The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — takes turns sizing up the new season. With Steve Ballmer running out of room and close to the warning track, we talk about who might be called up from the minors.
Dave Winer is back with a nifty pivot on Google Reader’s trip to the showers. More than anything, Winer made the hard stuff look easy and gave the… → Read More
Tonight during Reid Hoffman’s interview with Steve Ballmer, the two talked about everything Microsoft. Now that Ballmer is talking about his competitors he let out a few bonzo words when it came to Google and Apple and the state of their phone ecosystems, especially when it comes to apps. → Read More
At the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, two tech titans sat down to have a conversation. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman interviewed Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer at an event with “tech influencers and innovators,” and a bunch of of us press folk. Ballmer is riding on the release of Windows 8, Surface and the Windows 8 Phone, so there is plenty to talk about. → Read More
Now that Steven Sinofsky has left Microsoft as President of the Windows division, the question now comes down to what happened and the implications his departure means for the company. → Read More
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has told a French newspaper that sales of Redmond’s shiny new Windows 8 tablet PC, Surface, have gotten off to a modest start. Talking to French daily Le Parisien, published on Saturday, Ballmer is quoted as saying Surface sales “are starting modestly”. Ballmer reportedly puts this down to the slate only being available to buy online and in a few U.S. Microsoft stores. → Read More
Microsoft is really pushing the personalised angle of Windows Phone 8 — so much so it’s co-opted sometimes over-enthusiastic CEO Steve Ballmer into showing off his own Windows Phone and voicing one of the new ads. The move deliberately (or otherwise) echoes that of another tech CEO called Steve narrating a commercial (albeit, Apple’s Jobs’ The Crazy Ones ad never actually aired). → Read More
In one week, the Olympics kick off. When you think about it, they aren’t so different from our startup world. How many pitches have you heard that include the phrase “dream team?”
If you had to compare the startup world to one sports league, what would it be? I’d argue the NBA, where the best players leave school early to start their pro careers and work to join dynasty teams with other… → Read More
Speaking today at Web 2.0, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was boisterous as usual. In a rousing talk with John Batelle, Ballmer talked about how, since last being on stage at Web 2.0 three years ago, Bing has doubled its market share, Microsoft hasn’t completely given up on competing with Google+ and social, the tech giant bought Skype for a boatload, among other topics of interest for Microsofties… → Read More
Microsoft head honcho Steve Ballmer will return to CES in January 2012, kicking off the consumer technology tradeshow with a preshow keynote, the fourth time he’ll be taking the stage to do so.
“We are pleased to welcome Microsoft back to the CES keynote stage,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which owns and produces CES. → Read More
Despite the fact the number of PCs in China and the U.S. are pretty similar, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed on Wednesday that the company sees 95 percent less revenue coming from China than the States. Why, you ask? Piracy, of course. Other tech companies have had the same problem in China, which could indicate that the Chinese government hasn’t done enough to stop the acquisition of costly… → Read More
One upon a time, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer interrupted a speech at a developer’s conference with a chant that would set the Internet ablaze. “Developers, developers, developers, developers” was quickly put on the web and just as quickly mixed, remixed, and placed on the mantle of pure Internet gold. But to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever crafted an actual song around it.
Until now. → Read More
All great CEOs have presentation secrets. Apple CEO Steve Jobs says “boom!” a lot — and other superlatives. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer loves to repeat certain words three times — often while clapping his hands. But what about departing Google CEO Eric Schmidt? What’s his secret?
It’s the use of the word “literally”, literally. → Read More
One of Microsoft’s core strengths is their Server and Tools Business (STB). In fact, it’s a $15 billion a year business for the giant. CEO Steve Ballmer cited that number today in an email to employees announcing the departure of the head of that division, Bob Muglia. So why is Muglia leaving such a successful endeavor he built? Because Ballmer decided it was time for a change.
“The best time… → Read More
A few days ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a talk at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute in Ukraine. During the talk, he mentioned Twitter a few times. When a question from the audience asked Ballmer when he was going to start Tweeting, he revealed that he actually already has an account. He then proceeded to Tweet right on stage. Twitter universe, say hello to Steve Ballmer.
“I have a Twitter… → Read More
Well, Steve Ballmer certainly had a productive week.
Over the past three days, the Microsoft CEO has sold 49.3 million shares of his company stock, Reuters reports. With the share price hovering around $27, the sale has made him about $1.3 billion. Not bad for three days.
