Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli at Microsoft’s professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last week. One of Galli’s questions provoked Ballmer to comment on Apple and Mac OS X.
Galli: Some Microsoft critics say that many of the features in “Longhorn” already exist in other operating systems. How do you respond to that?
Ballmer: I don’t hear that from enterprise customers. They don’t look at the Mac. They just don’t. Some people will say some of the features are kissing cousins to features they’ve seen elsewhere, and that is true. I’m not apologetic about the fact that we should, in a way that doesn’t offend anyone else’s intellectual property, study and learn and benefit from the work others have done.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Galli didn’t specify Apple’s Mac OS X, so it’s telling that Ballmer brings up Apple and the Mac immediately. Microsoft’s enterprise customers who “don’t look at the Mac,” presumably will think Microsoft developed many of Vista’s features on their own and won’t even realize that they could’ve have most of Vista’s upcoming features for 5+ years already – if only they’d looked at the Mac. Certainly, Microsoft won’t mention to their customers where they got the ideas for Vista, they’ll instead trumpet Vista’s “new” features as “Microsoft innovation,” oxymoron be damned.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
PC World: Microsoft innovation – an oxymoron – September 15, 2005
Microsoft debuts Dashboard Widgets, er, ‘Microsoft Gadgets’ – September 13, 2005
Microsoft appropriates Apple’s ‘brushed metal’ look for Office 12 for Windows – September 13, 2005
Windows czar Allchin says Apple copying Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn – April 27, 2005
Microsoft employees leaving due to (and blogging about) malaise smothering company – April 25, 2005
eWEEK Editor Coursey: Longhorn so far ‘looks shockingly like a Macintosh’ – April 25, 2005
Due in late 2006, many of Windows Longhorn’s features have been in Mac OS X since 2001 – April 25, 2005
Microsoft’s new mantra: ‘It Just Works’ ripped straight from Apple’s ‘Switch’ campaign – April 22, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Microsoft’s Longhorn: ‘They are shamelessly copying us’ – April 21, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn will bear more than just a passing resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – April 15, 2005
Silicon Valley: Apple CEO Steve Jobs previews ‘Longhorn’ – June 29, 2004
Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Mac OS X Tiger ‘is going to drive the copycats crazy – June 28, 2004
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs previews Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ to ship in the first half of 2005 – June 28, 2004
Apple takes dead aim at Microsoft, ‘Longhorn’ with WWDC Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ ads – June 28, 2004
PC Magazine: Microsoft ‘Longhorn’ preview shows ‘an Apple look’ – May 06, 2004
Microsoft concerned that Longhorn’s look and feel will be copied if revealed too soon – August 25, 2003
Windows ‘Longhorn’ to add translucent windows that ripple and shrink by 2005 – May 19, 2003
Apple leads; Wintel follows as usual – November 11, 2002
Kissing. What? Is that the nice way of putting it?
They’re going nasty business!
Steve Ballmer looks like a product of a lot more than just “kissing cousins” if you ask me.
Image growing up in a family where your mom calls your dad “brother”.
All they can do is jump around and mimick others.
creepy analogy… these are the geniuses working on longhorn? cant wait…
More like shagging cousins.
Seems to me Ballmer’s justifying stealing Apple’s intellectual property by saying they’re too small for people to notice. It’s still copyright infringement either way you slice it monkey boy. Guess being inbred makes you stupid. Maybe he should stick to dancing.
has the man ever thought about using the phrase, “no comment”? This ain’t laundry detergent you’re selling, fool, this is serious!
Apple Legal, start your litigators!!
Am I biased towards Steve Ballmer? Or the guy always says / do things that come out being just plain dumb or stupid? Things that a 60 billion company CEO shouldn’t be saying?
I mean, for instance herel, he just go ahead and mentions the Mac exposing himself and his company that they copied features from OS X. While somewhere else, he starts shouting like a crazy monkey, sweating his fat off and jumping up and down? In another occassion he sends a chair spinning in the conference room while cursing and making death threats to the CEO of a rival company?
Doesn’t Microsoft have a PR / Press department that prevents their people from making / saying things that could compromise the company?
I really would want to see Ballmer being cross quetioned in a courtroom. Just think about all the compromising info that he would reveal about Microsoft if being interrogated by a slick lawyer…
MW: “end” as in “Is Microsoft’s end near? Will Steve Ballmer accelerate the proccess?
