As the Xbox team stated at E3 two weeks ago, we are not even halfway through the current console generation lifecycle and believe Xbox 360 will be the entertainment center in the home for long into the next decade. Project Natal will be an important part of this platform, but we have not confirmed a launch date at this time.

“Apple gained about one point, but now I think the tide has really turned back the other direction,” Ballmer said, via webcast. “The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment — same piece of hardware — paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that’s a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.”

via TechFlash

And now, the end is near;
And so Apple faces the final curtain.
My friend, I’ll say it clear,
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.

It’s lived a life that’s full.
It’s traveled each and ev’ry i-highway;
And more, much more than this,
It did it Jobs’ way.

The economy is why it’s damned,
It’s hard to convince consumers to pay,
$500 for a just a brand,
but we did it Jobs’ way.

And sure, OS X is strong,
and Vista sucks, what more can we say,
but we can’t trust fanboy blogs,
So we’ll do it Jobs’ way.

Regrets, they’ve come up short;
But then again, too few times to mention.
It allowed Microsoft to port,
Office 10 without exemption.

It planned each iTunes tune;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than Zune,
It did it Jobs’ way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When it bit off more than it could chew.
But through it all, when the future was hard to know,
It stole BSD and added Cocoa.
It faced it all and it stood tall;
And did it Jobs’ way.

“They can hire smart guys, hire a lot of people, blah dee blah dee blah, but you know they start out way behind, in a certain sense.”

He also questioned their financial strategy, claiming that Android has no revenue model and that carriers will take android and then charge Google big bucks to carry their search on the standard Android deck or UI.

“Google doesn’t exactly bubble to the top of the list of the top competitors we’ve got going in mobile. They might someday. But right now..” he said at Telstra’s investment day.

Steve, Steve, Steve… Windows Mobile is popular for one simple reason: it seems to work reasonably well with Windows. This is fine for the fleet IT market – there’s no shame in buying up 500 Palm Pros for your entire executive staff – the low-end feature phone market is a mish-mash of OSes, including WinMo and to some extent Symbian. Mostly, however, you find OSes that are unsupported and essentially proprietary.

Android will replace those OSes first. Carriers won’t care – or will care less – when face with the cost savings of installing Android vs. rolling their own OS and the charges for search placement will be a wash. As Android bubbles up, WinMo will get bit first, then Symbian, then, dare I say it, RIM. While I’m not in love with Android, I know a contender when I see one. Hopefully Steve’s posturing will buy WinMo enough time to escape off into the woods to die.

Microsoft is ceding a huge lead to OS X in this area, as Cupertino works to accommodate multiple cores in Snow Leopard, the first OS X release I’m excited about in years. Seriously, Ballmer — Intel is too big to bully, even for you. Adapt or die.

Microsoft CEO Steve “Sweat” Ballmer said that the financial crisis will “sap consumer and business spending,” leading to a downturn in Microsoft’s revenue. He explained that no company will be immune to the crisis although analysts predict an 8 percent rise in revenue this quarter.

He explained that none of the business units within MS will go to “0″ but that companies holding down spending while the crisis blows over will definitely not be buying Windows Vista Ultimate. This goes double, obviously, for consumers.

“On the other hand, when businesses have less money — they can borrow less money, they can spend less money — that can’t be good. When consumers feel the economic pinch, house prices come down. That can’t be good,” Ballmer said.

For all the — ahem — gentle, good-natured ribbing that we give Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer here, I don’t know if he deserves to have eggs thrown at him. With this latest incident and the Bill Gates pie-in-the-face incident, are any top-level Microsoft executives really, truly safe from the onslaught of surprise food-based attacks?

The Hungarian man in the video “accused Microsoft of stealing millions from the country’s taxpayers,” referring to a recent software agreement between Hungary and Microsoft, according to InformationWeek. After his verbal tirade, he threw three eggs at Ballmer, missing each time. After the man left, Ballmer seemed good-natured about the incident, commenting that the man “broke his train of thought.”

Just wanted to update everyone on the awkward slow-dance going on between Yahoo! and Microsoft. According to the New York Times, Microsoft apparently upped its offer to buy Yahoo! from the initial $31 per share to an undisclosed amount. Yahoo! believes itself to be worth at least $37 per share and The Times is reporting that “Microsoft suggested it was willing to pay more than $33 a share,” according to sources involved with the negotiations.

Yahoo! has been repeatedly declining offers from Microsoft, although co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang has said that it’s not because Yahoo! doesn’t want to strike a deal, it’s because Yahoo! feels that Microsoft’s initial bid “substantially undervalued the company.” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told his employees last Thursday, “I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth to me. I won’t go a dime above, and I will go to what I think it’s worth if that gets the deal done.”

Will Microsoft extend the life of Windows XP after all? Steve Ballmer told reporters today that “If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter,” according to the Associated Press.

