Ballmer is a boorish clod.

His company is writing software for the iPhone and his WinMo software is third rate crap. I owned 11 of them; all had interfaces that were beyond obtuse and a browser that was unusable. The ergonomics were organized for gorillas; Ballmer must have had the F team working on WinMo.

If he had three brain cells operating, he'd keep that monster clapper of his shut and wear a jacket to cover up his sweaty, smelly body.

As a leader, the man is a disgrace; he is completely incapable of leading by example. Moreover, his product failures: Zune, Xbox, PlaysForSure, WinMo, Encarta, SPoT, Money, Vista, etc. are unparalleled in American history.

He is a one man shareholder value destruction machine who should have been fired years ago. Everything Mini said is true and more: Ballmer is a ZERO.

As a leader, the man is a disgrace; he is completely incapable of leading by example. Moreover, his product failures: Zune, Xbox, PlaysForSure, WinMo, Encarta, SPoT, Money, Vista, etc. are unparalleled in American history.

First, as far as I remember, a lot of those products were started in the Bill Gates days.

Second, some of those aren't really failures. As far as I know, the XBox has been pretty successful. Windows Mobile was also successful (20 million devices last year), although Microsoft let it stagnate a bit much. Even the Zune looks like it's getting some positive press lately, as is Windows 7.

Some of the others weren't bad products. I liked Encarta and use Money almost every day.

Finally some of those, like Spot, were innovative products that just didn't take off. I give Microsoft props for trying, though.

If he had three brain cells operating, he'd keep that monster clapper of his shut and wear a jacket to cover up his sweaty, smelly body.

Comments like that are just immature. Even if you have met Ballmer and he was sweaty, that has little to do with his business acumen. Ad hominem attacks make you look bad.

Steve

Go on, tell us how you really feel...

Really, lots of people hate Ballmer, and I admit that at times I feel he is not the best public-facing executive around....but "unparelleled in American History". Drink koolaid much?

Disgrace? In an American business landscape littered with Madoffs and Skillings, Enrons and Worldcoms, can you really say that with a straight face? Ballmer and his predecesor Gates made millions for their investors and lead one of the largest, most successful companies in History....with no hint of scandal whatsoever save for the occasional anti-trust issue...not surprising when you control more then 90 percent of all the desktops in the world.

And lastly, if WinMo phones are such crap, why own ELEVEN of them? When I hate a product, I don't buy it twice, but you hate it and buy it ELEVEN times? If you hated them so much, there was always Symbian and other propriatary options. Really, be serious.

If you doubt that it is unparalleled in US history, you need only adduce a single exception to prove the statement wrong. Do you know of an IT company - or ANY company with such a string of loser products. Not even GM has produced such a string of market/financial rejects as the Redmond BloatFarm and the sweaty smelly One.

Insofar as the company being successful, Madoff was also, for a time. As far as success is concerned, MSFT's major product was market manipulation followed by theft. Saying that it was successful "...save for the occasional anti-trust issue..." is like describing a close friend who is robustly healthy except for some malignant lung cancer. MSFT has been found to be a serial anti-trust violator on two continents in restraint of trade on numerous occasions. The top management of MSFT is a group of serial law-breakers, nothing less.

Insofar as the 11 WinMo devices are concerned, my case was like many others: I kept hoping for better software. In between, the hardware, from HTC was error prone and poorly manufactured junk, like its software. I had two, two year, contracts and the devices kept falling apart. Both the software and hardware were junk. Over the four years, I went through 11 of them. I started out with the execrable Siemens SX-66 (a re-badged HTC) and went on to three other HTC models across four versions of WinMo.

Each WinMo version was useless dung, starting with the browser which was a shrunken (F-You, you have no alternative) version of i.e. The email was crap and lost its settings three-five times a week necessitating constant calls to AT&T. The stupidity of WinMo is that there was no backup for settings. The stupidity of Redmond is that it could not conceive that its hardware/software could ever go down. Apparently no one at the Redmond dung heap ever had a mobile BSOD. If you wanted to see the battery status, you menu dived; likewise for turning off an app. It froze if you looked at it wrong. The music player was crap. The apps never loaded right twice in a row.

Overall, it was conceived, designed, written and manufactured like pure M$H!T. More than a year ago, I got an iPhone which is a wonderful device: the battery status is obvious; the music works great; the browser is light years better than WinMo$H!T. I am happy with the iPhone and fondly hope for M$H!T to go bankrupt for all the irritation that its devices caused me. The promised much and delivered little. Like most M$H!T products they were mostly failures.

