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Ballmer has always lacked the ability to see the future. Be it about him calling Zune the iPhone killer, or much prior to that claiming it in the media that no

Ballmer has always lacked the ability to see the future. Be it about him calling Zune the iPhone killer, or much prior to that claiming it in the media that no one would ever wan tto buy an iPhone. Also, really below par products.

davidw 13y ago
> Ballmer has always lacked the ability to see the future. Maybe you meant 'envision' the future? Outside of Nostradamus, who, by the way, predicted not only Hacker News, Steve Ballmer's downfall, but also this very thread on the same subject, not many people have the ability to see the future, although some are better than others at imagining how it could be.
- anuragramdasan 13y ago
  Hah. Okay didn't see that obvious mistake there. I meant 'envision'.
the_bear 13y ago
To be fair, one of the greatest "see the future" CEOs has said similar things. Just off the top of my head, I know that Steve Jobs said that no one would want a larger screen than the original iPhone had, and he said that 7" tablets didn't make any sense. Now Apple has a larger iPhone screen and 7" tablet. That's not to say that Steve Jobs was wrong about the future, but he had to sell devices in the present which meant pretending that they were perfect even though they weren't. Ballmer may have been doing the same. It's likely that his failures occurred much earlier in the process, and then he had to try to sell doomed products which is where those silly statements come from.
- anuragramdasan 13y ago
  Yes, probably. But then again, Ballmer failed quite often. Also I wouldn't really think of any CEO bashing another companies product just for the sake of rivalry and then fail. Its a huge risk to take. Also having to sell silly products again is the CEOs problem for having to decided to sell those. Its just that the past 10-13 years have been cluttered with bad products and I would assume the ceo had a major role to play in it.
- prawks 13y ago
  Also don't forget Apple has had it's share of failures under Jobs (MobileMe, arguably AppleTV, their desktop peripherals always sucked, plenty of failed products, etc.).
  - gregd 13y ago
    I'm still pissed off about my Newton...
    - zeckalpha 13y ago
      That wasn't under Jobs. He put it out of its misery.
  - danieldk 13y ago
    Well, judging by the number of iMessages that arrive in a correct order on my iPhone/Mac and their inability to make iTunes Match stable, it's hard to believe that iCloud will be a success in the end. Under Jobs Apple made stellar hardware and good-enough software.
    - potatolicious 13y ago
      Ehh, I think Apple's software is pretty good - note that this is speaking as someone who writes iOS apps for a living. Where they fail is web services. Apple cannot engineer a decent web service to save their sorry lives. The Cocoa API is pretty well thought out, generally well-documented, and pretty well-engineered. Then you get into things where you have to talk to Apple via a network. StoreKit? [shudder]. iCloud? [terrified scream]. iMessage? Oh lord.
      - danieldk 13y ago
        The Cocoa API is pretty well thought out, generally well-documented, and pretty well-engineered. I agree, their APIs are generally very nice. But the last few releases of OS X haven't been great. Multi-monitor support will finally be fixed in 10.9, after having been broken in 10.7 and 10.8. Also, recent releases have become very slow. A 2009 Mac Mini running 10.8 is unbearably slow, while the same machine is on 10.6 is almost as fast as a recent machine machine with a SSD on 10.8.
- larrydavid 13y ago
  Apple doesn't have a 7" tablet...the iPad Mini is a 7.9" tablet. Quite a difference screen area-wise.
- simonh 13y ago
  Exactly. Jobs said nobody wants X,Y,Z but then when it turned out they did, Apple was right there with an X,Y,Z product perfectly timed to capture the market. When Ballmer said nobody wants a phone with a keyboard, or that Zune would kill iPod he acted on that until reality was exhausted from beating him mercilessly over the head with proof he was wrong.
- scj 13y ago
  Ever watch Steve Jobs promote Mac OS 8 or 9? Rumour is, he didn't use either (he used NextStep until Mac OS X). He also spoke negatively about video being on iPods while it was being developed. Ultimately, you have to remember that he had an agenda, and if he wasn't selling it that day, then he would probably say something negative about the idea or implementation (of a competitor's product). Here's a page that has more examples: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/steve-jobs/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/steve-jobs/
  - yuhong 13y ago
    Of course, I don't like this kind of thing or other results of the legacy PR/sales mindset.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
bentcorner 13y ago
> Be it about him calling Zune the iPhone killer, or much prior to that claiming it in the media that no one would ever wan tto buy an iPhone. Really though, do you think the CEO should say anything different? "Yeah, our Zune isn't too bad, but the iPod is still better."
- ams6110 13y ago
  He should have said that, internally, and demanded better. Or said, if that's really the best you can do, forget it.