Monkey Boy is a perfect example of why we need an international agreement banning GMO’s.
The day M$ makes a product that doesn’t suck, is the day they start making vacuum cleaners.
I folded up the washing from the clothes line tania
are you happy now?
oh yeah comment…
why dont m$ get sued by apple?
Finally, confirmation about the things we’ve been arguing with PC apologists for years.
fef: I think Ballmer quite rightly recognizes that he could show up for a trade conference listening to an iPod, pack the iPod away and pull out a PowerBook for his show presentation, tell everyone he prepared the presentation himself with Keynote, and then close with a movie he made in iMovie with a soundtrack he pieced together in GarageBand, and it wouldn’t budge Apple’s market share up or Microsoft’s down a single percentage point.
SB, go to hell.
Goes to show what happens when you put a sales guy in the CEO position. Can’t keep their mouths shut.
The only thing that could possibly stop my company from using OS X Server is the fact that we need support for meeting management and conference room booking that we currently do using Exchange+Outlook combo. Otherwise I maybe would have made the switch already. SQLServer 2000 is easier to switch.
Can we have Andrew Kantor do a review of this so we can flame him again???
Don’t you people ever sleep? Do you just hover and wait for MDM to post something, anything?
MS is in trouble. People will laugh but any person working on the inside will realize the level of staff discontent. Managers flying all over the place trying to cross develop this and that. Morale is low and BOMBLAST is one helluva an egghead.
Theo
did u ever hear of timezones…
the world isnt just USA
lemmings?
theloniousMac
Sep 19, 05 – 01:45 am
Don’t you people ever sleep? Do you just hover and wait for MDM to post something, anything?
What? you mean you dont?
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Corporate mudslinging, good clean fun!
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CT ======]————- get some goggles, while your at it
Good thing Ballmer has a big mouth. That way it will be easier to fit his foot in.
Sleep?
Who can sleep?
Monday will be here soon and a new crop of juicy stories and clueless product writers will attempt to spew the virtues of the Creative Zen or Sony Walkman over the iPod or Microsoft products over Apple products and we get to rip them a new a$$hole.
Oh what joy!
It’s 2:30 AM and 9 AM is almost 6 hours away. 😀
*cue Carly Simon song “Anticipation”*
[Don’t you people ever sleep? Do you just hover and wait for MDM to post something, anything?]
Thanks for getting out of bed to notice.
If morale is low at MS why don’t they all just divy up the money between themselves (the staff of MS) and go live on an island somewhere. I island they could buy. They gotta get a couple of billion each surely.
Sure we sleep. But there are so many Mac users these days that there is always someone somewhere in the world who is awake at the time of a fresh new unbiased MDN posting.
M$ new campaign slogan:
Miscrosoft – INSPIRED BY APPLE
At least Ballmer’s being straight, and he’s right, looking at what the competition are doing is how most firms get better. Defining what your competition will be doing is how innovative companies stay in front (see Apple in the bad years vs Next).
Just a shame he can’t come out and say ‘software patents are bad’ – if MS took a lead against them, would probably be enough to kill em. (Instead, watch for another Apple/MS x-licence deal – we’ll trade you our iPod patent for some of your features).
Also, there’s a difference between copying the eye-candy and the engineering that lies underneath – see diff. between original MacOS and Windows, and most products that borrow Apple’s styling. Now from what’s been announced, there are some interesting engineering changes in Vista, but it seems to also be losing features as fast as it gains them.
Also, the times are changing. I believe Linux and Flash presents the biggest opportunity for Apple in the enterprise since the birth of the Mac. Contrary towards what some people might believe, big business doesn’t love Windows – it just likes standards. It also likes savings – and Apple hardware has never been cheap.
The biggest improvement we could make to conditions at work would be reducing the noise in the room by switching to, say, Mac Minis. Imagine what difference that could make in call centre environments with hundreds of PCs. Now Apple can’t go in and sell to those environments while the apps, but once the apps are cross-platform they can.
ppl
stop hijacking these posts
the topic is not ‘sleeping mac users wait to comment’
oh btw tania
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please pick up some milk on your way home
I think Bill Gates should phone over to Steve Jobs to apologize:
“Hey Steve?” (These guys always get through immediately)
“Hello William, now this is a surprise. I don’t suppose you’re calling for some hurricane donations for the foundation.”