M$HIT deserves to go bankrupt just like GM because it had a monopoly and acted just like GM: F the customer; he has no choice.

Mark my words, by 2015, M$H!T will be a bad memory and Ballmer will be counting his millions in a warm place.

The M$H!T customers will still hate M$H!T products but less so since fewer will need/want them. I will cheer when Ballmer is fired and more so when M$H!T goes bust because it is a lazy, stupid, god-damn the customer, bloated, useless company filled with adjudicated law breakers on two continents.

Don't agree the iPhone is pretty much the best mobile device available. For the non-tech consumer, entertainment use, or impressing the coffee shop crowd, it is definitely one of the best devices. For business use, or a consumer interested more in productivity apps than social networking/entertainment, the iPhone isn't even close to WM, or Blackberry.

As far as the employee taking the picture, I have worked for CEO's that would have stomped on the iPhone for real. The employee should have some common sense. It would be like a Canon employee taking the Canon CEO's picture with a Nikon. What the employee uses on his/her time is their business, but in work you use your company's product.

I'll start this by saying that I own a WM that I barely tolerate, that I'll be moving to an iPhone as soon as my contract is up in December, and that all of my computers are Macs. I'm not thatl bothered by the example (though I'd be darned pissed if it was my iPhone he grabbed, that's for sure), though I agree with cgavula's point.

Just a counter-point on Steve Jobs, I'll remind all that it is still the case in Apple Retail Stores that you are most likely checked out by an associate who is doing so with a Symbol handheld device running Windows Mobile (though I think that they are slowly working towards replacing them with iPod Touches or iPhones.) So, you're probably right that he'd react that way at a meeting; he's not seemingly bothered by using WM devices in his stores, he's not seemingly bothered by selling loads of Office 2008 licenses in his stores. (Though I have to wonder how many Apple employees actually own WM phones? :) )

If you believe "Pirates of Silicon Valley", Jobs went off on a job interview candidate for daring to wear a suit to the interview. So I could definitely see him going off on somebody not using an Apple product.

Steve

I think he was probably joking with him, but if he was serious he should have done it in private. I aggree with Chris, I don't think SJ would have handled it any better.

I also wondered if he was joking with the employee, which isn't "bullying" at all.

Funny: "Hey, is that an iPhone? Can I see it? *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP* Thanks!"

Bullying: "Is that a freaking iPhone? WTF! Hand that over you disloyal bastard! *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP* Get out of here!"

Steve

On one hand, I understand his reaction, but calling out an employee and publicly embarrassing them is really unprofessional and a person in his position should be better than to behave like that. I know of plenty of people who work for a company but use a competitor's product. Calling out a peer is one thing, but calling out an employee is a bully tactic.

What he SHOULD have done is asked the person why they are using that device instead of a WinMo device (even if he already knows the answer). That response would have been a LOT more productive than what he did.

Absolutely! I have a WinMo phone and am sick of getting bombarded every day by nonstop iphone stuff. I hear more times a day about the iphone than I touch my own cell phone! Jealous, perhaps, yes it would be nice to have simplet fucntionality that the iphone has like 2d barcode scanning that works and works quickly. MS was working on something like that before it canned the project. The closest thing to a workign free app otu there is based on a java library and is slow and doesnt work 5% as well as the killed MS Aura projects reader did in 2007. WinMo is just as capable as the iphone in terms of raw ability, but thats where it stops. The best changes to WinMo come from hacker types at XDA-dev.

You know cgavula, I see that point. I didn't really think about it like that.

John, I agree and I know that they aren't just sitting back complaining. I am sure they have people in their organization using the iPhone because they are told to. It only makes sense. On my last trip to Redmond, I counted 5 iPhones in the Zune building in 1 day. :)

Ballmer is known for his enthusiasm, and as you said, he is in charge of Microsoft. I think he was just trying to make a point. Good on him.

More than anything else he should be focusing that energy like a laser into creating something that can legitimately compete with the iPhone. Apple turned the mobile industry on its head and has pretty much the best mobile device available. For more than two years others have tried to compete and failed. It would be arrogant of Ballmer to blindly think that WinMo is a worthy competitor as it is today. They need to have engineers using iPhones on a daily basis so that they truly understand what makes it so good...then go build something better!

I am with you on this...