Steve Ballmer at D8: the video highlights (updated)
By Nilay Patel 
posted June 3rd 2010 6:11PM
posted June 3rd 2010 6:11PM
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@glow Right, there's absolutely nothing of interest in all the talking. Ballmer is just like a politician, never answers a question directly and in an understandable way... completely in contrast to Jobs. And I am absolutely not an Apple fanboy.
@mschmidler
From what i read and saw, Balmer answer pretty straight. Maybe Walt should have asked more detailed questions. I watched the vids and read the transcripts and the questions were pretty surface level...
.."Can you tell us about Nokia?" Is not a good question to ask. He has to be a lot more deliberate and precise with his questioning, which I felt really lacked.
@ounkeo
His Nokia answer was spot on imo,
"You know, I live in this country, so you get a skewed view. They're knocking it out of the park everywhere else. They can deliver a good product at a good price to remote parts of the world. But I think on the software side they're trying to get their act together."
@ounkeo Moss has his nose so far up Jobs' ass I'm surprised he remembered MS was still around. If he had any idea as to what he was doing, the first question he would have asked would have been:
"So, Steve. The Courier. WTF?"
@mschmidler
I watched only the 'mobile' video. And there he sounds nothing like a politician. I'm extremely surprised. He talked about his own party like they are too slow (what they are) and they missed things (what they did). And he talked about his opposition (RIM) that they are at the top of their game and can truly be respected. That sounds nothing like a politician to me.
@sweet greggo I kinda agree, the dude (Walt) definatly has a seroius thing for apple, but I do enjoy him pressing ballmer, It's much more interesting seeing how ballmer handles himself with someone who wants to ask all the akward questions everyones thinking..
Although, I have about 30 more questions to ask..
And +1 to the Courior comment.. its like they invented chocolate.. then never produced it (I say this as an iPad owner)
@ounkeo Yep, true.. still, what's of interest IMHO are the people that are atually working on products. Joe Belfiore talking about the philosophy behind WP7 for example. I think Steve Jobs is much more involved in product development than Ballmer is. Maybe that changes a bit now due to the re-structuring (E&D division reporting directly to him).
Is it me or does Ballmer look more like Bruce Willis these days. His tone sounds more threatening and less optimistic these days. Next thing you know he's gonna kill a helicopter with a car.
@ounkeo I am amazed at all the attention Mossberg gets; he is vastly over-rated. Is it because he's old AND is interested in technology?
@sweet greggo
... But not quite deep enough to make those videos iPhone-compatible...
@ounkeo
that was my though, i mean, steve jobs was asked great questions, but here they were a bit lame.
whats worse is steve ballmer is ripped for his answers on questions that are more than a bit vague
poor ballmer :(
@SeeKo I like the fact that the CEO is aware of how they allowed their smartphone market share to dwindle due to laziness and that gets me really excited about WinPho7 and Windows Compact 7... First company to really unify each of their platforms in such an amazing way... Microsoft is about to be a massive player in the mobile market once again
@mschmidler Yah because Jobs streight up answers questions. Get real. Steve Jobs is a through and through con artist and liar. Dude says one thing and then 6 -8 months later says other. See Photos on a PMP and video on a PMP as perfect references. The liar was saying that the screen is too small. Now look at the nano with its stupidly small screen. The only thing Jobs is that Ballmer isn't is a slick talking marketer and has a loyal user base would would buy ANYTHING Apple put out, ANYTHING. Jobs could walk up to a customer in an Apple store and shoot him in the face and I can guarantee you there would be at least 10% of Apple's users would would defend him.
@SeeKo He reminds me of the general in that old episode of MASH when they are trying to get an incubator. "This is a press conference, the last thing I want to do is answer a bunch of questions!"
I'm not really sure what the point of asking Ballmer anything is. He lies through his teeth about his company products - e.g. counting XP installs on new computers as Vista licenses so he could artificially inflate market "acceptance" of Vista. He forced vendors to install it and then claimed it was "popular".
I doubt he will ever have any credibility with me whatsoever.
@mschmidler I think you are 100% right i personaly dont own a mac but i have to agree that Ballmer seens a lot like a politician and Jobs does not
@50tonrobot That is hilarious, because I was thinking the EXACT same thing! He's lost a few pounds and looks a bit harder than he used to. There's definitely some Brucie in there.
