Ballmer Babies Banned From iPods and Google

Valah writes "In a recent Fortune interview with Steve Ballmer, the newer kinder Microsoft CEO is not only ready to take on the videogaming, search, music download and mobile markets - but he's also laying down the law in his own house. Steve says that his kids are not allowed to use Google or have an iPod."

Would a different approach be better?

I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

I'd take the other approach - if they choose rival manufacturers then study first hand why they do so.

First hand experience can tell you a lot more than market research sometimes, and might just give future MS products an edge.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Whoa, study? It's Steve Ballmer we're talking about, if he as much as SEEs his kids anywhere near iPods or within 20m of a computer displaying a Google page it'll be Chair Throwing time, he'll Fucking Bury(TM) them. He's done it before and he'll do it again. He's going to Fucking Kill(TM) his children.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Whoa, study? It's Steve Ballmer we're talking about, if he as much as SEEs his kids anywhere near iPods or within 20m of a computer displaying a Google page it'll be Chair Throwing time, he'll Fucking Bury(TM) them. He's done it before and he'll do it again. He's going to Fucking Kill(TM) his children.

Yeaaaarrrgggghh! Honor me, children! HONOR MEEEEE! GIVE IT UP FOR MEEEEEEEEEE yeaaaaaar

You know what you need? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED?!
DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE *cough* DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE *hacking paroxysm* DISCi... *pants heavily* its all about the DISCIPLINe children... jesus.... fucking.. dis.. I... I.... *collapses in a puddle of sweat and desperation*

Star Wars Version

GATES: Welcome, young Balmer. I have been expecting you.

Balmer's son peers at the hooded figure defiantly. Gates then looks down at the boy's binders.

GATES: You no longer need those.

Gates motions ever so slightly with his finger and Balmer's Son's binders fall away, clattering to the floor. The boy looks down at his own hands, free now to reach out and grab Gate's neck. He does nothing.

GATES: Guards, leave us.

The red-, yellow-, green- and blue-cloaked guards turn and disappear behind the elevator.

GATES (to Balmer's Son): I'm looking forward to completing your training. In time you will call me Master.

BALMER'S SON: You're gravely mistaken. You won't convert me as you did my father.

Gates gets down from his XP Console and walks up very close to Balmer's Son. Gates looks into his eyes and, for the first time, Balmer's Son can perceive the evil visage within the hood.

GATES: Oh, no, my young Linux Admin. You will find that it is you who are mistaken...about a great many things.

BALMER: His iPod.

BALMER extends a gloved hand toward Gates, revealing his son's iPod. Gates takes it.

GATES: Ah, yes, a Linux Admin's toy. Much like your father's Portable Media Center(tm). By now you must know your father can never be turned from the dark side. So will it be with you.

BALMER'S SON: You're wrong. Soon I'll be dead...and you with me.

Gates laughs.

GATES: Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Unix DoS Squad.

Balmer's Son looks up sharply.

GATES: Yes...I assure you we are quite safe from your friends here.

BALMER looks at his son.

BALMER'S SON: Your overconfidence is your weakness.

GATES: Your faith in your friends is yours.

BALMER: It is pointless to resist, my son.

Gates turns to face Balmer's Son.

GATES (angry): Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. (points to a NETSTAT on the monitor) Your friends out there on the Internet..

Balmer's Son reacts. Gates notes it.

GATES (cont): ...are walking into a trap. As is your DoS Squad! It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the IP of the open ports. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of BSA agents awaits them.

Balmer's Son look darts from Gates to Balmer and, finally, to the iPod in Gate's hand.

GATES: Oh...I'm afraid the firewall will be quite operational when your friends' packets arrive.

TO BE CONTINUED

Re:Would a different approach be better?

I think you people are being too hard on the guy.

He's just talking about believing in his product enough to feed his kids his own dog food.

Wait. That came out wrong...

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Don't worry, seeing how Vista's release date has continually slipped, his kids will probably never use that, either.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Posting this anonymously because even though I no longer work at Microsoft, I don't want them to know who I am or where I work now.

