3 ms·

nit, but Ballmer did not dismiss the iPhone, he dismissed the $500 on contract iPhone. And he even said "it may sell very well". Here's the actual video: https

by Touche 13y ago

nit, but Ballmer did not dismiss the iPhone, he dismissed the $500 on contract iPhone. And he even said "it may sell very well". Here's the actual video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U I know it's become fun to pretend like Ballmer dismissed the iPhone but I have a hard time watching that video and seeing anything like that.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
That is a fair point. Microsoft's behavior however, with regard to "supporting" the iPhone as a new way to do business, was tepid at best.
- levosmetalo 13y ago
  Why would Microsoft have to "support" the iPhone way back then? I'm pretty sure they would have supported it if they had ready iPhone competitor back in the days, but given that they didn't have it, the only logical thing to do about it is to ignore it and silently working on catch up, which is exactly what they did.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    At the time Microsoft was the single largest supplier of IT software to enterprises. Part of the appeal of Blackberry phones was they integrated well with the systems used in the enterprise. In that environment, if Microsoft starts supporting iPhone like they support Blackberry (Exchange integration, a sharepoint app, what have you) then it is a strong signal that Microsoft has looked at the iPhone, and what it represents, and has decided its going to be a 'big deal' in the Enterprise space going forward. It's an imperfect signal to be sure, but often treated like an 'outside opinion.' Using an example from my own history, I was trying to get NetApp to build a filer on the Opteron hardware and the lead marketing guy wouldn't believe the AMD64 stuff was "real" until Dell started shipping a server using it. That was a tool he was using to validate (or invalidate) my argument that AMD64 was the future of the x86 architecture. So RIM, seeing Microsoft's response, might use that to "confirm" an internal opinion that the iPhone (and perhaps smart phones in general) wasn't a serious threat. I of course have no way of knowing one way or the other, but I've seen it happen that way, and the hypothesis fits the actions as we know them today. I presume they could have started/done the BB10 "anytime" but only started once they had collectively internalized the threat to their market. So by that reasoning I speculate they didn't believe it to be a threat until much later.
- asveikau 13y ago
  Microsoft's phone team did react promptly. Probably not many people remember that they were originally planning to ship a "Windows Mobile 7" product which was an evolution of WM6. They axed that and started over, and the result was Windows Phone 7. They messed up a lot of things both before and after that point (sometime in 2009 I think?), but there was a definite change in course in reaction to where the market was going.
rocky1138 13y ago
Remember when they held a public funeral for the iPhone?
- skc 13y ago
  Not that it matters but, it wasn't public.
- jes 13y ago
  Story here: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-iphone-funeral-2010-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-iphone-funeral-2010...

by Touche 13y ago

ChuckMcM 13y ago

That is a fair point. Microsoft's behavior however, with regard to "supporting" the iPhone as a new way to do business, was tepid at best.

levosmetalo 13y ago
Why would Microsoft have to "support" the iPhone way back then? I'm pretty sure they would have supported it if they had ready iPhone competitor back in the days, but given that they didn't have it, the only logical thing to do about it is to ignore it and silently working on catch up, which is exactly what they did.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  At the time Microsoft was the single largest supplier of IT software to enterprises. Part of the appeal of Blackberry phones was they integrated well with the systems used in the enterprise. In that environment, if Microsoft starts supporting iPhone like they support Blackberry (Exchange integration, a sharepoint app, what have you) then it is a strong signal that Microsoft has looked at the iPhone, and what it represents, and has decided its going to be a 'big deal' in the Enterprise space going forward. It's an imperfect signal to be sure, but often treated like an 'outside opinion.' Using an example from my own history, I was trying to get NetApp to build a filer on the Opteron hardware and the lead marketing guy wouldn't believe the AMD64 stuff was "real" until Dell started shipping a server using it. That was a tool he was using to validate (or invalidate) my argument that AMD64 was the future of the x86 architecture. So RIM, seeing Microsoft's response, might use that to "confirm" an internal opinion that the iPhone (and perhaps smart phones in general) wasn't a serious threat. I of course have no way of knowing one way or the other, but I've seen it happen that way, and the hypothesis fits the actions as we know them today. I presume they could have started/done the BB10 "anytime" but only started once they had collectively internalized the threat to their market. So by that reasoning I speculate they didn't believe it to be a threat until much later.
asveikau 13y ago
Microsoft's phone team did react promptly. Probably not many people remember that they were originally planning to ship a "Windows Mobile 7" product which was an evolution of WM6. They axed that and started over, and the result was Windows Phone 7. They messed up a lot of things both before and after that point (sometime in 2009 I think?), but there was a definite change in course in reaction to where the market was going.

rocky1138 13y ago

Remember when they held a public funeral for the iPhone?

skc 13y ago
Not that it matters but, it wasn't public.
jes 13y ago
Story here: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-iphone-funeral-2010-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-iphone-funeral-2010...