“Ah, no Steve. But really, thanks for considering it. But, no, but really, about that statement that Ballsey made…”
“Yes, indeed. That was quite the garish statement. Funny how when I purchased Pixar…”
“Ahhhhhh, yeah, Steve, without question, I recall that no one noticed a thing back then.”
“That’s right, William. That’s right — Not a soul.”
“Anyhow, Steve, ahhhh, I just wanted to say that Ballsey didn’t mean what he meant, if you know what I’m laying down, heh heh”
“Um, okay — sure, I can live with it. It’s not like he’s running the show over there — oh, I’m just getting word that he in fact is running the show over there!”
“Heh heh, Steve, you’re getting me all hot flashed now.”
“Oh William, but a simple joke presented for your enjoyment.”
“Heh heh heh. Okay, so. I’ll talk you you again when Ballsey gets another enterprise marketing interview.”
“You do that. Oh, and William — get yourself some style. I mean really, you can do this.”
“Heh heh, oh Steve, you really get me rattled. Heh heh.”
That’s why it takes so long for Longhorn/Vista to be ready: the legal people have to check each and every stolen idea for the possibility of damaging litigation.
And the funny thing is; some IT journalist still consider them an innovative company. What a jerk!!!
That’s why
M$ = iWait
= iSee
= iCopy
= iMonopolize
Contrary towards what some people might believe, big business doesn’t love Windows – it just likes standards. It also likes savings – and Apple hardware has never been cheap.
It’s because Apple has to recoup huge R&D costs and really never had a large supply of processors.
Now Apple can’t go in and sell to those environments while the apps, but once the apps are cross-platform they can.
Well with the x86 based MacTels running win apps on a Mac might be just fine.
But then there is another problem, buisnesses don’t like having one hardware vendor to choose from.
But of course they live with the one sh*t software vendor Microsoft.
So apparently as long as your customers don’t realise that your product is full of stolen ideas that makes it more justifiable? Of course some ideas in any industry will become the norm across that industry at some point but to flat out mention someone you’ve stolen from seems stupid.
Steve Ballmer Translation Guide:
“‘I’m not apologetic about the fact that we should, in a way that doesn’t offend anyone else’s intellectual property, study and learn and benefit from the work others have done.”
Uh, duh we always have uh dun it this way. Billy said so. Me no apologize now. Developers, Developers Developers, Developers Developers, Developers…..
“I’m going to F’ning kill Google”
Ooh, ooh eek eeeek EEEEEKKKKKK (throws poo against wall)
“Give it up for me” – Steve Ballmer, after working up a sweaty froth
Steve Ballmer needs an ass kicking, man I hate his bullshit attitude. So full of himself and he seriously believes his own FUD.
Like Jobs said about a year ago, when the sales guy is running things, companies go down the tubes.
It is quite possible that Steve Jobs is picking his battles. The more Vista looks and acts like OS X, the easier the switch will be when people realize that Vista still has all of the inherited internal flaws of XP.
Jobs isn’t looking for the great dam buster; he is creating the small cracks such as iWork (to be expanded very soon), iChat, improved security, etc. Each month, as the Mac’s functionality slowly overlaps that of Windows, more and more people switch.
It will not be the mighty sword of Apple that brings the beast down, but the microscopic infections that no army of lawyers with truckloads of cash can defend against. Apple just happens to be ready as a soft place to land when people decide to jump from the dying beast.
more like twins separated at birth!
Wierd, I can’t get to e-Week with the Firefox browser – but I can get there with IE. With Firefox all I can get to is and ad page. Anybody else have this problem?
any mention of how the chairs fared in this interview?
Monkey Boy states: “I’m not apologetic about the fact that we should… benefit from the work others have done.”
Personally, I find his presumptive arrogance nauseating.
Just remember Ballmer-Boy, there are many who know that you are nothing but a second-rate salesman and cheerleader. If you hadn’t conned your way into one of the top slots at Mafiasoft, you’d be selling insurance or burial plots. Or used cars.
What goes around, comes around.
Vista isn’t kissing cousins, it’s the byproduct of kissing cousins. as in the idiot inbred cousin that is an embarrassment to the entire community.
“HYUK! HEY EV’RYWUN! LOOK WHUT AH KIN DO!”
.
.
.
CRASH.
I like the way a post said it on the website http://www.microsoftgadgets.com (don’t go here unless you want to be subjected to the ultimate in Mediocre-Soft Copycat Engineering.)
The post said: Everything microsoft does ends up with this cobbled-together feel to it.