Funny you should mention dog food. I'm a former Microsoft employee and "dogfooding" is what Microsoft calls internal betas, and "we eat our own dog food" is a pretty common expression at MSFT.

Last night, as I was navigating around my new cell phone, I was thinking "This isn't a bad phone, but I liked the interface better on my old one (I didn't get another from that vendor because my old one broke too many times), but you know what? I wish Apple would start making cell phones. The UI would be the best; if they sold them, I'd buy one right now." That must be MSFT's worst nightmare. Or one of them, at least.

Steve Ballmer makes reference in TFA to convergence devices, and to expect to see announcements from MSFT on that in the next twelve months. OK, maybe. Maybe they'll even succeed. But I think a more likely scenario for success would be Apple selling cell phone-iPod hybrids and eating Windows Mobile's lunch. Microsoft has some good products (sadly, those are usually the ones that get the least attention), but they don't have anything that competes with an Apple product that is as good as the Apple product. I'm sure an Apple cell phone would be that way, too.

About Ballmer's kids, he only *thinks* they don't use Google. Would you want to be laughed at for being the only kid at school who didn't use Google and said "I'll MSN Search it and get back to you" (I'm not kidding, that's what people say at MSFT; you're not allowed to use Google as a verb. I was actually *ordered* not to say "google it" when I was a n00b there). I think what he should have said is "They don't use Google or iPods at home where I can keep tabs on them."

His reference to having them brainwashed, though, was serious, I'm sure. That's the reason I left Microsoft: the culture is very brainwashed. The propaganda stream is unending. Most people at MSFT seem to truly believe that they are the most creative and innovative company in the world. IMO very few, even at the highest levels, realize they aren't. Well, the propaganda and brainwashing was a major aspect. The other is that I realized something that very few at MSFT do, or at least will talk about: as an innovator and leader, MSFT's day is done. IMO Microsoft reached it's zenith when Windows 95 and Office 97 were still on the market. Microsoft is still hungry, but has become to massive to be agile. The recent management shuffle involving Vista is a nice example of re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The people replaced were competent enough, and I'm sure the new ones are too, but they are no more likely to succeed. The organization, the group-think, the brainwashing, and the horrendous legacy code base and commitment to backwards compatibility, will sabotage their best efforts.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Goddamn, that's the funniest thing I've read all day, good use of TM there.

On another note, how unpopular must Ballmer's kids be at school? No iPods or Google? Might as well tattoo kick me signs on their backs.

At least when they rebel, it won't be to drugs or promiscuity, it'll be to the Itunes Music Store.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

No iPods or Google? Might as well tattoo kick me signs on their backs.

It's worse. You don't parent by meddling in kids' lives to the point where you loom over them and not only say "You have to be home by 10pm, and you can't use the car" but then to also say "You can use the web to search but you can't search the way all your friends do" and "You can listen to music but you can't listen to it with what all your friends use" ... what is going to happen to these kids? They're going to be resentful of their father's repeated interference in their lives just becaise he doesn't like the brand of the devices they want to use. Kids have to learn to be responsible on their own and make their own informed choices, and a parent who interferes with their choices based on what you have to admit is an arbitrary criterion when it comes down to it is just going to find that his kids have no respect for him.

When I was a kid my parents let me make my own choices. If I wanted to use brand X instead of brand Y that they preferred, it was my choice. They expected me to do my own research, and to make choices that were good for me and didn't get me in trouble, or anyone else in trouble. They had their preferences, sure, but if I wanted to buy item X with my weekly allowance, they let me buy it.

A good parent does that. This isn't good parenting. It's not teaching the responsibility of making one's own choices, it's teaching that you should accept at face value that if someone else says that something is bad, it's bad, and to hell with the 99 people on one side of the room who say that you're making the wrong choice if Daddy gets it into his head that he, who is just one person, thinks he's right.

My father never did that, and it got him respect. This is just going to get an attitude of "Damn parents meddling in my life". And so the circle of "my parents are idiots" continues, and therefore so does the circle of kids who are ever-ruder and have less and less respect for their parents by the day -- no, by the minute.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

I think this is great. Knowing how kids typically react to this kind of thing fom parents, we can be virtually assured they will rebel against MS as adolescents and grow up to be Linux developers!

