Bonum Certa Men Certa

Wanted: Copy of Steve Ballmer's Latest “Embarrassing” Public Appearance

"It puts the Linux phenomenon and the Unix phenomenon at the top of the list."

--Steve Ballmer, 2001



Summary: Video of Ballmer's latest tactlessness goes missing after receiving too much exposure

WE'VE already mentioned Ballmer's iPhone incident, but there is no known footage of it. There was, however, a footage of Ballmer making a characteristically-bizarre appearance, but as Todd Bishop puts this, it "looks like the person who posted this publicly had second thoughts after it started to be viewed publicly (funny how that happens), and switched it to allow only private viewing on YouTube. We'll let you know if it resurfaces elsewhere."



All attempts to find a copy of this video were not successful (videos are not being cached). Any other means for retrieving this missing video which was publicly viewable for a while? Here is how Bishop describes it:

Is Steve Ballmer admirably enthusiastic, or is his cheerleading too much following the company's unprecedented layoffs and cutbacks?

[...]

This particular video doesn't show the iPhone incident -- we're still hoping to get our hands on a video clip of that -- but it does provide a sense for the tone leading up to that now-infamous encounter.


From one comment we learn that "The fact the video is NOT available RIGHT NOW on YouTube says volumes about the current state of employee anxiety. Such lockstep, fearful behavior among the ranks does not bode well for the future of the company."

Another comment goes as follows: "As a long time ex-MSer, I have to say this used to be energizing but became embarassing some years ago. It's particularly inappropriate this year with the company's bad financial performance and the 5,000 layoffs already and likely more to come."

Silently, Microsoft is still laying off employees without announcing it to shareholders. Well, Microsoft has had happier days.

Ogg Theora





Direct link





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

--Steve Ballmer, 2001 (year of XP release)

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Greener Pastures for Free Software Users
This coming week we'll publish many articles about GNU/Linux and technical means of/for user empowerment
Google News, Which We Call Gulag Noise, is Following the New York Times Into the Digital Graveyard
It merely gives an illusion of volume and instead of giving readers more stuff to read it wastes people's time
Over at Tux Machines...
yesterday's posts
Software Freedom is the Future and Microsoft is the Biggest Obstacle
GNU/Linux, at its roots, was all about Software Freedom
The GNU/Linux Revolution Ain't Here. Look at Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) Instead.
The revolution won't be televised
Chaffbot Effect: Microsoft Bing Falls to Lowest Share in Two Years (Amid Loads of Bing Layoffs This Year)
Press outlets mostly failed to report that Bing is collapsing
GNU/Linux Distributions as "Appliances" and DRM Platforms (the Case of ChromeOS and SteamOS)
Is this what we envisioned in the 1980s and 90s?
Fulfilling the Site's Full Potential
We remain devoted to the aforementioned goal of posting more original material
Over at Tux Machines...
2 days' worth
 
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 02, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, October 02, 2023
Daily Bulletins Coming Soon (Hopefully as Early as Next Week)
Today we finish testing IRC logs and their upload to Gemini, not just to IPFS
Links 02/10/2023: NUC, GTK Themes, and More
Links for the day
New Union Syndicale Articles About the European Patent Office
We'll probably get back to regularly writing about the EPO in the near future
If WordPress Knows Well Enough to Self-Host Its Podcast, Why Can't GNU/Linux Shows Do the Same?
For those who want videos and podcasts, here are today's latest additions from other sites
Richard Stallman Can Outlive Many of His Prominent Haters
M.J.G. tried hard to take our Web site offline, based on lies and repeated threats
Forget VSCode (Microsoft's Proprietary Spyware), Use KATE Instead
KATE is great
Sometimes It's Time to Reboot
No, not Android. KDE.
Upcoming Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman: Large Language Models Are Not Artificial Intelligence
LLMs aren't truly intelligent and cannot quite grasp what they spew out
GulagTube is a Burning Platform (Exit YouTube, Invidious Won't Save Us From Google/Alphabet in the Long Run)
Alphabet Agency (Google) sees the future of video as a "skinnerbox" (running Android) that indoctrinates you like TikTok does
Microsoft's Demise in the Global News Cycle is Rather Telling
It should be noted that Microsoft is, in general, no longer prominent or dominant in news headlines
Gemini Migration and Backup Capsule (Archive)
At the end we'll end up with something a lot better than before and latency should be massively reduced
Links 01/10/2023: Science, Education, and pro-Russia Slovakia Leadership
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 01, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, October 01, 2023
Links 01/10/2023: Climate, Patents, Programming, and More
Links for the day
Apple and Microsoft Problems
half a dozen links
Malware in the Ubuntu Snap Store, Thanks to Canonical Bloatware Mindset
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Gemini Rising
There are 3523 capsules
Richard Stallman Gave a Talk Yesterday, Will Give Another Talk Today, and Will Give Two More Talks in Germany Later This Week
Those cover at least 2 different topics
Beware the Microsoft Sharks
We won't forgive and forget
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 30, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, September 30, 2023
Don't be Afraid of the Command Line, It Might Even be a Friend
There's a tendency to think that only graphical interfaces were made to simplify usage, and any declarative interface is by design raw, inherently unfit for usage
One Positive Note About GNU/Linux Coverage in 2023 (Less Microsoft)
GNU/Linux users do not want this, with very rare exceptions
Snaps Were Never Good at Security, But the Media Coverage is Just Appalling
The media should focus on culling Windows, not making a huge fuss over minor things wrongly attributed to "Linux"