Show us your "Meh"

Summary: Steve Ballmer repeats insinuations that Vista 7 will not meet the expectation set by artificial hype

I

T happens again. Microsoft itself is contradicting its very own marketing firms, which spread a distortion of reality.

In an interview covered by Reuters, Microsoft's CEO admits that Vista 7 may not succeed.

Steve Ballmer's been giving out mixed messages on the likely impact of Windows 7 on Microsoft and PC sales.

Not even prior to the release of Windows Vista did Microsoft send such messages out.

Due to GNU/Linux, Microsoft makes no profit out of Windows in certain areas. Additionally, it's not just Windows where Microsoft is forced to give products away free of charge (and sometimes pay customers to use them). Ballmer prefers to deny all this. From the news, TechDirt extracts:

Steve Ballmer Declares 'Free Is Not A Business Model' -- Apparently Unfamiliar With Microsoft's Free Products

Josh W points us to an article about Microsoft new mobile phone software that contains an odd quote from Steve Ballmer, responding to a question concerning Microsoft's plans to compete with Google's free Android mobile operating system:

"Free is not a business model," he said. "We are a commercial company, we will look to gain revenue and profit from our activities. You'll have to ask our competitors if they'll make money on free things."

Internet explorer. Bing. Microsoft's new security software. All free. All offered by Microsoft. Is Steve Ballmer admitting that he doesn't know about any of these things... or is he just expecting that the reporter and the readers of the article are flat-out stupid?

According to Steve Ballmer's words from 2 months ago, Microsoft's poor financial state would be mended owing to the release of Vista 7, but he already contradicts himself. And who can blame him? What has Microsoft really got to offer? The company's marketing angle suffers from a deficiency in features set. It is describing pseudo-backward-compatibility as a feature (only for those willing to pay for more expensive versions of the O/S) rather than an inherent characteristic which is assured by access to source code. It is eerily similar to the practice of selling "security" separately, as though it is a feature that cannot be included by default.

Sebastian Rupley remarks on the impact of GNU/Linux in the low end. He speaks of the latest big win but does not mention instant-on Linux on Dell motherboards.

Meanwhile, Dell is shipping the very first netbook, a $299 Mini 10v, with version 2.1 of the Intel-backed Moblin Linux-based operating system. Other netbooks running Moblin will soon hit the market, and Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, was quoted at the recent LinuxCon conference as saying that they will arrive at very low price points. Only Apple, it seems, is able to maintain a healthy business selling portable computers at premium prices. And Apple won’t even play in the netbook market.

There is also this nice new satire about Vista 7 for those in the mood for humour.

The official release of Windows 7 is only a few weeks away, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably asking yourself what effect this will have on your lives.

The release of Vista 7 is just weeks away, but given the facts as we know them, no matter the amount of hype, this product will fail to generate decent revenue for Microsoft. The latest financial results will be released almost at the very same time as Vista 7's expensive launch ceremonies; this is intentional, as it is intended to bury the news about yet another very disappointing quarter for Microsoft. ⬆