 

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Just like all the pastor's kids who became coke dealers, right? Hahaha, I do think this is pretty funny honestly though. But really... with a dad like that, who cares if you have an iPod or not. They could probably twist him arm into getting their own Vista backdoor! :P (hold shift and eat a pretzel during boot, and Vista all Vista code will tranform into a robot ready for your command)

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Pastors' kids don't become coke dealers. Those are cops' children. Pastors' children become whores.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Dear Mormons, I love your sexually repressed gay sons.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

What do I care if one of them is gay? I have 20 more to find a few wives.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

It made my day to see this modded as informative. Thank you, Slashdot.

Re:No ... they become pastors

OK, so to break the tension, here's a joke.

These three kids are sitting around talking about getting stuff for free. The first kid says "My dad's a doctor, so I can be sick for nothing." The second kid says "My dad's a teacher, so I can be smart for nothing." The third kid says "Well, my dad's a pastor, so I can be good for nothing."

Well, it was funny when I first heard it.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Just like all the pastor's kids who became coke dealers, right?

Not coke dealers, no, but a good many of them, perhaps even the vast majority, become anti-orginized religion and even; gasp!

Atheists.

If you want to get something done:

1. Do it yourself
2. Hire someone to do it for you
3. Forbid your kids to do it

Children of pastors all sin intentionally at least once or twice, just, well, because. It's called "growing up." Asserting yourself as an individual human being and not just a plaything of your parents.

One of the key factors in determining whether a child adopts a permanant choice agaisnt their parent's directives is whether or not, as adults, they can perceive that the stricture actually makes sense, or whether their parents were just being assholes.

If the parents were just being assholes then the likelyhood of the children adopting a contrarian position to "stick it to them" goes up dramatically.

So the question is, is Steve Ballmer making a stricture that makes sense (i.e., don't be a crack ho), or is he just an asshole?

I leave this as an exercise for the stundent, but advise you to know where your chair is.

KFG

Re:Would a different approach be better?

As someone who actually does go to church, I can tell you that NONE of the pastor's kids I have ever known have become atheists.

You are in the church, so you see the ones that stay in the church.

I am not in the church, so I see the ones that left.

KFG

Re:Would a different approach be better?

(hold shift and eat a pretzel during boot, and Vista all Vista code will tranform into a robot ready for your command)

For the record, I just tried that with WinXP, and I got the blue screen of death.

...just so you know...

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Of course, given they are Ballmer's offspring, they would not be simply Linux developers, but Linux developers! Linux developers! Linux developers! [msboycott.com]

Re:Would a different approach be better?

we can be virtually assured they will rebel against MS as adolescents and grow up to be Linux developers!

That would be the ultimate kick in his gelatinous belly. Almost as bad as:

One of Ballmer's kids walks in from school, wearing black make-up, trench-coat and hair, with multiple body piercings.

Steve. Say, why have you come home from school looking like that? I told you, this is a conformist household. No Google, no iPod.

Kid. Muuuuhh! [Slinks off.]

Steve. Hey! I'm talking to you, come back here. I don't like you getting involved with all that "goth" business... say, what's that hanging out of your bag?

Kid. [Shyly] Oh that ... that's nothing. [Kid tries to scamper away, but Steve grabs it by the arm, and takes the object.]

Steve. [Disappointed] Oh, no. I don't believe this. Didn't your mother and I tell you? I mean... how could you?

Kid. What? They're just install disks—

Steve. For FreeBSD 6.0!

Kid runs away. Steve tries to pick up a dinner chair, but realises it has been bolted to the floor.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Hrm. Goth outfit? No. I think jeans and a black turtleneck [google.com] would go over much worse... :-)

Re:Would a different approach be better?

Steve. Say, why have you come home from school looking like that? I told you, this is a conformist household. No Google, no iPod.

So Google and iPod are "rebellious"? As far as geekery goes, I can't think of anything more conformist than being an iPod-toting Google slave, other than running Windows on your Dell.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

And, since they're probably going to inheret large bank accounts from dear ol' dad (assume he doesn't fucking kill them first), they'll be RICH linux developers. A bit of an oxymoron don't you think?

