Microsoft’s loud and in your face CEO Steve Ballmer obviously has his own views and opinions on competing platforms, but comments made lately sure were interesting. During a recent interview Ballmer was asked about the competition in Android and Apple and he wasted no time diving in head first. A few of his comments were quite surprising so head down past the break for more details.
Ballmer has always been quick to criticize the competition, but during the interview with LinkedIn he had some pretty harsh words to share regarding our beloved Android. When asked about the Windows Phone 8 strategy he aimed right for Android in a matter of seconds. Ballmer immediately called the rival Android platform “wild,” “uncontrolled,” and susceptible to malware. My first thought was, have you ever used Windows Vista?
At the same time he called Apple’s ecosystem “high priced” and “highly controlled” — each end of the spectrum according to Stevie. I guess what he’s trying to get crossed with those comments is Windows Phone 8 is best — and finds a perfect middle ground. According to him at least, but we all know better.
Ballmer event went as far as to say Android is “not in the consumers best interest” and neither is Apple with their high prices. Pretty interesting thoughts from the man in charge over in Redmond. We wanted to post this quickie update and see what you all thought on the comments. Personally, we feel that the wild and “slightly” uncontrolled aspects of Android is what has let it flourish. Manufacturers can succeed on their own terms, and the developer community can make the project grow and evolve just as it has. This is why so many users love Android. Carry on folks!
[via SlashGear]
WTF!? Ballmer the Bomber at it again. Someone, a straightjacket, please.
lol
Windows Vista? Come on, don’t pull that one, Vista’s perfectly fine [it’s almost exact;y 7….]. Android does need to get some serious unification going on, the software division/sheer amount of hardware is really bad for consumers.
What.. Vista was absolutely terrible. 1GB machines slowed to a crawl. I have Windows 7 and love it. 7 was miles better than Vista
Uhh, don’t know how a machine would perform worse on vista than 7, since they have the same requirements. If you have 1 GB of ram, you are probably are best sticking with XP. What was terrible, pray tell, because I used it since before launch on a half dozen machines and had a great experience. Especially with SP2, it’s a fine OS and essentially 7 is just it with some UI facelift. People always rant about how terrible it was and I never understand why, it worked just fine [and not just for me…]
Seriously, there’s so little changed from SP2 to 7 it’s almost a joke,the only reason 7 came out was the stupid rep Vista had gotten (from my experience mostly by people pissed off about Ribbons and driver issues at launch)
Well 7 is much more efficient. RAM usage was threw the roof on Vista, the new UI elements were not too refined yet.. bla bla. It was ok I guess, but prefer 7.
Either way, Go Android!
Desperate words of someone desperate!
Big LOL!
Wouldn’t mind tightening up the Androids market and permission handling a bit but otherwise it’s good enough for the intended usability and freedom of choice. It will be interesting to see where Ballmer’s “middle ground” is.
Android out of control? Or controlling.. the market. We all know that Android has the largest share of the market. Microsoft is coming in late. They think they are a middle ground? Microsoft’s surface starting price is $499, maybe they could have gotten that 3 years ago, but they are so late to the game, that catching up is going to be hard. The specs are nice on the Surface, but the software and app store are far behind…We as android users love what we have and share, cause we are a community, apparently a ” wild and out of control one” I will take over “middle or the road and over priced” Cheers
I’d rather be uncontrolled than unsold.
“Not in the consumers best interest”
Didn’t mean to hit post, so i’ll finish that post here. I would say bullshit to that considering the sheer amount of GS3 devices that sold. Over 30 million, correct me if i’m wrong?
My competitors aren’t as good as me. Is that what he said? Seems like it to me.
Do you just post MS articles so you can come up with bash lines with no supporting arguments? I am an avid Android user but honestly your op-ed comments just make this whole article seem pretty ridiculous.
I only mentioned Vista pal… lol not to mention we rarely ever post microsoft articles.
Well i’m not surprised about his comment. It’s always the same old. Remember Linux is uncontrolled and bad for people, Mac is too pricy for the hardware and too closed on itself, Windows is best because its controlled bla bla bla.
Windows 8 is the exactly what he said the middle ground. A Android widget type controlled interface with the price tag of Mac for the hardware it uses.