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Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
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On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle

By | June 3, 2010, 11:54am PDT

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the company missed the mobile phone software curve and is now playing catch-up. However, mobile “is a dynamic market” and Microsoft could make a comeback.

Then again what else is Ballmer going to say. He’s not going to say “we’re toast!” In fact, Microsoft could make a comeback with Windows Phone 7, but it doesn’t have much time to work with.

Here’s the video of Ballmer’s mobile chat. CNet News and Engadget have the play-by-play, which didn’t reveal much that was new.

Related: Microsoft’s mobile missteps a persistent investor concern

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Topics

Mobile, Steve Ballmer, Comeback, Microsoft Corp., Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
yarinsiz Updated - 13th May 2011
Great!!! thanks for sharing this information to us !
seslisohbet seslichat
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Missed the cycle???
Userama 3rd Jun 2010
Looks to me like Microsoft has missed the cycle, missed the bus, and missed the boat in just about EVERY category recently! Good thing they've got the ol' WinOS gravy train going for them, or they'd be deep into the gooey stuff.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
gtdworak 3rd Jun 2010
@Userama: Please explain to me how it's possible this man still has a job with Microsoft? Ballmer has shown himself to be a totally ineffective bumbling baffoon. Is the board of directors there just blind, scared or stupid. Get rid of Ballmer and replace him with a true competent visionary to resurrect what was once a great company. Reminds me of Apple just before they brought Jobs back. Though I'm not suggesting they bring Gates back.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
mikefarinha 4th Jun 2010
@Userama

Yes they missed the consumer gravy train of the recent consumer market explosion. Kudos to Apple, and more recently Google, for being on top of their game in this market.

However to say Microsoft missed every category is awfully inaccurate.
Off the top of my head big winners for MS over the last 5+ years in

IT: Win Server 2008/R2, Hyper-V, Sharepoint, System Center Suite, IIS 7, SQL Server 2005-2008R2, Forefront, Windows 7, Office 2007, 2010.

Development: .net 2.0-4.0, C#, F#, LINQ, Visual Studio 2005-2010, Expression Suite, Silverlight, XNA.

Hopefully the recent shake up in Microsoft's Consumer division will result in good things to come. And at least Ballmer is man enough to publicly admit utter failure in an under-performing part of the company he runs.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
vulpine@... 4th Jun 2010
@mikefarinha Big winners? Every single thing you mentioned is an obvious extension and upgrade over a preceding product, there is nothing absolutely new, there. How are these winners? Where is the innovation? This only proves that you don't have to be the biggest to be best and that the biggest is often not the best. Once you reach that point, if you don't keep trying to push the limits--bring out new capabilities, you're going to stagnate and die.

The shakeup needs to hit more than the consumer division at Microsoft--they need a complete top-to-bottom shuffling. Put Balmer down in the mail room for a while; put some of those manager out there actually using some of the software they push out the door. Maybe they'll discover just what's wrong with Microsoft. Honestly, the company is still stuck in the 20th century when everyone else is a decade into the 21st. They need help--badly.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
ItsTheBottomLine Updated - 4th Jun 2010
@mikefarinha Now the ABM crowd will not like that...you didn't bash them like goof-balls that consistently albeit humorously write them off as dead. Still Its funny read them. In fact Donnieboy probably said they were dead with Vista, and Win7 would be a total flop in 2009. An comments about how Chrome will take over... Well it's a year later and they are still kicking strong and growing. But darn if that is not funny reading.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
PollyProteus 4th Jun 2010
@mikefarinha -
The recent shakeup in the the consumer division didn't go high enough up the management chain.

The biggest issue at Microsoft is Ballmer himself. He's really nothing more than a glorified salesman who still lives in the 1990s and he's a boat anchor tied to the legs of the people who are actually coming out with the great stuff that Microsoft accomplishes.

Yes, Microsoft has done some exceptional work, but not because of Ballmer, they've done it in spite of Ballmer. He needs to go.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
mikefarinha 5th Jun 2010
@vulpine

Apple is obviously the biggest winner in the consumer market over the last 5+ years. Tell me what new piece of technology did they innovate on?

The iPod is just an MP3 player that had been around years before. The iPhone wasn't the first touch screen phone. OSX is just a modified version of UNIX, iPad is a streamlined tablet. Everything Apple has capitalized on "is an obvious extension and upgrade over a preceding product".

You set the bar exceptionally high for Microsoft and then mock them for not meeting or exceeding it. You're a little disingenuous in your thinking here.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
vulpine@... 7th Jun 2010
@mikefarinha:
What you seem to overlook is not that they were first to come out with it, but first to make it work right--to make it into something people really wanted.

