Saturday, August 07, 2010

Ballmer: If We Can’t Compete w/Google, Shame on Us; Apple’s Another Story

Ballmer: If We Can’t Compete w/Google, Shame on Us; Apple’s Another Story, article.
(Right now macobserver.com is not loading for me.)

This is a funny turnaround. Traditionally, MS has poo-poo'd Apple but taken Google very seriously.

I think though that he is putting a brave face on it. Even if Android is still a little green as a platform, it is already quite popular, and in any case it is way ahead of anything MS has to offer in smartphones/tablets. I think it will be very tough for MS to catch up when there are already two big platforms which have a head start of this magnitude.

Don't get me wrong, even if it would surprise me to see MS get ahead in this one, I would still love to see really good hardware and software from them in this area. The more competitors, the better for the buyers. (Well, except perhaps for compatibility issues, but I think cross-platform file formats have pretty much handled this.)

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