He conceded that most of the customers who are still buying XP are IT departments but said that “most people who buy PCs today buy them with Vista. That’s the statistical truth.” Gee, thanks Steve. I’m not sure about the last time you were in a Best Buy store, but you may have noticed that XP isn’t an option on most new computers unless you order them online and/or customize them yourself.

Okay then. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently told a group of Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) that Vista is “a work in progress” and then asked, “Can we just sort of kiss that stone and move on? Because it turns out many things become problematic when you have those long release cycles.”

Here’s an excerpt from Ballmer’s speech, according to Ted Bishop at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,

Windows Vista: A work in progress. [Laughter, applause.] A very important piece of work, and I think we did a lot of things right, and I think we have a lot of things we need to learn from. Certainly, you never want to let five years go between releases. Can we just sort of kiss that stone and move on? Because it turns out many things become problematic when you have those long release cycles. The design point, what you should be targeting. We can’t ever let that happen again. We had some things that we can’t just set the dial back, but I think people wish we could. Vista is bigger than XP. It’s going to stay bigger than XP. We have to make sure it doesn’t get bigger still, and that the performance and that the battery life and that the compatibility, we’re driving on the things that we need to drive hard to improve.

And yet, we did take some important big steps forward with Vista. So, I know I can get a lot of feedback from this crowd. The No. 1 point of feedback always for MVPs is on Windows. I know I can get a lot of feedback. I bet if I look I can get a little bit of good feedback. I’m sure I can get a lot of constructive feedback. And believe me, top of mind for me, for Ray [Ozzie], for the senior team here, is making sure that we continue to drive forward and take the good work that we did in Vista, take the chance for improvement and progress and drive forward.

In the meantime, we have some customers — a lot of customers — using Vista. A lot of customers. And we have a lot of customers that are choosing to stay with Windows XP. And as long as those are both important options, we will be sensitive and we will listen and we will hear that. I got a piece of mail from a customer the other day that talked about not being able to get XP anymore. We responded, XP is still available. And I know we’re going to continue to get feedback from people on how long XP should be available. We’ve got some opinions on that, we’ve expressed our views. .. I’m always interested in hearing from you on these and other issues. So the desktop business, it’s our heart, it’s our soul, we continue to drive forward from this foundation.

So you’ll notice that he didn’t say that Microsoft will be extending the availability of XP past the June 30th cutoff date, but he did acknowledge that he knows that people still want to be able to get XP. It also appears that this whole Windows 7 thing might be a reality as far as its launch date is concerned, given Ballmer’s “We can’t ever let that happen again” line referring to Vista’s five-year release cycle.

At any rate, I guess it’s nice to see some honest, candid comments from Ballmer about Vista — however horrifying they may be to paying consumers. Perhaps Microsoft’s just going to accelerate the development of Windows 7 instead of spending a lot of time on Vista. It may turn out to get swept under the rug like Windows ME (ME lasted less than two years). The big question for Microsoft will be whether or not to extend the life of XP out to the release of Windows 7 or to pull it from the shelves at the end of June after making sure that the current “work in progress” gets finished finally.

In honor of it being Friday, I believe it’s time for another top ten list. This one comes to us today from ValleyWag, who’s wisely compiled a list of the top ten videos of Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, losing his shit.

If you’ve never seen it in person, you’re really missing out.

Above is just one, but they’re all worth watching. And then think to yourself about Vista: Would you really trust your computer to this guy?

Steve, we love you man, but take a Xanax.

Ten best Ballmer-goes-nuts videos [ValleyWag]

Ballmer: “We’ll support Blu-Ray” [GamesIndustry.biz]

Steve Ballmer was surprisingly candid — yet still fairly quiet — about Microsoft’s plans to port Silverlight to the iPhone. He basically said “Yeah, maybe, if we want to.” As for ActiveSync, he also said “Yeah, maybe, if our partners want to.” As we all no, competitors rarely comment on others developments for fear of sounding like a whiner. Let’s just say that this is well in the realm of possibility and leave it at that.

Ballmer on Apple’s iPhone announcement [News.com]
TC Mix Coverage: Keynote 1, Keynote 2

Peter and I got in too late to go to any of the first day stuff — we were stuck in a goddamn airplane the size of a raisin box — but it seems Steve “The Animal” Ballmer got up and whispered sweet nothings into Angela Merkel’s ear.

He began by describing the next wave in computing involving wireless broadband everyway and natural user interfaces AKA not Windows. He then when on talk about social networking, education, and going green, a charming sentiment to be sure. He then strummed a lute and intoned:

As computing continues to become more powerful, more affordable and more connected, it will not only enable those of us who live in places like Hannover and Seattle to lead better lives, it will give billions more people around the world a chance to take advantage of incredible new social and economic opportunities so they can lead better lives, too and that, will truly be revolutionary.

