Steve Ballmer's presentation slide
from 2009 shows GNU/Linux as bigger than Apple on the desktop

Summary: Microsoft gets enormously jealous of the competition and does irrational things as a result

Ballmer's slide (as shown above) is intended to remind people that Microsoft views GNU/Linux as having more market share than Mac OS X on the desktop. This is not surprising, as most surveys do not take into account the world as a whole^*. Fedora, for instance, currently claims over 20 million installations.

Anyway, this reminder is supposed to emphasise that outside the wealthy nations it is GNU/Linux -- not Apple -- that keeps Ballmer awake at night. GNU/Linux makes the margins of Windows collapse very rapidly. The other day a futurist said that Microsoft is doomed. It's game over for the company whose Windows revenues are already down 40%.

"We are at the cusp of huge changes around us in everything we look at", said analyst and futurist Mark Anderson at his annual predictions dinner Thursday night in New York. "There's never been a more exciting year than 2010", the author of the influential Strategic News Service exclaimed.

[...]

Finally, he likened Microsoft without a mobile OS to the minicomputer makers along Route 128 in Boston in the 80s – Wang, Data General, Digital and others, who pooh-poohed the PC and called it a toy. It's "Game Over, and Done Deal" for Microsoft in the consumer market, he said.

We also mentioned this in an older post. Those who deny Microsoft's decline are simply not handling the simple facts.

Also mentioned (although very briefly) the other day was this despicable attitude of Microsoft:

● Microsoft: Do not mention/use Apple products at our events

● Microsoft Germany bans journalists from mentioning Apple

● Microsoft Germany: Sprechen nicht von Apple! (updated)

Microsoft’s PR folks in Germany have officially asked journalists not to use or talk about Apple products during their events. Why? Because one journo said his iPhone kicked ass.

Microsoft later realised that this was not good for PR, so damage control came from Emil and other Microsoft-faithful reporters. ⬆

"I'd put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1."

--Steve Ballmer, 2001

____ ^* Mac OS X is very popular in the United States, for example, but the US population makes up less than 5% of the world's population. The English-speaking press is exceedingly focused on it.