Steve Ballmer is more greedy than most.

If Ballmer thinks the MS is going to get back those Apple converts, he is seriously mistaken. The reasons that Windows uses switch to Mac aren’t going to go away just because MS released a new version of Windows.

Consumer market is one thing, the commercial market is another, and where the big money hangs out.  Apple advocates who try and push for getting XServes in the server room aren’t helped by Apple’s on-again, off-again commitment to providing the server hardware.

Vista was more of a marketing failure than an actual OS failure, anyway.  We have been running it for years (as well as OS X and Linux) as a desktop OS, as well as in our automated regression testing lab, and really, it’s as good or as bad as the other two in terms of stability and use.  They all have their warts.

His says 96% of people choose windows over Mac, what he and most people factor, the fast majority of those windows machines are being bought corporations. Not consumers. Big differnce, as IT units only use windows for job security reasons only.

I thought Apple’s marketshare gains were a mere “rounding error”?

” Big differnce, as IT units only use windows for job security reasons only.”

Really!!!!  As a business owner, and a personal MAC user…I don’t buy Windows machines in order to keep my IT department employed.

I have users, many of them, I can buy 3 Windows Machine to one MAC….That’s why I buy them.

It’s about the bottom line.

I’m not a huge supporter myself but aren’t they forgetting Linux in this discussion?

On a slightly different matter, are MS stockholders really that concerned with the Mac’s comparatively miniscule gains in market share? There are much bigger fish to fry in Redmond.

I have users, many of them, I can buy 3 Windows Machine to one MAC (sic)….That’s why I buy them.

Really?  Are you giving the Staff $300 netbooks to work on?

Lets face it.. Mac is the Ashton Kutcher of the world and the PC is the Alan Greenspan.

When it comes to central mangemnent and large scale networking, Mac is about as brain dead as all the Hollywood Celebs it tries to act like.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Google Chrome.

Microsoft’s market share will be exposed for the fraud it is. The Vista users (6 to 8% of the computer market) have every reason to upgrade to System Seven. Most of the business market, which downgraded to Windows XP to maintain their workflows, will be holding off for better economic conditions.

The Windows 2000 (3%) and a third to a half of the XP users (79%) are on computers too old to take advantage of System Seven. Many of these are computers in businesses which do a single function well and there is little reason to upgrade them until the hardware cannot be repaired.

Meanwhile, Apple (9.5%) will be picking up Wintel consumers who’s hardware would need to be replaced anyway. These people will have decided that upgrading to System Seven is not worth it.

Google’s Chrome OS will be chipping away at Microsoft’s low end consumer market, while Apple chips away at the upper end. I expect the computer market share to be divided, next year, into System Seven users, business computers yet unready to move from XP, Apple OS and Google Chromes’s OS.

Rather than Microsoft looking like a robust monopoly, it will look like a company with a long legacy tail. That legacy tail is not guaranteed to move to System Seven. Much of it will stay where it is for many years.

I’ll bet within a year, Win 7 is offered preloaded on Macs (or my initials aren’t S.B. or even B.S.)

Our objective is to have a leading position among these competitors,” Mr. Ballmer said.

Well, that’s a comedown. I distinctly remember reading a year and a half ago, where MS stated they wanted to garner 40% of the smartphone market by 2012. I think they’ll be lucky to have 10%.

When it comes to central mangemnent and large scale networking, Mac is about as brain dead as all the Hollywood Celebs it tries to act like.

Then why did you spend $25k on becoming a Mac network expert?

Lets face it.. Mac is the Ashton Kutcher of the world

Really? I’ve never wanted to punch my Mac in the face.

Yesterday I was happily working away on my Ashton Kucher while my colleagues Alan Greenspan was a doorstop suffering from a viral infection.

Decision validated for me.

When is over 90% desktop market share not good enough?  That just smacks of incredible greed.  From his statement of saying Mac market share is merely a “rounding error” to now saying Microsoft absolutely has to take back tenths of a percent of market is ridiculous.  They’re the biggest software company in the world, have by far, the biggest market cap for tech companies to which nobody is coming close and they completely dominate the corporate world.  Yet Microsoft wants to take back some insignificant market share that Apple has gained after years and years of going nowhere.  That sounds like totally monopolistic behavior.  Microsoft has been the leading force in computers for almost 35 years with no competition at all.  No wonder Google is going after Microsoft in force.

I can buy 3 Windows Machine to one MAC….That’s why I buy them.

3 times the trouble for a third of the cost! Who can resist that?

He’s talking to shareholders. He has to seem aggressive in all areas - complacency isn’t an option here. Ballmer is (unintentionally) one of the funniest CEOs on the planet, and I love reading his ridiculous rantings, but I also see what he’s trying to do - he’s trying to put forth a valiant front to keep investors from leaving the ship. He has no choice - his company can’t compete on ideas. In the words of W.C. Fields, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull——.”

Microsoft has been the leading force in computers for almost 35 years with no competition at all.

MS has been the leading force in sales, not innovation, reliability, design, technology or User-interface. I just wanted to be clear on these points.

We’ve been all Mac for over 20 years and have over 75 machines. Due to a specific use we had to add 10 Win machines and now I find that we have to hire a M/S fool to take care of them. 20 years without an in house IT person…if I can replace this tool I will as soon as possible. It’s cost savings will be about 1/3 of what was promised due to the crap necessary to keep the Win machines up and running, most Win people view these costs as incremental in that they already have them so the crap I’m now dealing with is just another line on the list. In my case it’s a list that never existed before. Ballmer is like all the other CEO’s, they have no clue what’s happening in the trenches.