The difference between a monopoly vs competitive

And that summarizes the difference between a monopoly and a competitive landscape.

In a monopoly, you're best off using

• fear (if I catch you using Google I'll throw a chair at you)
• and uncertainty (but can you really trust Google? It runs some free OS which can never scale as much as our expensive one) and
• doubt (but a small company like Google, will they be around next year?)

to keep your users.

Balmer knows this, and he's practicing it on his kids.

Exactly!

I'd take the other approach - if they choose rival manufacturers then study first hand why they do so.

Knowing your enemy is certainly preferable to willful ignorance.

Imagine Ballmer as a military commander: "No, I'd rather not examine the captured enemy secret weapon. From now on, all captured equipment shall be ignored! Any soldiers who say anything about the superior capabilities of the enemy equipment shall be placed in one of the suicide squads. Carry on, men! Carry on!"

Re:Exactly!

There really isn't a lot to learn from the competing products; Microsoft only needs a bigger market share to be more competative in these areas, and If MS could copy what their competitors were doing (they can't in the case of google), they would.

Marketshare doesn't just instantly materialize out of thin air. The days when MS could just leverage Windows dominance and expect that consumers would buy whatever they provided are over. I think MS has a lot to learn from competing products. The emphasis on ease of use over multitudinous features is what differentiates both Apple and Google products from Microsoft products. MS has already dramatically restructured MSN Search in an effort to mimimic the simplicity of Google. They'll have a tougher time applying what they learn from the iPod, because MS relies on third party hardware vendors to create devices. Still, it seems they could lean on their partners more heavily, telling them, "Look, if you want to run Windows Media on your devices, you need to make them easier to use."

My feeling is that Microsoft could conceivably learn from its competition, but like Apple in the early 1990s, it has drunk too much of its own Kool-Aid. Ballmer and company don't want to hear that Apple's business model with iTunes/iPod (build the hardware and the software and the music store) or Google's approach (serve users first, and advertising revenue will follow) works better than Microsoft's tried and true "own the OS and leverage it relentlessly" business model. Hence, Ballmer would rather talk about brainwashing his kids. Whether his kids are old enough to use iPods is, in my opinion, beside the point. His comment betrays his stubborn refusal to acknowledge that MS has something to learn from the competition.

Re:Would a different approach be better?

That is NOT an elephant hiding behind that tree... it's not there.

-- S. Balmer

MS thinking

"First hand experience can tell you a lot more than market research sometimes, and might just give future MS products an edge."

Clearly he doesn't care about his kids opinion of Google. Microsoft believes only in the positive feedback of a strong market position - we're popular because we're popular. By forcing his kids to use MS instead of Google or Apple, he's just doing his part to convert the masses one at a time. He thinks Microsoft just needs to reach a critical mass and they'll come to dominate whatever market they want - product quality is not an issue. This is backed up by the history where inferior MS products beat out supperior competition just because they got on more desktops. Remember when Gates told the folks at Apple he didn't need a superior product? So long as he could deploy to the IBM compatible world he'd capture the market.

That old philosophy clearly still exists.

Re:I'm sorry,

"is the old philosophy wrong? what makes it old?

did he not in fact, capture the market?"

No, the philosophy is not wrong - it does work. It really isn't old (my bad) as far as I know it was considered new in the 1990s when software (pkzip in particular) could be made popular by being free for most uses. MS did in fact capture the market. I never said they didn't.

I was just pointing out WHY balmer doesn't care what his kids think of Google and Apple, and instead focuses on getting them converted. MS doesn't care about product quality, only that everyone use their crap. This explains almost everything they do. "Features" rolled into Vista are there strictly so that people will not be tempted to use something else. MS can say "We have that too" even if it sucks rocks. It's all about getting the MS version of everything in front of everyone so they won't look to the competition - quality is welcome if it happens to show up.

Damn I can infer a lot from what Balmer tells his kids....