@geekthree There is a huge difference between developing a concept and developing a product. Although, the Courier concept was great, Microsoft obviously found that it just wouldn't work in the real world. In reality, the courier is nothing like the iPad. The iPad is a media consumption device and with iWork is a bit of a productivity machine, outside of media, but the courier was basically digital paper with a browser. I'm not saying that's bad, in fact I though my tools for school would be an iPad and a Courier (I avoid using paper when possible), but like I said, the Courier concept was a notebook with a browser and not much more.
DEVELOPERS!
the monkey dance was censored i take it
@Zylam
Ballmer is too old for this shit... He's always saying how Google or Apple won't have success with this or that, but Microsoft fails to come up with anything innovative or revolutionary, although they have the biggest R&D budget. And they keep milking the same cows, while the competitors come up with new things that work.
This guy is slowly digging a hole for Microsoft.
I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but boy, would I like to hear from the creative minds at Microsoft. The interview with Steve Jobs was like talking to a designer (as well as the business mind), whereas interviewing Ballmer is mostly an exercise in wading through what sounds like a call with investors.
I want to hear from the people that design those Microsoft "vision of the future" videos! Not hating on Ballmer whatsoever, but he doesn't necessarily inspire excitement about his company for the lions share of consumers, and Microsoft does plenty of cool stuff that should be talked about.
@Sisyphus Thats what the TED videos are for.
can anybody tell where can i see the full interviews??? specialy the steve jobs one!! thank u!!
@charliefountain On engadget... where have you been?
More like lowlights. Who f$%^king cares what Ballmer thinks? Remember the fact that WinMo was going to rule the market and the iPhone would never, ever get market share? How a bozo like this is running one of the biggest companies in the world is a stark example of what's wrong with corporations.
@His Shadow
He called it wrong on the iPhone so what? Everyone else called it wrong when they said iPhone would put Nokia out of business 3 years ago. Instead, Nokia is doing very well.
EVERYONE called it wrong when they said iPhone would completely kill RIM 3 years ago, yet in the last 3 years RIM has been doing phenomenally well.
If you say Balmer is a bozo because he called it wrong then everyone else are bozos as well for completely failing predictions. The 3 biggest predictions that (1) Apple would take & overtake Nokia marketshare as global mobile phone leader , (2) Nokia would be dead in marketshare and (3) RIM would be obliterated by Apple years ago, all have been excruciatingly wrong.
@ounkeo Ha Ha. No. Ballmer got everything wrong about Apple to date. You can pretend that this was his only wrong prediction, but you'd be wrong. And the fact that he dismissed the iPhone out of hand points to a complete disconnect with his market and target demographics. THAT'S why it's important, not because anyone's feelings got hurt for dissing the iPhone. It's important because he is supposed to know about and counter competition, not spew misinformation and marketing crap. Microsoft got their heads handed to them in mobile by a company that started out making PAGERS! Now they've ceded the consumer market to Apple and to a lesser extent Android. And while Apple and RIM have nothing to fear from Android, Microsoft's mobile business will be irrelevant in a short while as Android fills in every niche not taken over by the Blackberry or the iPhone.
@His Shadow your saying that one of the biggest brands in the world is out of the competition even with its new wp7 knocking on the door well time will tell time will tell...
WHY don't they just post the entire thing somewhere?
They call Desktop Windows...wait for it...BIG Windows...
Dear top-level bosses: please do whatever you can to ensure the ever-growing bandwidth needs of mobile customers are carefully and responsibly met so that we can all enjoy next-generation mobile experiences without having to help pay for expensive infrastructure upgrades; buying expensive mobile devices and expensive data plans is hard enough, and we in the USA really don't like bandwidth caps.
Thanks.
~ dan ~
MSFT hasn't been the same to me since Gates left.
Nothing against the company itself, but Ballmer is just a giant douche. MSFT needs a better person to represent them.
Ballmer needs meds for his mental illness.
@John Lennon
you know, I thought that Ballmer would suck as the CEO of Microsoft when Gates left, but ever since, I've begun to get impressed by Microsoft even more. After Ballmer became CEO, many great products have been released or conceptualized (Courier) by Microsoft, (Ex: Windows 7, Zune HD, WM 6.5, Windows Phone 7, Bing, etc.). IMO, I don't think Ballmer is that bad of a CEO, he can however become more interesting to interview!
@BharatiJanta Like I said, I didn't stop liking MSFT, just never liked Ballmer in general. His personality really annoys me. He always seems to think that he's the best at everything, and I'm sorry, but that's not true. No one is. There is no such thing as a perfect company, and I'm glad that other companies can actually admit that.