The average consumer could care less about specs and features and gizmos; what they want is a device that works the way the manufacturer claims, and works right. Microsoft failed miserably with every mobile version of their OS and even failed dismally with their attempt to promote tablet computing. The technology was there, but in all honesty they continued to try and put a desktop OS into a mobility device; it just can't work that way. Even if it could, Microsoft needed to inspire developers to write applications to run on those devices.

I know, you're going to tell me that a lot of WinMo devices worked perfectly well--I won't deny that quite a few different devices were developed; however, in nearly every case they were one-trick ponies (admittedly of several different breeds) that couldn't really be cross-utilized or upgraded effectively. Meanwhile, Apple has created a single mobility device that can be repurposed to any number of enterprise or health care functions by simply choosing a different app and perhaps docking it into a special-purpose sensor array. Not all that long ago, the Apple Stores used WinMo devices as point-of-sale tools; now they use iPod Touches.

The point is that the iPad/iPhone is more than merely a consumer device, and Microsoft has really missed the boat in trying to maintain their lead (what lead they had.) Apple and Google have already far surpassed Microsoft in smart phone technology by simply offering a better OS and making the devices work in a more user-friendly manner. The only way Microsoft can recover is to literally leapfrog the technology and develop something that doesn't require a handset at all.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
mikefarinha 8th Jun 2010
@vulpine
"I know, you're going to tell me that a lot of WinMo devices worked perfectly well"

I've never used a WinMo device so I'm not going to tell you that. Also there isn't anything in your last comment that I disagree with. I said that Microsoft missed the consumer gravy train, but was successful in many other areas. Microsoft is bigger now than it has ever been and covers a lot of different markets. Any one calling for Ballmers head because one division of the company got caught flat-footed is missing the bigger picture.
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If you watch the video, Balmer is a complete idiot. He babbles, he makes no
DonnieBoy 3rd Jun 2010
sense.
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Ballmer is a great salesman though
OS Reload 3rd Jun 2010
@DonnieBoy

He's also very good at playing office politics.
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I think the only thing he has done well is ride the OS and Office monopolie
DonnieBoy 3rd Jun 2010
Everything else has been a big failure under his guidance.
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I dont know but
arasheps 3rd Jun 2010
@DonnieBoy i think as much as i like billG personaly ballmer is really a better CEO,look at that CEO title because microsoft is something like a government and bill was really somewhere else living in his mind and dreams and ballmer is the earth man who know what the reallity is,i think he is the best person for that hard job and he will take mobile and entertainmet devision out of mess like what he did with windows. give hime some time if it wasnt for ballmer wiondows 1 was still going to ship
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Rumors of Microsoft missing the cycle have been greatly exaggerated
OS Reload 3rd Jun 2010
Those rumors are unfounded because Microsoft didn't miss the cycle, their leader chose to ignore the new cycle and when the new cycle started he didn't even make a serious attempt to be on it.

We have Ballmer's remarks when the iPhone launched 3 years ago to prove this.
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Ignoring the cycle, doing nothing, is the SAME as missing the cycle.
DonnieBoy 3rd Jun 2010
Maby worse.
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Much worse
OS Reload Updated - 3rd Jun 2010
@DonnieBoy

Microsoft is playing catch-up but it's too late for them now. This is not 1995 and todays opponents are much stronger than Netscape ever was. In fact their oponents are even stronger than Microsoft, and getting stronger.