And that’s just it! We Mac users have noticed this subtle feel for years and years. It’s like, someone tried to copy, but they just can’t get it right. And what is it? It’s the problem with every counterfeit…they achieve something close to it, but they just don’t get it right. Of course, it can end up being good enough (or great!) for some clueless people…people who think they are getting value, but instead are getting ripped-off horribly.
Check out my post, and the person who first used “cobbled-together” on that site. There are many other entertaining, and loaded-with-truth mac comments to check out, too.
I made a reference to Ballmer’s words (from this article) over there on that site.
John Gee
“Microsoft innovation” is NOT an oxymoron, but it is a contradiction in terms.
“Ballmer” and “kissing” in the same sentence is almost enough to make me upchuck my breakfast.
And that’s just it! We Mac users have noticed this subtle feel for years and years. It’s like, someone tried to copy, but they just can’t get it right. And what is it?
—-
Ummm Open-Architecture.. great for $$$ but shit for the user.
Now let me bring something up that really bugs me..
If you go to Pauls WinSupersite , you can DL videos of Vista..
Now.. besides drooling over all that 2gig of RAM goodness (they got an application swithcher now.. and a geeked out 3d app switcher too..).. they’re showing off the next version of Outlook.
What bugs me about it?
no, not the fact that ‘timed events’ got such an uproarious applause (I MUST be missing something.. seems like a no-brainer 10 yr old feature).. but that they DELIBERATELY make right clicking part of the program.
The right click started out as an ‘advanced’ drill down.. but look how far we’ve come.. now MS has taken it upon themselves to give up on UIs and just make everything a right click menu..
Um, it’s called a GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE.. making right-click the default means.. they’re not doing enough to make things intuitive and natural. So the whole program becomes a series of menus and sub-menus…
What a waste of 2gig of RAM, huh?
Loooong wait for ShortHorn
“That’s why
M$ = iWait
= iSee
= iCopy
= iMonopolize”
And the MS all important
= iProfit
stop calling it MacTel!
its not MacBM or Macorola now is it? NO!
Hopefully the Intel switch will put Apple on the enterprise radar. And if HP exits the PC business, Apple will be one of a dwindling number of big-name PC vendors.
hammer: no, but it IS Wintel. Personally I prefer Macintel.
beryllium: what’s the difference?
Apple needs to put an enterprise marketing package together to show that Apple can not only do all the things MS does, but does them better. It needs to take a typical ‘enterprise’ working day, and show how the Mac can better it with inherent security, time saving workflows and user experiences. Not just blurbs in an article or commercial, but actual workflow examples.
Moving to Intel can open a lot or possibilities, but Apple needs to start now….using the fact that Vista is beginning to look like OSX does now and wont be out until next year.
When Vista comes out and the viruses and crashes start, windows users may associate those problems with the MacOS just because Vista and the MacOS will look alike (guilty by look and feel association). MS could use that against Windows users wanting to switch to the Mac. In MS sales, anything fair.
Marketing now will show enterprise how it should be and could be done before MS Vista comes out, so when it does and starts to crap out Apple will look even better.
And to Mike Buonarroti, I think you’re on target: SJ is picking his battles with preparation, innovation and Mac determination. Its easier to bring a giant down by chopping at his legs than trying to hit him in the head.
My few cents
Andrus:
Look into Meeting Maker.
http://www.meetingmaker.com
It is about as cross platform as you can get.
Servers supported: Windows, Mac, Solaris, Linux
Native mode clients: Windows, Mac
Web clients: Windows, Mac, Solaris, Linux
It even syncs with Palm OS devices.
And for those transitioning from Outlook it integrates with Outlook too.
After reading those words which come directly from Micro$oft’s own big mouth – I would think that Apple’s legal department just might be working overtime tonight – I would hope so! Didn’t he as much as say that they were coping Apple – MicroSoft needs just once to be put in there place and shown to be the assholes that there really are!
You guys shoud read what Ballmer said again. In his bumpkin sort of way, that was very carefully put. Why waste a good idea on a small amount of people? MS believes that they are mainstreaming an idea when they adopt it. Apple’s ideals will keep her down in the computing sect. Look for something you’re all not expecting in the next few years. Apple isn’t going to become the great loving, gentle monopoly you all want. She won’t be going away either.
Peace
Yes, it is Wintel which means we don’t want anything to do with it.
