4 ms·

out of all of ballmer's blunders, this one is my favorite: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/04/ballmer-says-iphone-has-no-chance-to-gain-sign

out of all of ballmer's blunders, this one is my favorite: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/04/ballmer-says-iphone-has-no-chance-to-gain-significant-market-share/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/04/ballme... ... he says, about the product that is about to do to his company's phone division (and arguably the entire industry) what microsoft did to ibm, a few decades earlier. but the article you are commenting on is not about that. it's about how you can use your less-than-stellar god-given gifts to propel yourself to the top, just like ballmer did.

rabidonrails 11y ago
The most interesting part here is the second quote where he describes that a modern iPhone is as compared to what the iPhone was then: > "We wouldn't define our phone experience just by music. A phone is really a general purpose device. You want to make telephone calls, you want to get and receive messages, text, e-mail, whatever your preference is." edit: Turns out he was dead on. Problem was that the iPhone combined two devices people already had AND eventually gave you all of this.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  People had been trying to make devices very much like the iPhone for decades before Jobs pushed through a mass-market-acceptable iteration. MS had a tablet and natural voice UI projects as major priorities around the turn of the century while Apple was working on the click-wheel of the original iPod. It takes a lot of iteration before something becomes mass-marketable, and there's almost always a long, multi-competitor heritage in devices that seem to appear overnight, like the iPhone.
  - 72deluxe 11y ago
    I suppose it is also a skill to make it seem fashionable and desirable, in the way that Apple did. Compare that to PocketPC and Palm Pilots etc. that came before the iPhone, and remember that you wouldn't see a teenager using one. I suppose it also helps that mobile phones have become widely acceptable. I remember when it was rare to see someone with one (can't even imagine how bad the coverage was with so few masts around), and people would label them as "posers" for having one or using it in public. Perhaps the earlier Windows devices (which were very capable, and allowed apps to be installed, albeit not from a central repository like the App Store) were just too early in the market, and by the time people accepted them they wanted something different and new. Android and iPhone rode this wave.

rabidonrails 11y ago

The most interesting part here is the second quote where he describes that a modern iPhone is as compared to what the iPhone was then: > "We wouldn't define our phone experience just by music. A phone is really a general purpose device. You want to make telephone calls, you want to get and receive messages, text, e-mail, whatever your preference is." edit: Turns out he was dead on. Problem was that the iPhone combined two devices people already had AND eventually gave you all of this.

cookiecaper 11y ago
People had been trying to make devices very much like the iPhone for decades before Jobs pushed through a mass-market-acceptable iteration. MS had a tablet and natural voice UI projects as major priorities around the turn of the century while Apple was working on the click-wheel of the original iPod. It takes a lot of iteration before something becomes mass-marketable, and there's almost always a long, multi-competitor heritage in devices that seem to appear overnight, like the iPhone.
- 72deluxe 11y ago
  I suppose it is also a skill to make it seem fashionable and desirable, in the way that Apple did. Compare that to PocketPC and Palm Pilots etc. that came before the iPhone, and remember that you wouldn't see a teenager using one. I suppose it also helps that mobile phones have become widely acceptable. I remember when it was rare to see someone with one (can't even imagine how bad the coverage was with so few masts around), and people would label them as "posers" for having one or using it in public. Perhaps the earlier Windows devices (which were very capable, and allowed apps to be installed, albeit not from a central repository like the App Store) were just too early in the market, and by the time people accepted them they wanted something different and new. Android and iPhone rode this wave.