Ballmer Babies Banned From iPods and Google 554
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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):
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:Star Wars Version (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:3, Funny)
"VB, much like generic beer and America's Funniest Home Videos is an enabling technology for stupid people." - Anonymous
For some reason I thought VB stood for Victoria Bitter when I first read your sig. Then I realised you meant Visual Basic. Now I'm not sure again.
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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"
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? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:3, Funny)
<answer>Multiple wives<answer>
I'll be here all week, please try the veal.
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No ... they become pastors (Score:5, Funny)
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:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
Your God isn't worth the paper he's written on.
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:4, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
For the record, I just tried that with WinXP, and I got the blue screen of death.
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:4, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
That would be the ultimate kick in his gelatinous belly. Almost as bad as:
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Would a different approach be better? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:4, Funny)
The difference between a monopoly vs competitive (Score:5, Interesting)
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! (Score:5, Interesting)
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! (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
MS thinking (Score:4, Interesting)
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, (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:You all missed it completely (Score:3)
Please stop.
so, he has his kids brainwashed (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article (emphasis mine):
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 (Score:2)
This is like a father telling his children that they are only allowed to use Encyclopedias from 2001 instead of the 2006 edition.
Re:so, he has his kids brainwashed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so, he has his kids brainwashed (Score:2)
Re:so, he has his kids brainwashed (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:so, he has his kids brainwashed (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a problem! (Score:4, Funny)
WAIT... Steve Ballmer has human children?!?
OB Office Space (Score:5, Funny)
"Well, not all chicks."
"Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do."
Re:OB Office Space (Score:5, Funny)
"fuckin... children would have hooves"
Re:Not a problem! (Score:5, Funny)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if the alternative is being thrashed about like a rag doll by a sweaty man-ape...
Ah, excellent: (Score:5, Funny)
No Google, indeed... Similarly, I do not allow my children to use 'legs'.
In other words (Score:2)
But... (Score:5, Funny)
Behind The Curve (Score:5, Funny)
This must be some new definition of "about to" with which I have not been familiar....
at least he admits it's brainwash (Score:2)
Of course, this speaks nothing of groupthink [google.com].
This just means... (Score:2)
Fortress Microsoft (Score:2)
While I dispise MS for what they do, I also admire them for how they can take their products and push them.
I've got my kids brainwashed and pissed off (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh when will parents EVER learn? If you forbid something, it just makes the kids want it more.
Coming soon, Ballmer's kids eventually end up working for Google, Ballmer buys an Island, sets up a wireless Windows-only network that blocks anything Google, and rules it by Windows-only voice commands from atop his throne.
just another reason (Score:2, Funny)
Jokes overheard in the workplace... (Score:5, Funny)
"Maybe his real motive for not allowing iPods is so that the kids won't throw them. Those things are expensive!"
"If you think Steve's tantrums are bad, wait until you meet his kids."
I'll be here all day. Try the veal.
Re:Jokes overheard in the workplace... (Score:3, Insightful)
It may work for a while... (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine a Microsoft World (Score:2)
Imagine all the people ..... ....
It's easy, if you can
(etc)
Relevance? (Score:4, Insightful)
If he doesn't allow his kids to use Google or have iPods, that's his business. He shouldn't make it ours. That kind of preachiness can come back to bite one in the ass.
Insight Into Psyche (Score:3, Insightful)
If it is or isn't true isn't the iss
You can't be serious (Score:2)
Ballmer Babies? (Score:2)
Baby Balmer: Developers, DEVELOPERS, DEVLOPERS!!!!!!!!!
Nanny: Is everything alright in here?
Baby Balmer: Yes, Nanny.
I think it's safe to say he has emotional problems (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a fine point of parenting here... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not talking about using Reverse Psychology on them either. I prefer to educate them and let them decide for themselves what is best. If they're old enough to use a computer and Google/iPods, they are probably old enough to decide for themselves what they feel is a better product/service. Good 'ole Dad is just ushering in another reason for rebellion. Sometimes children need to be treated like children (because they act like children, of course). If you want them to act like they're older, you have to treat them like they're older, which means respecting them. Outlawing a competitor's website is ridiculous. If anything it should inspire him to want to create a better website so his children will WANT to use Microsoft's search instead of Google. I just think he's going about it in the wrong way.
This is probably good for Apple and Google (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
cognitive dissonance (Score:2, Funny)
Agggh, the pain... can't decide how to karmawhore... call Micro$oft evil... make fun of Ballmer... Norman, coordinate!!!
Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
1. They used google and were told to stop.
2. They never used google but were told never to start.
3. Bought an ipod and Steve got rid of it.
4. Asked for an ipod and were told no.
Either way, the genius is admitting that either his kids tried these products or he knew they were so superior that he had to do the preemptive strike to stop them.
