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Microsoft Businesses Google The Internet

Ballmer - Trusting Vista and Battling Google 265

Posted by Zonk from the war-stories dept.
Carnivore24 wrote to mention a C|Net article discussing Steve Ballmer's morning keynote at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo. From the article: "'I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,' Microsoft's CEO said ... Ballmer also touched on a variety of areas related to Microsoft's competition with Google. The software maker will compete 'the good old-fashioned way, with innovation,' he said. 'There are many things--who knows?--Google may or may not do. If you read the papers today, other than curing cancer, Google will do everything.'"
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Ballmer - Trusting Vista and Battling Google More

Ballmer - Trusting Vista and Battling Google

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  • If by cancer... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:50PM (#13847716)
    he meant Microsoft, then more power to Google!

    • Re:If by cancer... (Score:3, Informative)

      by killjoe ( 766577 )
      DIdn't Bill Gates called open source cancer? Maybe that's Ballmers next mission, curing cancer.


      • If not cancer, Ballmer's got to be popping a vein.

        All of the time CNN was showing hurricane image data imposed on maps today, there was "Google Earth" in the upper right-hand corner of the TV screen.

        I can only imagine what kind of scheming was going on in Redmond to find a way to make a substitution.


  • Google To Cure Cancer! (Score:5, Funny)

    by hsjones ( 789284 ) <hsjones@sisna.com> on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:50PM (#13847723) Homepage
    Sorry, Steve. I have it on good authority that this is also in their roadmap.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Rootin for Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LilGuy ( 150110 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:51PM (#13847731)
    I'll root for google up until the day they become too big for their (b)riches, at which point I'll root for the next underdog.

    VIVA AMERICA!
    • VIVA AMERICA!

      America's the underdog?!
    • I hardly think Google is an underdog. Perhaps they are, by comparison to Microsoft, but Google has not a small amount of weight to throw around.

      Just out of curiosity, did you root for Microsoft in its early days? By all reasonable accounts I've seen, MS was the underdog then.
      • I don't think anyone rooted for Microsoft in the early days. People freely traded DOS and MS issued a fatwa that the computer geeks that are promoting it are 'pirating' their software and ordered that they pay for it (LOL).
        One of the things that made the IBM-PC attractive was the ability to expand which was limiting on the Commodores (yes you could expand but not at the level of the ole' PC).
        The fact that MS-DOS was easy to copy just made it the easiest choice to use as an OS.
        It's the developers and their
        • > I don't think anyone rooted for
          > Microsoft in the early days.

          What do you consider the early days? Certainly in the early days of business personal computing (say 1984-1994), Microsoft was seen as the ally helping the enchained corporate manager fight against the evil, controlling clutches of the evil Data Processing Department. Read the trade press of the time - Microsoft was spoken of as an ally (if not a friend) and partner.

          sPh

        • Re:Rootin for Google (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cmacb ( 547347 )
          You have a bad memory.

          Microsoft intentionally looked the other way regarding piracy, even of their own software. They did not join the BSA (a group that fights piracy) because they only wanted to selectively enforce their license, allowing individuals and small companies to spread the use of and become dependent on their products and then only clamping down once such organizations had full pockets. This is right out of the drug pusher's playbook.

          BSA wanted to in fact conduct raids on even small companies

  • The good old fashioned way? (Score:5, Funny)

    by UnderDark ( 869922 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:51PM (#13847732)
    Um, wern't the "old fashioned" ways using teams of hired mercs to wage priovate wars with? Or am I just reading too many M-rated books?

  • Chair tossing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:52PM (#13847746)
    'I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,'

    First stage: Denial

    • Chair, hell (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:57PM (#13847819)
      I work for Steve Ballmer, so I am reading these comments with great interest and no small amusement. He most certainly did not throw a chair. He threw his whole fucking credenza into the hallway and kung-FUDded it to splinters.

      • I remember that (Score:4, Funny)

        by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday October 21, 2005 @08:22PM (#13849497) Homepage Journal
        Steve: Whats over there?
        Me: It'a a credenza
        Steve: What's it doing?
        Me: Nothing, it's a credenza.
        Steve: I watch it, what's it do?
        Me: Nothing It's a credenza
        Steve: I grab it and throw it in the hallway.
        Me: ...Ooookay... Now what?
        Steve:Does it do anything?
        Me: No IT'S a credenza!
        Steve: I kung-Fu it's ass!
        Me: Like a chair?
        Steve: Hell Yeah like a chair! Except I'm going to fucking kill it! You HEAR ME credenza! I'm going to FUCKING KILL you!!!!

        or maybe I'm confusing that with another story.

