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Ballmer: iPhone has ‘no chance’
[Quote:]
The iPhone has no hope of gaining a true foothold in the cellphone marketplace, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The company head told an interviewer at the USA Today that, as with computers, future control of the mobile handset business would primarily depend on software influence rather than hardware. Apple’s insistence on attaching its code to a premium device could prevent it from getting any more than a small percentage of the world’s cellphone user base, Ballmer predicted.
“Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? I want to have products that appeal to everybody,” he said. “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.”
So he says that software is important for phones, and Apple is hopeless with that. Then he says the phones will go through the same process as music players – I guess somebody forgot to tell him about the iPod.
And last he’d rather be a stagnant giant than the fastest growing computer and software company.
Ballmer should stick to things he’s good at. Like throwing chairs.
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You’re misinterpreting Ballmer’s comments. I think he said that success in the mobile phone market should be measured by the number of phones that run your software, and if Apple is going to restrict its software to $500 phones, they’re not going to reach a large marketshare. I don’t know where you got the part where he says phones will go through the same process as music players–I can’t find it.
He said: “We’ll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players.”
And no, I’m not misinterpreting his comments, I know he said success in the mobile phone market should be measured by the number of phones that run your software. I’m just claiming he’s wrong. It’s the same with computers: if you think success in the computer market should be measured by the number of computers that run your software, you might think Apple is not successful, and you’d be wrong too.
The problem is that people do measure the success of a software company by the number of installed copies. But remember that Apple is not a software company, and never claimed to be. Instead they’re a systems provider, so their success needs to be measured a different way.
Will they get a large share of the cell phone market with the iPhone? No, of course not. They have one high end device. Microsoft won’t have much share either, but they must be concerned because they keep attacking the iPhone! Apple is looking for the niche that is not served by the current business oriented phones.
Microsoft’s abysmal Smartphone software is no threat – it makes the same mistake they’ve made over and over again: it tries to reproduce your desktop in your pocket. Apple’s real competition for the iPhone will be Nokia, not Microsoft or its proxies like HTC. Devices like the N95 will be much tougher competition for the consumer focussed iPhone than anything running Windows Mobile.
The quote you cite does not say what you claim it says. He’s saying that the MS vs Apple “debate” in operating systems will happen again in phones AND music players.” You may disagree that this is true (e.g. by claiming that Apple has already won in music players). However, when you comment “Ballmer says X and Ballmer says Y”, you’re just plain putting your words in his mouth. He did not say that Apple is hopeless with software either.