On a related note. If the MS version of something - say tabbed browsing - sucks, the masses will conclude that tabbed browsing is stupid, so Firefox users that promote it as a great feature will sound like fools to them. If you create a new product, and sell a poor implementation to the public it can be a long time before they'll buy something similar from anyone.

Simple Example: Jobs and the iTunes intro

When Steve Jobs introduced the iTunes store, and earlier when he was selling recording execs on it, he was able to describe to them exactly what consumers did and didn't like about peer-to-peer networks and monthly subscription models.

He could say "They want to be able to get individual songs on demand without a monthly fee, and P2P gives them that -- sort of -- but we can make the experience much better because look at all the frustrating hunting around and poor copies, and look at the lack of previews, and so on..." His experience with the actual user experience was obvious to anyone who saw the keynote thing.

By contrast, here we have Ballmer patting himself on the back over not letting his kids use the competition's dominant product. He's using the word "brainwashed" about his own kids. Visionary leadership, I'm sure.

You've got it all wrong!

It's right there in your quote:

I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

There is the Microsoft business strategy in a nutshell. Do not debate relative merits, just brainwash your audience. Don't let them decide - tell them what they want.

You all missed it completely

He never said in the article that he forbade them to do anything!

From what he said in the article, he's simply convinced them that MS has the better way to do things, and that's why they go the MS way. I did the same thing with my kids; I convinced them tat Linux is the better way, that every product has to be evaluated on its own merits. I also explained to them why I generally dislike MS. They will use Windows when they have to at work. They play XBox games, and if the right games come out only for XBox, or work best on XBox, my son will probably buy an XBox. But MS is never their first choice.

He joked about brainwashing them, but I strongly suspect he's simply convinced them.

so, he has his kids brainwashed

From the article (emphasis mine):

Do you have an iPod?

No, I do not. Nor do my children. My children--in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

Well now I get a sense of where the inability to know the market comes from. Get a clue Ballmer -- to best compete with your competition you get to know them intimately.

Your strongest plan to defeat you competition is to know them as if you were them!

The only other plausible way to unseat a king is to have so much money and power and control of other resources that you can bludgeon him, beat him mercilessly until all of his resources are gone and you can take the ... Hmmmm. Never mind.

Re:so, he has his kids brainwashed

He's Steve Ballmer. Richer than kings of old ever dreamed of. Much like the Hilton sisters, his kids are going to be able to be complete morons and they will get by just fine in life...

Re:so, he has his kids brainwashed

I'm gonna take a wild guess that Steve Ballmer is, in fact, capable of joking, and that his kids aren't really forbidden from using Google or iPods, but instead really are Microsoft supporters. It's not really unheard of for kids to be fanatical about things their parents are involved in.

I expect that Ballmer's kids really are "brainwashed" in the sense that they believe in their dad and the company they work for. I doubt they've been actually forbidden from using it, they'd just rather use the tools their dad makes.

I know I've heard plenty from my father about how the projects he works on are the world's greatest... I'm tempted to name names, but I think I'll pass for now.

Not a problem!

Considering Google's willingness to appease the biggest government censor (China), I don't doubt that Google will also censor itself in Ballmer's home, if IPs were given out. And another th--

WAIT... Steve Ballmer has human children?!?

OB Office Space

"[...] chicks dig a dude with money."

"Well, not all chicks."

"Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do."

Re:OB Office Space

I was more thinking of a different office space quote....

"fuckin... children would have hooves"

Re:Not a problem!

Wait a minute. That must mean.... oh no.

Steve.....Balmer.....had.....SEX?

No, no, it can't be. God no, it can't be. "You know what we all need? Prostitutes! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES! PROSTITUTES!" (Balmer on stage sweating like a pig, with playboy bunnies.)

Please rip that image out of my head.

That'll work

Telling kids what they're not allowed to do/have will certainly make them stop wanting to do/have whatever it is. It'll work for sure.

On the other hand, if the alternative is being thrashed about like a rag doll by a sweaty man-ape...

Ah, excellent:

Another generation of the wealthy and clueless.

No Google, indeed... Similarly, I do not allow my children to use 'legs'.