08.03.10
Gemini version available ♊︎Reader’s Post: Steve Ballmer Threatens Apple and All Tablet Makers
Summary: A reader’s contribution sent to us by mail
Anonymous submits: “From the CEO who publically humiliated a rank and file employee by stomping his iPhone and the company that once offered all employees an “iPod” amnesty and fired another employee for blogging about a shipment of Macs:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/…
“[Apple has] sold more than I’d like them to sell. We think about that. So it’s our job to say, we have got to make things happen. Just like we made things happen with netbooks, we have to do that with Slates.”
While there’s nothing new about Microsoft’s market failures and anti-competitive methods, it is unusual for them to admit in public that their way of “competing” is to block the sales of their competitors. What Microsoft tried to do to GNU/Linux netbooks by crushing Asus, Xandros, the One Laptop Per Child project and other netbook makers is something no one should forget. GNU/Linux is unmentioned, as usual, but everyone knows what the bully is talking about. Boycott Novell covered the story extensively from the co-option of other companies to the sad financial results of their compliance. Many might also remember similar things done to the Sharp Zaurus, Palm and the handheld market almost a decade ago. Microsoft has deprived people of cheap and useful hardware but they have been unable to protect their own profits because the technology just gets better and more successful with each iteration. If Microsoft does not go bankrupt beforehand, there is no way they will be able to block $35 computers from India.
Equally remarkable is how pathetic Ballmer and Microsoft have become. He actually brags about getting a “Bing App” on the iPhone, and Microsoft’s skills as an iPhone developer. This is a claim that might impress friends and parents of young developers but is it really a mark of prowess and income for Microsoft? Vaporware is trotted out over news of layoffs, Zune, Kin, Xbox and Vista/Windows 7 failure, ‘We’ve got to push with our hardware partners…as soon as they are ready.’” Wow.” █
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