Posted 09/29/09 at 09:21:55 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Steve Ballmer recently sat down with Techcrunch to wax philosophical about browsers and their connection to the operating system. Ballmer was asked about the legal disputes over Internet Explorer bundling. Without missing a beat, he called the notion that operating systems can be independent of internet access “not a sensible concept”.

Ballmer went on to take a few swings at the upcoming Chrome OS, saying, “If you remember, [Marc Andreessen] said something like, Windows will just be a poorly debugged set of device drivers running Netscape… Now, that’s kind of basically the attitude expressed in Chrome Browser, Chrome OS.” He also called Chrome’s browser market share a “rounding error”, but noted that Firefox is having a real impact. Ouch for Chrome.

When asked about how Microsoft will fare against the continued onslaught of competitors, he answered like he’d been thinking about it a lot. Ballmer explained that Macs attack from the top of the market, and PC sales have gained a bit on Macs in the last year as people shied away from more expensive options. He went on to say that Netbooks were going to continue to be a big part of the Windows strategy.

Ballmer clearly lays out a world in which competitors are sometimes operating systems, sometimes browsers, and in the future may even be both. Even with all these new threats, he seems pretty sure Microsoft will stay on top. What do you think?

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Posted 02/06/09 at 09:08:34 AM by Paul Lilly

The time has come for businesses to abandon Windows XP and start using Vista, so says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Failure to do so might result in a discontent work force.

"If you deploy a four or five-year old operating sytem today, most people will ask their boss why the heck they don't have the stuff they have at home," Ballmer said during an interview at a New York City Event.

Whether or not "the stuff they have at home" is Vista or XP, Ballmer has good reason to push the former to business owners. According to the most recent survey results collected by Forrester, Vista is powering slightly less than 10 percent of all PCs within enterprises in North America and Europe.

On the bright side (for Microsoft), Ballmer may not have to do much convincing. Forrester also says that 31 percent of enterprises have begun deploying Vista, even with Windows 7 now on the horizon.

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Posted 05/21/07 at 03:55:50 PM by Paul "One4yu2c" Lilly

Microsoft claims Linux and open source software infringe on 235 patents, but could it be a scare tactic amid a disappointing Vista launch?

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