Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft from January 2000 to February 2014, and is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. As of May 11, 2015, his personal wealth is estimated at US$22.7 billion, ranking number 21 on the Forbes 400. It was announced on August 23, 2013, that he would step down as Microsoft's CEO within 12 months. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was succeeded by...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth24 March 1956
CityDetroit, MI
CountryUnited States of America
We'll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.
[Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum. ... If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue.
All the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android.
You can have an Apple in the phone business, or a RIM, and they can do very well, but when 1.3 billion phones a year are all smart, the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phones.
We don't trounce our competition, ... We compete.
We're very confident about our growth outlook -- so confident that we announced today we're accelerating our stock-buyback plans,
I've never thrown a chair in my life.
These changes are designed to align our Business Groups in a way that will enhance decision-making and speed of execution, as well as help us continue to deliver the types of products and services our customers want most.
The small-business market is the biggest part of the computer market, ... We really need to get after that.
The stuff AOL is doing now is unbelievably egregious. They're trying to get personal computer companies to delete features of Windows and not let people have the choice of using our software,
Is there anyone who believes that the search experience isn't going to be dramatically different 10 years from now than it is today?
Things are working well. We're always trying to improve, though.
There will be this kind of quantum leap forward in the way people use the Internet over the next several years. There will be ushered in a next generation Internet user experience. That will be marked not only by the introduction of additional devices that take advantage of the Internet, but it will be marked by a whole new set of ways for programs to work together, for users to share data with one another and with programs, and basically, almost a whole new user interface model of the world.
And we learned an important lesson: Today's business software doesn't look enough like today's businesses,