davidw 13y ago

> Ballmer has always lacked the ability to see the future. Maybe you meant 'envision' the future? Outside of Nostradamus, who, by the way, predicted not only Hacker News, Steve Ballmer's downfall, but also this very thread on the same subject, not many people have the ability to see the future, although some are better than others at imagining how it could be.

anuragramdasan 13y ago
Hah. Okay didn't see that obvious mistake there. I meant 'envision'.

the_bear 13y ago

To be fair, one of the greatest "see the future" CEOs has said similar things. Just off the top of my head, I know that Steve Jobs said that no one would want a larger screen than the original iPhone had, and he said that 7" tablets didn't make any sense. Now Apple has a larger iPhone screen and 7" tablet. That's not to say that Steve Jobs was wrong about the future, but he had to sell devices in the present which meant pretending that they were perfect even though they weren't. Ballmer may have been doing the same. It's likely that his failures occurred much earlier in the process, and then he had to try to sell doomed products which is where those silly statements come from.

anuragramdasan 13y ago
Yes, probably. But then again, Ballmer failed quite often. Also I wouldn't really think of any CEO bashing another companies product just for the sake of rivalry and then fail. Its a huge risk to take. Also having to sell silly products again is the CEOs problem for having to decided to sell those. Its just that the past 10-13 years have been cluttered with bad products and I would assume the ceo had a major role to play in it.
prawks 13y ago
Also don't forget Apple has had it's share of failures under Jobs (MobileMe, arguably AppleTV, their desktop peripherals always sucked, plenty of failed products, etc.).
- gregd 13y ago
  I'm still pissed off about my Newton...
  - zeckalpha 13y ago
    That wasn't under Jobs. He put it out of its misery.
- danieldk 13y ago
  Well, judging by the number of iMessages that arrive in a correct order on my iPhone/Mac and their inability to make iTunes Match stable, it's hard to believe that iCloud will be a success in the end. Under Jobs Apple made stellar hardware and good-enough software.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    Ehh, I think Apple's software is pretty good - note that this is speaking as someone who writes iOS apps for a living. Where they fail is web services. Apple cannot engineer a decent web service to save their sorry lives. The Cocoa API is pretty well thought out, generally well-documented, and pretty well-engineered. Then you get into things where you have to talk to Apple via a network. StoreKit? [shudder]. iCloud? [terrified scream]. iMessage? Oh lord.
    - danieldk 13y ago
      The Cocoa API is pretty well thought out, generally well-documented, and pretty well-engineered. I agree, their APIs are generally very nice. But the last few releases of OS X haven't been great. Multi-monitor support will finally be fixed in 10.9, after having been broken in 10.7 and 10.8. Also, recent releases have become very slow. A 2009 Mac Mini running 10.8 is unbearably slow, while the same machine is on 10.6 is almost as fast as a recent machine machine with a SSD on 10.8.
larrydavid 13y ago
Apple doesn't have a 7" tablet...the iPad Mini is a 7.9" tablet. Quite a difference screen area-wise.
simonh 13y ago
Exactly. Jobs said nobody wants X,Y,Z but then when it turned out they did, Apple was right there with an X,Y,Z product perfectly timed to capture the market. When Ballmer said nobody wants a phone with a keyboard, or that Zune would kill iPod he acted on that until reality was exhausted from beating him mercilessly over the head with proof he was wrong.
scj 13y ago
Ever watch Steve Jobs promote Mac OS 8 or 9? Rumour is, he didn't use either (he used NextStep until Mac OS X). He also spoke negatively about video being on iPods while it was being developed. Ultimately, you have to remember that he had an agenda, and if he wasn't selling it that day, then he would probably say something negative about the idea or implementation (of a competitor's product). Here's a page that has more examples: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/steve-jobs/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/steve-jobs/
- yuhong 13y ago
  Of course, I don't like this kind of thing or other results of the legacy PR/sales mindset.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bentcorner 13y ago

> Be it about him calling Zune the iPhone killer, or much prior to that claiming it in the media that no one would ever wan tto buy an iPhone. Really though, do you think the CEO should say anything different? "Yeah, our Zune isn't too bad, but the iPod is still better."

ams6110 13y ago
He should have said that, internally, and demanded better. Or said, if that's really the best you can do, forget it.