    • That's not the full quotation. Taken from a collection of his internal memos published in Ballmer Unleashed: Eye of the Primate by Dwight Schloopenheimer, Steve goes on to say:

      "I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life, but I find dwarf tossing to be a very relaxing hobby."

    • "I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life."
      -- Steve Ballmer

      I just added this to my quote file, and I'd like to humbly suggest that it'd make a great QOTD for Slashdot. (Taco?)
    • Is there a dishonest way to throw a chair?

  • Honestly... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dante Shamest ( 813622 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:53PM (#13847760)
    "I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,"

    What he means folks, is that he has thrown a chair dishonestly.

  • If you read the papers today, other than curing cancer, Google will do everything.

    Sounds like the media has it right for a change.

  • Yeah right. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by failure-man ( 870605 ) <failureman@gmFREEBSDail.com minus bsd> on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:53PM (#13847766)
    "I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life."

    Sure Steve, and I'm not the guy who hacked the announcements system when I was in high school. Face it. It's what you're famous for. Make use of it.

  • Developers Developers Developers! (Score:3, Funny)

    by camelmix ( 880071 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:53PM (#13847768)
    Wow, MS a bit scared of the little search engine that could. And my good old competetion we mean being bullies and playing monopoly.

  • What is Ballmer's Slashdot ID? (Score:5, Funny)

    by obender ( 546976 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:54PM (#13847780)
    If you read the papers today, other than curing cancer, Google will do everything.

    From the comment above I suspect he's been reading Slashot on a regular basis lately.

  • In other news..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:54PM (#13847783)
    Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying "Fucking Mark Lukovsky a is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Mark Lukovsky for starting that chair rumor!" after he denied throwing a chair.
    • and the other side of the coin shows:

      Late Friday, Ballmer issued a statement disputing Lucovsky's declaration. "Mark Lucovsky's account of our conversation last November is a gross exaggeration of what actually took place," Ballmer said. "Mark's decision to leave was disappointing and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterization of that meeting is not accurate."

      Obviously wasn't strong enough - next time use a table or the desk?

  • oh they are helping cure cancer too (Score:3, Insightful)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:55PM (#13847790) Journal
    I don't know many cancer researchers who don't use Google, Google news or Google Scholar to keep tabs on their competition.

  • It's built right in! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Valacosa ( 863657 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:56PM (#13847815)
    From the article:
    "...such as efforts to improve the Web browser and make the operating system more resilient."
    Uh - could I uninstall one and keep the other? I doubt it.

  • Cancer? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by utexaspunk ( 527541 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @04:58PM (#13847841)
    Hey, google could be working on that [google.com], too...
    • Microsoft is in it deep now.

      Google IS working to cure cancer after all.

      I suppose this means the "OpenOffice over the web" and other rumors are true as well.

      Headline from 2020: "Google buys nearly bankrupt Microsoft"

      "We did it mainly to put them out of their misery" says Google CEO...
      • Microsoft is in it deep now.

        Google IS working to cure cancer after all.

        From the bottom of the page you linked to:

        Thank you for your interest in Google Compute. The latest versions of the Google Toolbar do not support the Google Compute feature. If you would like to support the Folding@home project, please download the official Folding@home client.

        So the correct way to put it is Google WAS working to cure cancer, but they are no longer doing so.
    • That would be so damn cool if this wasn't added at the end of the page.

      Thank you for your interest in Google Compute. The latest versions of the Google Toolbar do not support the Google Compute feature. If you would like to support the Folding@home project, please download the official Folding@home client.

  • Well... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:01PM (#13847863) Homepage Journal
    I think that, as yesterday demonstrated, the future of computing should not rely entirely on access to online services. That alone may very well determine the winner in this struggle.

    For decades we've had to face losing important work to power outages. But Internet outages are just as menacing -- and indeed, where one can get a battery to power their digital workhorses there is no such analog for Internet power. Not to mention the inherent threat of viruses spyware or hackers that comes from Internet connectivity, or frankly the less than cohesive user experience and unconsistent interface websites present.