Don’t you one day expect to see Steve Ballmer with a big piece of tape over his mouth and Bill stood behind him frowning.
Guys-
I think everyone is missing the biggest new feature in Vista with regards to the enterprise/business customer. In Vista (supposedly) the OS will check ALL hardware and update drivers during startup. Even motherboards. Yeah. So what. You can change your motherboard without reinstalling your OS. Yeah. But you can also take the HD (with Vista installed) out of your old computer, put it in your new computer and just boot up. All your settings are still there. All your data is still there. THAT’S HUGE for the enterprise market. Imagine the company that’s upgrading their hardware. Instead of rebuilding their entire computer system, they just swap HD’s. Apple needs to get on this pronto.
PS – With regard to all the talk of Macs being able to run Windows, but Dells not running OSX — that assumes that MS won’t put in protection preventing Windows from running on a “non-MS-approved” computer. You guys are assuming that Apple is the only one who can prevent the use of their OS on unauthorized hardware. MS may well say: “If you don’t buy a “Windows” PC, you can’t install Windows.” Then the IntelliMac’s main corporate advantage is gone. Whoops.
Love the picture.
MW- eye. Kept refreshing for “tongue”
I like Bryan’s point!
BTW, Balmer is most correct about the Enterprise and the Macintosh. Microsoft is more worried about Linux in the enterprise than the Mac. It is as it should be, because Linux is a bigger threat right now.
Somehow, I don’t think the iPod “halo effect” has much of any bearing in the enterprise where the vast majority of PC purchases are.
I hate to admit but it is true. Apple is not considered at the enterprise level and I’m not sure that they are trying to get in there. I wonder why Apple doesn’t partner with a Fortune 1000 company and provides the hardware technology (to average associates and not just the marketing dept) at cost just to win some accounts.
Also I crinch everytime I see the word “creative” on Apple advertising. Biz want standards not creativity. Drop it Apple and biz customers may take you more seriously
Balmer reminds me of a part of the male anatomy. It rhymes with “prick”.
–DJ
in response to bryan’s post… ah, you can do that right now with any mac. i’ve taken a hard drive from a blue & white g3 tower and booted from it via firewire on my g4 ibook. motherboard drivers? how silly it is to even have to WORRY about such things. in fact, i have a HDD with tiger installed as an emergency backup drive that will work on EVERY MAC i’ve owned – the blue & white tower, a g4 tower, a g3 ibook, a g4 ibook and an iMac G5. it never once bothered me about drivers or anything. IT JUST WORKED.
when MS operating systems were still just shells on top of DOS (win98 on back), you could take the HDD from a computer and move it to another and it would go right into windows. of course, from there it would run in a crippled safe-mode while it spent the next five or so minutes trying to find drivers for so-and-so hardware.
so there! =)
oh yeah, and ballmer is a moron. =)
MacJack,
I’m glad you asked. An oxymoron is the use of two adjectives, having 180 degree opposite meanings, to describe something, for example: “Mom, that was a wicked good pie!” Wicked good is especially favored here in new England. While all oxymorons are contradictions in terms, not all contradictions in terms are oxymorons, as in the case of MDN’s phrase “Microsoft innovation”. The sentence “Microsoft builds wicked good software.” involves not only an oxymoron, and hence a contradiction interms, but also a bald-faced lie.
MW: lot. What do you expect from that lot in Redmond?
If I were talking to Steve Ballmer, I wouldn’t mention the Mac either unless I wanted a chair thrown at me.
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Reminds me of that Michael Keaton movie where he clones himself and enjoys the boost in productivity by letting his clone do all the “Joe jobs”. But then the clone got the same idea and clones himself. The result? A dysfunctional fool that is the result of a cloning a clone.
M$ Stillborn (a.k.a. Vista) will kind of look like Mac OS X but it will (in true M$ form) be dysfunctional. The popular press and peecee folk will flock to it and M$FT will finally move up 15 points in its wake. But alas, the virus/trojan/spam new ways to make Vista their bitch and the share price gain will be given back.
Four words for Ballmer: “Get on your feet!”
Whistling past the graveyard. Just because enterprise has been an ostrich with technology so far, Mr. Ballmer, doesn’t mean it always will be. IBM in the ’80’s thought they were invincible, too. Excpet they had a better product line than your do.
Well, no one likes ballmer, except for maybe his wife. You gotta wonder with a tongue like that, she must be a happy camper.
Ick.
Good service
Good service Good service