Nice talk from a guy whose lunch is being eaten by Google.

Opening Speech Steve Ballmer [CeBIT]

This is how you know you’ve made it. That tattoo of Clippy is pretty awesome, too.

Zune Originals ‘Ballmer’ Frigtard [iPhone Savior] Thanks Rymon!

Okay, remember a little over a week ago when the CEO of Mandriva François Bancilhon sent an open j’accuse! letter to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer  saying that Microsoft convinced the Nigerian government to use Windows on its computers instead of Mandriva Linux even though Mandriva and Nigeria already had a deal? 

Well apparently "the government agency funding 11,000 of these schoolroom PCs wants them running Mandriva." I’d be interested to know whether or not this change of heart came about because of Bancilhon’s letter or if someone at the top of the food chain saw that the order was changed to Microsoft software and was like "what in the hell does the night shift team think they’re trying to pull here?"

Ballmerized Nigerian PCs might run Mandriva after all [Register]

Man. Google can’t get a break. First Nokia and Symbian are all like “POOOP!” and then Steven F is like “Weener!” and then the WSJ is like “WOMP STUPID WOMP” and Peter Ha is all like “I need to go to the bathroom” and I’m all like “Post!”

Anyway, Steve Ballmer says:

“Well of course their efforts are just some words on paper right now, it’s hard to do a very clear comparison [with Windows Mobile].”

“Right now they have a press release, we have many, many millions of customers, great software, many hardware devices and they’re welcome in our world.”

Which isn’t quite as sensational as saying:

GOOGLE I WILL EAT YOUR BABIES AND YOUR MOTHER! I WILL TEAR OFF YOUR HEAD AND USE YOUR GUT AS A PIGGY BANK! GOOGLE EATS ROADKILL AND PUKES IT UP AND EATS IT AGAIN! I WILL DESTROY YOU! ANDROID IS A PRESS RELEASE AND YOUR BRAIN IS AS BIG AS A RAT TURD!

So I’m not sure why the Slashdot folks made it sound like he said the bottom thing and not the top thing.

Google’s Android just a press release, says Ballmer [ComputerWorld via Slashdot]

You don’t need me to tell you about how Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer hates, hates, hates Linux. His company’s actions, it could be said, speak louder than words. But that doesn’t stop François Bancilhon of Mandriva from laying it all on the table.

It seems that after Mandriva completed a complex deal to deliver Linux PCs to school kids in Nigeria, MS went behind their backs and convinced the goverment to install Windows on the machines over the Mandriva Linux distro.

François Bancilhon is angry at Steve Ballmer for Microsoft’s tactics. MS has never been one to play softball, but François Bancilhon is taking it public in this open letter that’s worth a read by everyone.

An open letter to Steve Ballmer [Mandriva's blog]

3. "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

7. "Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards."

and 8. "There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."

Ten Absolutely Stupid Quotes By Steve Ballmer [Learn More About Your Linux]

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer recently referred to his company as a three year old child playing basketball against a 12-year old (Google). The three year old is named Johnny.

Here’s what he said about Microsoft’s search position versus Google at the Web 2.0 Summit recently:

"You’re just 3 years old, and we’ve got you in there playing basketball with a 12-year-old…You’re growing up quick and getting better every day, and you’ve got all the potential in world, and it may take you ’til you’re 7, 8, 9 or 10, but you’re gonna dunk and you’re gonna dunk on the other guy some day, Johnny."

Earlier this year, Ballmer referred to Google as a "one-trick pony" and when asked to elaborate he said that he meant what he said "in a very specific way."

"They started in one area, they get really good in that area and then fill out around the core…Microsoft is unique in that we’ve already got two areas. We started out as a desktop computing company and now we’ve got a huge enterprise business. We’re trying to do devices and entertainment, and advertising and the Web. We’re trying to be a three- or four-trick pony."

In other news, Google just reported that its third quarter profits increased by a whopping 46 percent. Not bad for a one-trick pony, eh?

MS Chief Derides ‘One-Trick Pony’ Google [E-Commerce Times/Associated Press]

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Unless, of course, that woman is also a mother. Then the fury the likes of which hell hath no (?) is actually a bit worse. Such was the case today at a conference in Orlando when supermom/analyst Yvonne Genovese let Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer know what she thinks about Vista.

Her reasons for disliking Vista are pretty much the same as every other complaint we’ve been hearing about the operating system so far and Ballmer did a fine job of pulling things like end user, value, early adoption, customer feedback, and security out of his buzzword arsenal to defend Vista.

So not a lot of new complaints here but an interesting read nonetheless. It’s also kind of amusing to see people get bent out of shape at various company bigwigs who perhaps aren’t used to being yelled at all that often.

Mother’s ire puts Ballmer on defense over Vista [Computerworld]