Also, Gates was definitely a lot more interesting, not to only interview, but he was just a nicer person in general. Gates was sort of a softy though, Ballmer has balls. But that's why I think Gates was an amazing CEO, simply because he was nice, and if you ever did meet him, he wouldn't say that you're a dumbass for having an iPod and insult you. Not that many people ever meet Gates to begin with, but still.
@BharatiJanta Did you forget Vista!?! And WM 6.5 while better than 6, is really just a SP for WM 6.
Windows 7 is good but it took MS several years after Windows XP to create a good OS and he forced Vista down everyone's throat and became belligerent in interviews when people brought up the failures of Vista. He lied about how many copies of Vista sold, forced vendors to sell PCs with Vista on them.
Bill Gates released some bad OSes and moved on immediately. Millenium was wretched and was never forced on anyone and pretty much never mentioned again about 6 months after its release. A year after Vista was release he was still bending us over telling us we should like it and not tell our parents what happened.
Bill Gates understands technology and business. Ballmer seems like he would thrive at a used car dealership. He might understand some finance but knows nothing about technology or his target audience. I was looking forward to WP7 until he said he personally is running the department. Hopefully that is just a lie like so many things he says.
@Indefinite Implosion
for the same reason the videos of steve jobs from the other night about the lost/stolen iphone and iphone os origins were pulled.
It is so hard to control the flow of information on the internet when videos are uploaded and then there are a ton of people who will rip them right away and then it is pulled and will be around till the end of time.
The internet is scary. damn clouds. neat idea, scary as shit though.
SkyNet? nahh, thats fiction
/GoogleNet
http://yfrog.com/ja32358501j
Ballmer's pants are too short.
I want to hear his responses to his own statements made before the iPhone was released. The ones about how it'll never matter in the market and how no one would ever buy it.
Then how it relates to him taking the most powerful technology company in the world and turning it into the 5th place (last place) smartphone maker.
I guess he's finding out that you need true vision to make a great device. You can't just rely on finding young talent to do it for you.
@anothernerd
What do you expect to come from that? Putting Ballmer on the spot like that won't solve any problems or answer any questions, it'll just make him squirm in his seat.
Or is that all you want to see
@anothernerd I think he'd be happy to take the question. He'd remind you that at the time, it was as expensive as an unlocked phone but still required a contract and that Apple refused to let people even develop applications as they were supposed to develop web apps only.
The world, especially the technology world, moves fast and in unseen directions every single day. Predictions are just predictions.
Ballmer has other far more legitimate weaknesses as a CEO.
YES. Was waiting for this. Even though it probably won't bring anything more new to the table than the interview with Jobs, lol
Did Ballmer actually speak for these two videos without saying or doing anything arrogant? This has got to be a first.
Hmm. That was actually pretty interesting. I gotta say I like Ballmer's interviews much more then the ones with Steve Jobs. Jobs is just too pompous. He can't answer a lot of the questions he's given. He can't be critical of his own company. He's very narrow minded. He's not the devil like some portray him to be but I think he makes for an interesting but extremely frustrating interview.
Here's the deal; Ballmer knows he's part of a company that cannot compete with other big game competitors out there (2 of which I am specifically thinking about) who are producing much more user-attractive, functional, evolving platforms, etc. I think if he had the choice, he'd bolt out of there -- knowing full well MS won't be able to 'rise to the occasion' against other competitors. But his position is keeping him there (and his payroll!); and perhaps he believes he can reinvent MS's name....? At this point, MS is almost in a class of its own; a forgotten class. I can't think of a good reason [given the choices] that anyone would choose MS over what's available nowadays.
@jdb80
What's up with comment like this?
"I can't think of a good reason [given the choices] that anyone would choose MS over what's available nowadays. "
Really? I guess you didn't give it much thought then.
@Maj It is what it is.
@jdb80
So you don't find the reinventing of the Zune platform interesting? Windows Phone 7 sere not interesting?
Windows Compact not interesting?
Whhhhhhaaaaa?
@DougB541 Zune platform never interested me.
On Windows and their phones, I will never go back to a Windows phone. Never say never, right? This is a certain thing. If Windows phones were the only thing you could use as a mobile device, I'd revert to being a caveman over buying a Windows phone.
I will say though, that Windows 7 isn't all that bad. There are 'some things' that I do like about it. However, the limitations seem to outweigh the benefits.
It just doesn't seem like MS is pulling ahead with any steam in any of their markets in comparison to Android, Apple, etc...
I could be wrong. After all, I can't very well see the entire forest, but can definitely see a large part of it.