the fat around his middle aged heart!
He and Gates did nothing but make their OS available to every goddamn pc vendor through a license agreement and the vendors were able to make cheap ass pcs cause they didn't have to deal with a OS. Now you know why your ****ing pc from Best Buy is so freaking cheap. Apple from day one did OS and Hardware. Yeah their stuff may come a bit more pricey but at least they control the intellectual product! That is key baby. The pc vendors can't touch MS's OS for squat. And they could care less. All they do is flood the market with pcs while MS cleans up in royalties.
**** Balmer. He's an MBA not a tech guy. Woz is a brilliant engineer and Jobs is a gifted manager who knows tech like Bernanke knows the economy.
 
Slow news day I guess. Wouldn't be reported if it was anyone else. Not a big deal, since he was just kidding around. Same thing would happen if a guy brought a Japanese car to an American muscle car rally, or etc. Big whoop.
 
You know, Jobs would have actually crushed a competitors phone. He's been known to destroy computers for the same reason.
 
For 5 years I worked in a nondescript 5 story office building on the Northside of Indianapolis. On the 4th floor was a very plain Microsoft office that occupied about 1/5 of the square footage of the entire floor. I'm not really sure what went on in that office but I always found it funny how many of people with MS keycards came and went with iPhones in their hands. I never said anything in the elevator although I was tempted on a number of occasions :D
 
I live/work right next to Micro$oft and I see blue badge people with iPhones all the time in public. Friends that work there report the same thing.

A good friend of mine that's on the Win mobile team openly admits the iPhone is a much better device. I demoed his phone running win 6.5 beta and wow, what a clunky ass pile of dung. It's pathetic.

Ballmer shows no class. What a jackass. You can't talk sh** when your own OS is complete crap.
 
Criticize Ballmer as much as you want. I think we all know an Apple employee being caught by Jobs with a competing product would be all but finished.
 
iPhone vs Win Mobile...a comparison without comparison...Two different OS's and as I see it targeted at two different groups. I carry my iphone around but plan to switch when the phone i'm waiting for to be released is released. I think both devices are good in their own way and they both have their strong points and weak points. I have used both devices for a long time and love some things and hate some things from both...Neither of the two are perfect devices and the perfect device depends on your need. There are plenty of windows mobile followers as they are apple, palm, blackberry, and every other phone in the market.

As fas as what Ballmer did I think it was meant as an office joke but bloggers alway trying to stir things up start taking it out of context.
 
Eh, that is actually pretty funny. I could see Jobs freaking out and firing someone for using a Windows based phone. :)
 
When I was in line for my iPhone 3G a couple of MS employees were there stating that the iPhone was the only mobile they couldn't get a discount on. As we moved into the store, about 20 other MS employees exchanged hellos to them while walking out with their new iPhones.
 
Ballmer really seems to have no taste. Taste is a matter of taste, of course, but his nasty tone toward Apple comes off as very immature. To be antagonistic toward Apple is natural; it is the way he expresses that antagonism. Flippancy and arrogance never look good. (I am thinking of other things he has said, for example early remarks about the iPhone after it was announced.) When Jobs makes a remark about Microsoft in public, it is, as far as I have seen, a much more friendly type of joking, as opposed to Ballmer's hateful tone.

In this particular case, there is not enough information in that article to tell. It is quite reasonable to joke with the employee for using an iPhone. It's a bit of a slap-in-the-face gesture to present an iPhone at a Microsoft event, and it probably just didn't occur to the employee; Ballmer, realizing the employee didn't realize that, was in a position to make fun--friendly fun. Like when you say something to a friend which, literally taken and out of context, sounds like an insult, and the friend is mock-offended. Given Ballmer's insane (though, to me, tasteless and excruciating) style--all that jumping and whooping--pretending to trample the iPhone fits right in. It would all depend on tone, gestures, and facial expressions.

What kind of man Ballmer is and Jobs is, none of us know for sure; I restrict my remarks entirely to politics and public image.
 
Harpo, are you joking? I agree that Ballmer sometimes comes off bad in public, but Apple has based their marketing the last few years on nasty, arrogant flippancy towards Microsoft, the same things you deride Ballmer for. Is that cool as long as its done "in style"?
 
This reminds me of when my dad used to work for a US auto parts corporation. He always felt he had to buy a US car. It was an unwritten rule. You just NEVER saw foreign cars in the lot.

The very week he was laid off from his job (and got another job elsewhere), he bought a Honda.
 
well, regardless of how I feel about Ballmer's blatantly unprofessional nature, it does sound like he was just trying to make a joke out of this... unfortunately, though, he's got a long track record of immature behavior, which I'm sure is a reason that people would take his actions in this situation out of context.

moving on...
 
herbalizer said:
I live/work right next to Micro$oft and I see blue badge people with iPhones all the time in public. Friends that work there report the same thing.

A good friend of mine that's on the Win mobile team openly admits the iPhone is a much better device. I demoed his phone running win 6.5 beta and wow, what a clunky ass pile of dung. It's pathetic.

Ballmer shows no class. What a jackass. You can't talk sh** when your own OS is complete crap.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised to find a room or two of Macs in Microsoft's facility... not because they make some software for it but because they want to know what Apple's doing so they can give it a new name twist it up a bit and then put it in their next OS.
 
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