Microsoft's Steve Ballmer on the Dangers of Open Source Software

"If somebody came to you and said you have a new competitor that has no price and has no cost structure you might stay up a night or two on that one." (Microsoft (MSFT) head Steve Ballmer, talking about the dangers of open source software in a recent talk at Stanford, as quoted in Wired News.)

The NY Times points this out as a relevant statement at a time when new ComScore data that shows Google (GOOG) has overtaken Microsoft (MSFT) as the most visited network of web sites, but I like this Ballmer quote from the same talk better in that regard:

Google built one very good business. They only have one thing they do. Everything else is sort of cute. We do a lot of things that are cute, too.

Comments

[SeekingAlpha Editors:]

Actually Google does two things - search ads and contextual ads on other sites. Did Ballmer miss one of these? Or does he think they both fall under 'keyword advertising'?

Search isn't their <em>business<... of course - it's their means to capture audience.

2007 Apr 26 04:48 AM

[Jon T:]

Microsoft does things that are cute?! If they do I don't know about them and I've been a user for 17 years. At best MS makes a few tolerable products, and at worst makes many mind-numbingly painful garbage.

Sorry Ballmer, we just don't belive your FUD anymore.

2007 Apr 26 08:13 AM

[billb:]

... here we go with another Microsoft bitch fest. I mean, the company isn't perfect, but people whine unproductively at every turn when given the chance. How about providing something constructive or why not just go off and run some open source Unix clone? I'm not even sure what the point of this article is.

2007 Apr 26 08:18 AM