    Despite being oft (and many times unfairly) maligned by self-proclaimed computer experts Microsoft has irrevocably broken the yoke of the client-server relationship that has held computing back and is single-handedly responsible for the microcomputer revolution. The last twenty-five years would not have been impossible without them, and it's pure fantasy to suggest otherwise.

    Consequently, I don't think it will be a question of whether or not we will be using Vista but merely how Microsoft will have managed to improve upon the mostly unimproveable experience of Windows XP. If they compete with anything, it will be their own success.

    • Consequently, I don't think it will be a question of whether or not we will be using Vista but merely how Microsoft will have managed to improve upon the mostly unimproveable experience of Windows XP. If they compete with anything, it will be their own success.

      Umm...riiight...

      What are you basing that conclusion on?

      I mean, even taking the assumption that XP even provides a good experience, that is very, very, far from 'mostly unimprovable.' I've seen some interesting claims made by OS zealots, but no a


    • But Internet outages are just as menacing -- and indeed, where one can get a battery to power their digital workhorses there is no such analog for Internet power.
      And how many companies rely on batteries or generators to continue work when the power goes out? Hardly any. Some ISPs, the various telephone companies, hospitals, other business shuts down and everyone goes home when the power goes out. Some companies rely on phone service for their entire business. I bet they have no backup plan in place in t

    • Re:Well... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by mcrbids ( 148650 )
      Consequently, I don't think it will be a question of whether or not we will be using Vista but merely how Microsoft will have managed to improve upon the mostly unimproveable experience of Windows XP. If they compete with anything, it will be their own success.

      Uh, you're kidding, right?

      Right?

      I spent 4 hours yesterday helping a techno-neophyte (but good friend from high school) get his wireless card to work with my wifi hotspot. A frustrating afternoon, where we discovered that

      1) Windows Update, run manually

    • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JasonKChapman ( 842766 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:32PM (#13848154) Homepage
      Despite being oft (and many times unfairly) maligned by self-proclaimed computer experts Microsoft has irrevocably broken the yoke of the client-server relationship that has held computing back and is single-handedly responsible for the microcomputer revolution. The last twenty-five years would not have been impossible without them, and it's pure fantasy to suggest otherwise.

      That's a bit revisionist. Microsoft rode the personal computer wave. It didn't create it. Z-80-based CP/M machines had already broken the client-server relationship and had proven that stand-alone, even portable, computers would find business users waiting with open arms. Those of us who were selling, ready-to-go with WordStar, SuperCalc, and custom dBase applications, had already seen the future. It was coming no matter which OS came down the pipe.

      And if any company can be said to be single-handedly responsible for the microcomputer revolution, it would be IBM. It was the weight of that name that got the second wave of people believing that there just might be something to this "personal computer thing."

    • Internet is pretty reliable by and large but that's not what Ballmer is freaking out about. He is freaking out about the fact that web apps make life easier for corporations to write and deploy apps in their internal network and makes windows redundant in the corporate IT systems.

      RIght now if the corporate network went down everybody stops working anyway, no email, no web, no database, no shared files, nothing. It's in that context that web apps hurt windows. If linux ever started spreading on the corpora
    • Consequently, I don't think it will be a question of whether or not we will be using Vista but merely how Microsoft will have managed to improve upon the mostly unimproveable experience of Windows XP. If they compete with anything, it will be their own sucess.

      There are three posibility explaining why you wrote this sentence:

      You mispelled flawed.

      Or, you spelled it right and are just really high. Really, really high.

      Or, maybe....hey everybody it's Bill! Bill, this is Slashdot, Slashdot this is Bill Gate

  • "I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life."

    "I have never, honestly, used Microsoft's position as a monopoly in any illegal way to undermine fair competition or to fix prices."

    HONEST!

  • "'I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,' Microsoft's CEO said

    Right. All Chief Executives [cnn.com] make these kind of proclaimations, sometimes just before they are indicted.

    He should have just ignored the issue. What is really imporatant is how Microsoft's stock has performed and how their product shipment schedules have been met since he took control of the day-to-day operation at Microsoft. Whether or not he threw a chair in a confrontation is a sideshow and irrelevent to running a multi-billion dolla
    • What is really imporatant is how Microsoft's stock has performed and how their product shipment schedules have been met since he took control of the day-to-day operation at Microsoft.

