Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may not be the best in the biz, but the more we see of him, we kinda like the guy. That said, his take on Apple and the tech industry is often pretty skewed, if not downright delusional. To wit, here’s Ballmer talking about Windows Phone 7 and the value people associate with the Microsoft’s brand as compared to Apple.
I think you clearly have a lot more variety than Apple has. There’s really only one choice in the Apple world. I think the problem, if you don’t have a minimum kind of standard […] the brand means nothing to the user. Our brand means something to the user. It means something to the developer. It implies a certain level of consistency and high quality, which I think is important for the Windows Phone.
Uh, really?
via CNET
October 13th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Customers want variety, this is true. But when pretty much all of the alternatives don’t even hold a candle to Apple’s offerings, then who cares about variety? Hey, are you sure you want to drink that Coke? Maybe you’d like some dishwater, or old cooking grease, or gutter drainage or some nice warm dog drool? Good variety but I’ll stick with the Coke.
October 13th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
P.S. I’m still waiting for that iPod killer.
October 13th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
i’m not a fan of Steve Ballmer… i think he’s done quite a bit of damage to Microsoft over the years… However… the gist of his response regarding the “minimum kind of standard” and “value as a brand” was in reference to the multitude and flavors of Google handsets on the market and not Apple’s iphone…. He happened to throw in separate criticism against Apple (the iphone being its only choice) alongside Google’s larger number of handsets on the market and their inconsistencies across those different handsets.