Steve Ballmer Mocks iPhone-Toting Microsoft Employee

[ct2k7]

This story doesn't sound real.

 

[friedduck]

Ballmer's an idiot. This is the guy who said that the iPhone wouldn't get traction, and who ignores his own products' faults at his own peril. We finally upgraded to Office 2007, and it's a fresh round of problems and bad design. I was hoping for something good but they're terrible--the worst version yet.

We still use some MSFT products that we like but that number is shrinking. It's time for new management that focuses on excellence in their products, and not just bluster.

 

[gnasher729]

Nothing illegal about firing your employee because he uses a competitor's product. Nothing illegal about firing him just because you don't like them for that matter.

I didn't say "illegal", I said "bullying". And it is illegal in any civilised country, including many states of the USA. By the way, Ballmer doesn't own Microsoft. He runs the company and is responsible to its shareholders. If a good employee is fired because of his choice of phone (which is his personal business) or because Ballmer doesn't like him, then Ballmer is violating his responsibilities to the shareholders.

And there is the small problem that unethical behaviour _will_ bite you in the back at some point. It is just not a good business strategy.

 

[NT1440]

I guess you don't know steve ballmer then.

And I'm quite sure you don't either

 

[simsandwhich]

Some people actually see this as a Apple vs Microsoft thing...

By the sounds of it it's more of a parody of the Apple vs Microsoft thing.

 

[jlanuez]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7C144 Safari/528.16)

This is stupid. How is this macrumors news? Just sounds like he was trying to be silly.

Who cares MacRumors, give us some real news, this worthless Is dribble!

 

[LCN]

MS Phone software

What a joke... I've tried to live with an HP PDA based on WM for 2.5 years. Complete crap, completely unpredictable. WM crashed every day a few times, without even DOING something. And I'm pretty sure it was no hardware issue... Colleagues & family told me I had never been so hard to reach since I owned this device. I'm IT mgr for a Windows-based engineering environment in the professional life, but everything is on Mac in my own family's life, guess why...? It's always the same story with MS-based products.

 

[175170]

This does make me wonder if he has a Mac at home!

"Uh.... I was just.... Ermm.... trying to improve the Windows experience on Boot Camp, you know? So those Mac users can switch over. Yeah, that's what I was doing.

 

[RedTomato]

If you work at Coke or Pepsi you are not permitted to have the competitor's product in your home nor are you allowed to visit facilities serving solely the competitor's product.

Thank god you don't hold any kind of management position. I'm pretty sure you just made that up. A rule like that would be quite frankly illegal in most countries in the world. Try to learn a little more about the distinction between the workplace and private life. Please.

 

[electroshock]

Eh, that is actually pretty funny. I could see Jobs freaking out and firing someone for using a Windows based phone.

Reminds me of the possibly apocryphal story of how, during NeXT development in the mid-'80s, Jobs wanted so badly to fire the engineer who had the gall to propose use of cursor arrow keys on the keyboard, but was talked out of it.

 

[MacCurry]

If I were Ballmer, I'd have held up the iPhone over my head and said, "hey the fella who bought this iPhone doesn't realize that Apple uses Windows Mobile in ALL of their stores to manage the sales & inventory of the iPhone and ALL other Apple products! HA HA!"

 

[suss2it]

Does Windows have their own line of phones or just OS?

 

[Pika]

Does Windows have their own line of phones or just OS?

Just the OS

 

[DMann]

Ballmer's an idiot. This is the guy who said that the iPhone wouldn't get traction, and who ignores his own products' faults at his own peril. We finally upgraded to Office 2007, and it's a fresh round of problems and bad design. I was hoping for something good but they're terrible--the worst version yet.

We still use some MSFT products that we like but that number is shrinking. It's time for new management that focuses on excellence in their products, and not just bluster.

Ballmer is of the primitive mindset of his own past - what had worked, by fluke, in the 1990s: if it marginally works, ship it out, glitches and all - they'll all come around, beggin' for the next update. He & BG, who've chased innovation from the outset - poorly cloned the Mac OS, which grabbed its market share mainly through aggressive OEM sales, licensing, and, currently, pirating. (>40% to date) The remainder of their innovation chasing ventures have not done nearly as well:

Live Search: destroyed by Google.
Bing: destroyed by Google.
Play For Sure: destroyed by Microsoft itself.
MSN Music: destroyed by anyone else who had an online music store.
Zune: destroyed by iPod.
Marketplac∈: destroyed, in advance, by The App Store.
Xbox 360: destroyed by the lowly Wii (and its own horrific failure rate).
Vista: destroyed by users who recognized it for the crap that it is.
Office 2007: a big seller I'm sure (due to long-term IT agreements with MS), with an interface that is more loathed than loved.
Windows Mobile: destroyed by iPhone, and likely soon, by Pre as well.
Microsoft Stores: destroyed, in advance, by Apple Stores.

Almost too abysmal to mention:

Microsoft BOB
Windows ME
MSN messenger
Windows Live Care
Windows Defender
Microsoft Passport
Windows Movie Maker
Internet Explorer
The big-ass Surface table

Ballmer has cetch-up on the brain - throwing chairs, tantrums, and acting out with iPhones in public will not likely change anything, anytime soon. An aggressive follower doth not make a successful leader.

 

[windywoo]

In no way was my post MS cheerleading, simply correcting your pack of lies. You've been on the Apple sauce too long, you can't see anything that MS does as a positive thing.

 

[DMann]

In no way was my post MS cheerleading, simply correcting feebly reacting to your pack compiled list of lies of salient facts, observations, and opinions based on facts. You've been on the Apple sauce too long, you can't see anything that MS does as a positive thing.

Based upon your extreme prejudice, inflammatory remarks, and highly reactive banter, your accusation seems quite paradoxical:

Oh dear what tiny brains Americans have. The merest hint of regulation and you cry socialism. There are very few socialist governments in Europe and stop thinking of the EU as one country.

Dumb as **** Apple fanbois. See, we don't worship at the alter of Balmer like you suck the cock of Jobs. If Linux did everything Windows does I would switch in a heartbeat. I just have to stick up for Windows because Apple is a stuck up, proprietary menace that is even worse than MS, but have better marketing......