      I think even the biggest MS supporter would agree their stock performance has been very ugly since Jan 2000 [nasdaq.com]. It may be a fairly stable place to park your money but investing in MS certainly hasn't been a money maker for quite a long time.

  • I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,

    he added "Kicked across a room yes, picked it up and thrown it no." Who ever actually throws chairs? I've seen people kick chairs before, but never throw them.

  • the good old-fashioned way (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zapatero ( 68511 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:04PM (#13847919) Journal
    Let me extrapolate on Balmer's Microsoft competes the "Good old-fashioned way":

        We will own more congressman and senators than Google, and then we will make Google against the law, and then make it illegal for them to index any Class-C address web-site, and then we will buy all Class-B addresses and then patent them, and make it so only Windows machines can reach a Class-B address. After than we will have our congressmen and Senators pass a law making IP-v6 illegal, thereby protecting our hold on addresses. Then we will go to Europe and outlaw X.25.

    That's just a good old-fashioned microsoft technology battle.

  • Can we sue Google (Score:4, Funny)

    by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:05PM (#13847929) Homepage Journal
    For not curing cancer?

    -Rick

  • Hmmmm. Would people here trust MSN? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:12PM (#13847989) Homepage Journal
    I've never tried Microsoft's search engine. This article made me pause a bit and ask why.

    The reason may not be entirely rational, but I just don't feel like I can trust MSN. It isn't just a blanket mistrust of Microsoft; writing a memo on Word doesnt' make me uneasy. I think the issue is that Microsoft has such an obvious lust to control the economic and technological ground on which information is created, processed, stored and distributed, my subconscious impression is that I couldn't rely on their search results as not having some kind of strategic agenda embedded in it.

    Of course, may not be wise not to trust Google either, but they are in the informaiton as information business, not in the business yet of setting themselves as the ground on which all transactions have to occur. The most important asset they have is user trust. In many ways, Google is the closest thing we have to the old newspaper business model: we give you information, and support that service by advertising around the information. Newspapers these days tend to be part of media empires with financial interests that go beyond the old fashioned cussede political biases.
  • I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,'

    No, but he has thrown a chair in dishonesty.

  • I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life

    I think there was a transcription error in that qoute. He meant something more like this:

    I have never honestly-thrown a chair in my life

    Meaning that not only did he throw a chair in a fit of rage but he did it with the smug air of dis-honesty.

    Honestly, people.

  • Too late for them (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Buran ( 150348 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:20PM (#13848061)
    I'm sorry ... but MS has burned us all so many times that no matter what they say, I will never trust them again. I also don't like their attitude and the attitude of their staff (one of their reps described a tech support policy I find abominable, I said I'd never do business with their employer, the rep snottily said 'okay, remove all MS software from your computer', I responded that I long since quit using their crap and that I'm a Mac user... never got a reply. How predictable).

    They ignore antitrust rules (most recently, Microsoft Pulls Its Head Out [wired.com]), they make software that ignores standards (IE), they assume their customers are thieves and demand all kinds of crap from us to prove we aren't when no other major OS vendor does that, and they are a convicted abusive monopolist and should have been broken up but are still operating.

    Sorry, Ballmer. Sorry, Bill. You lost me a long time ago. You had lots of chances, and that time is way past over. You dug your own hole. Rot in it.

    • [..]demand all kinds of crap from us to prove we aren't (thieves) when no other major OS vendor does that[..]

      Really? What about OS X on x86? Doesn't the operating system demand an Apple Mac branded computer even though the OS is perfectly capable of running on any intel x86? Be realistic here - license keys and verification are nothing new. Lots of software companies do it, not just Microsoft.

      • Really? What about OS X on x86?

        You do know that Darwin [apple.com]...which can be run on the x86 platform, does not require any keys, doncha?

        Oh? you're referring to a non-released, completely beta test OS that Apple that apple ships ONLY in their development/test x86 boxes? The one they don't actually sell yet?

      • Yes, but I specifically had OSes in mind. An OS made for a specific type of computer (which isn't necessarily unusual or bad) isn't the same thing as one that assumes by default that you are a thief. I stand by what I said when I said that no other OS does that. All the others just install and leave you alone once they're running.
  • No, He is wrong.