Ballmer will lose this time.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
ItsTheBottomLine Updated - 4th Jun 2010
@DonnieBoy & @OS... Maybe yes and maybe no, and the person that discounts MS is usually a fool, but time will tell. If the accuracy of the respondents to the blogs here is any indication they will be around a long time. However, on that note, were you not the same two nuts that said Windows 7 would be a flop bigger than Vista...and that MS was dead and doomed. Just checking to make sure we understand "expert" predictions.
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Ballmer is cramming the facts in to his worldview
HollywoodDog 3rd Jun 2010
In Ballmer's view of everything there is some hated rival who is ahead, Microsoft is the underdog, and now it's a two-way football game where Microsoft through sheer force of will muscles the opponent inexorably back to it's market-share endzone.
Cue quarterly ComScore market share updates.
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Windows phone 7 would not change anything this year
paul2011 3rd Jun 2010
Judging by the info that is coming from Microsoft Windows Phone 7 will have very limited functionality that is available for developers. Just like iPhone v1 and first Palm versions it is half cooked. The sad part is that MS developers are doing really great job but political decisions are killing them. I do not expect WP7 to get any significant market share this year or in 2011.
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Thats like saying iphone 4 wont change anything this quarter
Johnny Vegas 3rd Jun 2010
of course if its not coming out til it almost over its not going to change anything this year. im sure ms said this before you did. as long as they're on the right track and they iterate well like they have with Silverlight they'll do fine. The smartphone market now is like the linux netbook market was before ms went after netbooks...
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
gtdworak 3rd Jun 2010
@Johnny Vegas: OS 4 for iPhone comes out next week. OS 4 for iPad comes out in the Fall. So Microsoft will be out with a first generation phone OS and Apple will be on its forth iteration. And when it gets to version 2, Apple will be on its 5th iteration. They'll be in perpetual catch up mode just like they ended up with Zune. Too little, way too late.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
Patanjali 3rd Jun 2010
@Johnny Vegas
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Ballmer what did you do with the money?
HollywoodDog 3rd Jun 2010
The money your mother gave you for tech company CEO lessons?
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I think he bought ice cream with that money and went to microsoft
arasheps 3rd Jun 2010
@HollywoodDog to learn being a tech company CEO,since being billG buddy is the history best opportunity to learn tech company CEO lessons. i don't know why everyone bashes ballmer! he is a great CEO and don't forgot he is still cleaning billG messes
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
PollyProteus 4th Jun 2010
@arasheps - A dollar says you've never worked for Microsoft under Ballmer's reign. Am I right?
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It's getting sticky in here
NonZealot 3rd Jun 2010
What with all the ABMers circle jerking! wink
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
ItsTheBottomLine 4th Jun 2010
@NonZealot ...gross - but funny,
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
Patanjali 3rd Jun 2010
@gtdworak
A lot depends upon how well-engineered the ecosystem is when they do release it. The longer they leave it, the better has to be the ecosystem.

However, the requirements of an mobile ecosystem are much better known these days, so there is much less risk involved, but a lot of legwork is required.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
Patanjali 3rd Jun 2010
@Patanjali
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Reply in wrong place
Patanjali 3rd Jun 2010
Wrong place, but editing on this site with IE6 is like flying blind!
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Missed it? They ignored it.
jimfrost Updated - 4th Jun 2010
They didn't "miss" the cycle. They had a product out there years before the smartphone market took off. They let it stagnate, it was apparently "good enough." No innovation *at all*, very little basic investment. They didn't even make many usability improvements for a product that was pretty darn ghastly from a user perspective.

You want to know whether this was just a missed opportunity or something systemic? Here's how to tell.

In late 2006 Microsoft released a video showing Surface. In early 2007 Apple showed a full-on consumer *product* that was released just a few months later.

In 2009 Microsoft released a video showing various multitouch-type research mice. Shortly thereafter Apple released their new multitouch mouse, another actual product.

In 2009 Microsoft released a video showing Courier, an e-book kind of thing. In early 2010 Apple released the iPad, yet another actual product. Microsoft has had a tablet OS out there since *2001* but has put little to no effort into it; products using it are far too expensive and the interface is poor (although not poor on the level of existing WinPhones).

There's innovation happening inside Microsoft but like IBM before them they seem to be having an incredibly hard time getting innovation into user's hands. Apple doesn't release videos, they don't do technology demonstrations: They release products.

What's more, when Microsoft was caught flat-footed with the iPhone what did they do? Nothing! Not for years. Long enough for Google to come up with Android, for Blackberry to release a multitouch version of their phones, for Palm to practically rise from the dead and get a completely new product out.

Microsoft might have a competitor out by the end of 2010. That's almost four years after Apple, when you know that they had the technology to do this before the iPhone was even released.

They need to kick some butt up there in Redmond, and they need to start at the top. J Allard leaving is not what I'm talking about, either....

jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
lquinones@... 4th Jun 2010
they missed the internet , security , mobile !!!, and the online waves ... and that guy still is the big guy in microsoft? , how this could be?...
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MS is no longer the 600 lb gorilla . . .
sporkfighter 5th Jun 2010
. . . it once was. This year, one can run a house, a business, a data center, a medical practice, a hospital, a phone company, all without using a single Microsoft product. Ten years ago, you could not.

Competition drives innovation. If Microsoft can compete, good for them and for all of us. If Microsoft can't, it's better they die, just like any poorly run company.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
shanedr 7th Jun 2010
Garbage! Microsoft has missed almost every hardware attempt its ever made. Plus even when it hits they can't stay on top but gradually slide downhill.

With the most successful Windows ever they still can't keep their eye on the ball and continue its improvement. As a result there latest attempt can only be rated good; it's as if they don't care about achieving excellence.
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RE: On mobile, Ballmer says Microsoft missed the cycle
yarinsiz Updated - 13th May 2011
Great!!! thanks for sharing this information to us !
seslisohbet seslichat

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