And he’s not done yet. Ballmer apparently intends to sell as much as 75 million of his shares in total by the end of the… → Read More
Maybe it’s time for the great salesman to hang it up. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke at a computer science school this week and was asked in a roundabout way, why someone would want to work at Microsoft when there are so many more exciting companies out there, like, say Apple.
Ballmer tap dances for four minutes, the moderator hops in and notes that one-third of the school’s graduates go to… → Read More
Perhaps you’ve heard that Microsoft is about to re-enter the smartphone fray with their new Windows Phone 7 phones in a few weeks. While Microsoft’s unique mobile OS makes it an interesting entry into the space, there is no shortage of thought that they may already be too late to a market dominated recently by Google, Apple, and RIM. And since Microsoft’s strategy for the new phones seems to be go… → Read More
No worries, guys, because Microsoft is “hardcore” about tablets. Well, “hardcore” about Windows 7-based slate computers. So said Steve Ballmer at its Worldwide Partners Conference in Seattle. Microsoft says that its big strength here is that it consumers will have a wide variety of choice when it comes to buying a Windows-based tablet. That’s opposed, of course, to a certain other company’s tablet… → Read More
Mozilla platform engineer Rob Sayre has probably had better ideas.
Hoping Microsoft might allow Firefox on their new Windows Phone 7 Series, Sayre wrote an open letter this morning to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “Hola, amigo. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya,” is how it starts.
He then proceeds to make fun of Windows Phone 7 Series, the iPhone, Cocoa Touch, and Unix — all… → Read More
Last week we showed the highlights and 10+ minutes of video footage of an exclusive hour-long TechCrunch interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Now for the rest of that interview. The video was just a teaser. I spoke with Ballmer for another 50 minutes on the record, doing a deeper dive into five key areas of Microsoft’s product strategy: Big Opportunities, Operating Systems/Browsers… → Read More
MS CEO Steve Ballmer was in town (NYC) this week for the McGraw-Hill media conference and the large, sweaty and angry man from Redmond revealed some interesting news about his companies most profitable and least profitable hardware offerings.
It’s unclear what Ballmer means when he said there’s a real opportunity for the Xbox to be “more than a console” but something is currently brewing… → Read More
I’m getting all wrapped up in this interview with Peter Moore over at The Guardian. In today’s second part, he recounts his transition from the demise of the Dreamcast to his eventual move over to Microsoft. Seems he held some resentment against Sony PR for getting in the way of his Dreamcast plans. → Read More
Flickr’d Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that consumers should be happy that they have the choice to downgrade from Vista to XP. (Remember, XP retail sales are set to end on June 30.) “I don’t know how you can do better than getting both,” says Ballmer, no doubt pained by all the reports that Vista isn’t so hot (to put it lightly), and that companies like Dell let… → Read More
Will Microsoft extend the life of Windows XP after all? Steve Ballmer told reporters today that “If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter,” according to the Associated Press. He conceded that most of the customers who are still buying XP are IT departments but said that “most people who buy PCs today buy them with Vista. That’s the statistical… → Read More
This is how you know you’ve made it. That tattoo of Clippy is pretty awesome, too. Zune Originals ‘Ballmer’ Frigtard [iPhone Savior] Thanks Rymon! → Read More
Oh Ballmie. Poor Ballmie. Always getting hassled by the media. Some of these quotes are pretty funny, though. My favorites include: 3. "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." 7. "Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards." and 8. "There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any… → Read More
This is just silly, but definitely worth trying out if you have an iPhone. After all, you probably don’t like MS, so whacking Ballmer Whac-A-Mole style has got to tickle your fancy. Try it out and let us know if it really works. iWhack → Read More
This should be a lesson to you all. Find someone that actually reads and speaks the language before you go spouting off that Microsoft will not ship Zune’s to Europe in 2007. It’s not to say that it will actually happen, but do you see how quickly the Interwebs light up at such news? This is what Ballmer really said when he was asked about Zune’s being launched in Europe: Our… → Read More
Earlier today, Bill Gates went on the Vista offensive saying that the new OS has been “well received.” That’s funny, I could have sworn earlier in the week, CEO Steve Ballmer was flipping out over piracy and slow Vista sales. Gates says PC manufacturers have embraced Vista and it’s currently helping boost sales for companies. True, but what about regular, off-the-shelf… → Read More
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