    Just go to google and search for: cure for cancer

  • Vista doesn't trust YOU!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RentonSentinel ( 906700 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:22PM (#13848082) Journal
    How can I trust an OS that doesn't trust me?

    Vista doesn't trust my monitor enough to stream my glorious Blu-ray DVD to the screen... so how can I trust Vista?

  • "Google cures cancer"
  • MicroSoft shareholders (the owners -- including Billy Gates) don't care if Ballmer throws chairs. I just want that stock price, up up UP!!!! UP !!! UP!!!

    I don't care going google, froogle, joogle or shitoogle. I just want the stock price up.

    Clearly the chair story is driving him nuts, or he'd have ignored it, the way he should have.
  • After all, the Chair-man was supposed to be Bill Gates! [microsoft.com]

  • Oh my gawd! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DaveM753 ( 844913 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:40PM (#13848231)
    FTA:
    "I'm going to trust Vista on day one," Ballmer said. "I bet most people in this audience will trust it day one--on their home computer," he joked. "I'm trying to be honest among friends."
    /FTA

    Sure he'll trust it. He profits from it. I just can't believe anyone would fall for this line of B.S.

    Yeah, like he's one of our friends. And the worst part is, TONS of people actually DO fall for this B.S. There are too many sheep on this planet.

    Blah! Okay, I'm done ranting now.

  • Microsoft to "compete on innovation"... (Score:3, Funny)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @05:44PM (#13848275)
    MSFT shares suspended.

    TWW

  • If you read the papers today, other than curing cancer, Google will do everything.


    They'll probably start donating a bunch of cash to cancer research. I truely wouldn't be surprised if they did it, too.

    Though I can't see them setting up "caancer.google.com".
  • and they're going to make an OS that doesn't crash

    and a secure web browser

    and all the other stuff they promised us...
  • "The software maker will compete 'the good old-fashioned way, with innovation,' he said"

    It's good to know that Microsoft is willing to try new things.
  • What Ballmer meant to say is that he has never personally thrown a chair. I mean come on, do you expect him to be able to throw a solid gold chair? Now that doesn't mean his minions weren't ordered to throw the chair.

    Plausible deniability.

  • Balmer and the Hulk (Score:3, Funny)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Friday October 21, 2005 @06:41PM (#13848760) Journal
    There are far too many similarities to ignore .

    Banner Vs Ballmer , they both get mad , turn a funny colour and start throwing things around .. (They also both look like near hairless Gorillas )
  • But the ARE curing cancer! Just look:
    http://toolbar.google.com/dc/offerdc.html [google.com]
    Ok, so they don't list cancer specifically, but I'm sure it's helping!

  • People say 'I'm going to MSN you' (Score:4, Funny)

    by rubberbando ( 784342 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @06:41PM (#13848763)
    And I respond with, "Please don't." (:

  • Google Toolbar Curing Cancer! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fbg111 ( 529550 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @06:42PM (#13848768)
    Hate to break it to ya Steve old boy, but Google is curing cancer. The Google Toolbar [google.com] includes Google Compute [google.com], which contributes unused CPU cycles to Folding@home [stanford.edu], the Stanford research project on protein folding. Potential payoffs of the research include curing some types of cancer. [stanford.edu]

  • Liar (Score:3, Funny)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Friday October 21, 2005 @10:33PM (#13850174) Homepage
    'I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life,'

    You've never done ANYTHING honestly in your life, Steve.

    Can you say the words "lying sack of shit"?

    I knew you could.

  • NO! No, Ballmer! Not INNOVATION! (Score:3, Informative)

    by OwlWhacker ( 758974 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @03:10AM (#13851107) Journal
    The software maker will compete 'the good old-fashioned way, with innovation,' he said.

    Innovation?!

    That's not the 'good old-fashioned way' of Microsoft that we all know and love!

    This type of thing (which occurred just the other day) is the 'old-fashioned' way:

    "Microsoft Corp., already under government scrutiny over its behavior toward competitors, told manufacturers of iPod-like portable audio devices that under a new marketing program they would not be allowed to distribute rivals' music player software but pulled back after one company protested." - [more [bostonherald.com]]

  • Never believe anything... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vryl ( 31994 ) on Saturday October 22, 2005 @09:32AM (#13852050) Journal
    until it's been officially denied.

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