What an idiot.
Actually, I'll vote for 5. He's a buffoon that needs to pound his chest on a regular basis (not to mention toss chairs) to seemingly make himself look like a tough guy and is making the whole thing up.
Again, if so, what an idiot.
Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to vote for #6. His kids want to use the stuff that daddy makes, and conciously choose to use Microsoft products because their father runs the company that makes them.
I highly doubt Ballmer would have choosen to say his kids were "brainwashed" into using Microsoft products unless he was joking. "Brainwashed" is a curious choice of words if he really did forbid non-Microsoft products.
If you read the interview, and not the Slashdot article, he actually says:
My reading of that isn't that he forbids them from using it, it's that his children support their father and his buisness. I have no idea how old his kids are (and neither does Wikipedia) but depending on age, it's quite believable that his kids just like emulating their father and therefore choose to use Microsoft products.
I read it as kind of a geek joke - Ballmer's kids are "brainwashed" into using Microsoft products because it's what their father uses.
Not that all kids use what their parents use - my father uses KDE and Opera, but I'm currently posting this from GNOME using Firefox. But when I was younger, and my dad bought OS/2 for our home computer, I believed him when he said it was the greatest desktop OS ever...
A bit anal retentive are we? (Score:2)
What happens when his kids visit their friends who have an iPod or who look up info using Google? Do they leave the room or do they wash their eyes and ears out with bleach afterwards?
It appears the recent decision to push back the release date of Vista isn't tied solely to the problems with the code. The real answer might have something to do with the jumping monkey.
If my dad... (Score:3, Insightful)
He claims innovation... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's going to take an innovative proposition. In five years are people really going to carry two devices? One device that is their communication device, one device that is music? There's going to be a lot of opportunities to get back in that game. We want to be in that game. Expect to see announcements from us in that area in the next 12 months.
But the market is already doing this. Apple is already in on this. First with the ROKR phone (which was horrid) and now with the SLVR. In the near future, with holographic storage [slashdot.org] and other miniaturization, we'll be seeing phones with 30gb to 300gb+ capacity in no time.
He's saying to look for announcements in the next 12 months. I think in 12 months, the market is going to be vastly different from now. More phones will have mp3 playing features. higher capacities.
But I forgot. M$'s definition of "innovation" is to follow everyone else.
Just say "no" to iPod (Score:5, Funny)
But there's a way you can help. Talk to your kids about products and teach them why non-Microsoft products are dangerous, and can lead to a life of crime.
Did you know that Steve Ballmer recently got interested in photography? But he had a problem when he ran out of supplies, and he started shouting "Developers! Developers! Developers!"
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Dialoge from the Balmer house... (Score:5, Funny)
"Nothing."
"Don't lie to me. It's an iPOD isn't it. You have a ****ing iPOD!"
"No, it's pot! I'm doing drugs."
"Don't give me any of that. It's an iPOD. You know that we don't use iPOD in this house. And what's that on your computer? Let me see your screen."
"It's just porn, dad!"
"It better be. If I catch you looking at Google one more time, you're grounded for LIFE. Now go smoke your pot and watch the porn like a good boy."
In the house of Balmer.... (Score:3, Funny)
Mr. Balmer..."oh my god, no...not my son....DEAR GOD PLEASE NO!!! STEVE JUNIOR...GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!!!"
Little Steve..."Yeah da...uh oh..."
Mr. Balmer..."Do you care to explaine this son?! You know the rules of my house!"
Mrs. Balmer..."Steve calm down please!! Oh junior we still love you..."
Mr. Balmer..."SHUT UP WOMAN! junior...talk....NOW.
Little Steve..."errr ummm...I was holding it for a friend! I swear! And my other friend was using my PC the other day, I didn't know!"
Mr. Balmer..."oh so your friend wanted you hold on to his Nano for him, and your "other" friend just happend to be looking at that SMUT search engine..."
Little Steve..."yes"
Mr. Balmer..."go upstairs...your mother and I need to talk about this"
Little steve..."yes sir"..."man, I better move that MacBookPro and linux server out of my closet...."
An Open Letter from Steve Ballmer's kids. (Score:5, Funny)
You're a dick.
Fondly,
Your kids.
he better not look under their mattresses (Score:5, Funny)
Ballmer is a nutter (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at him, he's always jumpy, he has a huge vein in his head that throbs all the time, he screams really loud whenever he gets the chance to extoll the virtues of XBox 360 or Windows Vista, but has a constant grimace of a smile hoisted across his face when being asked difficult questions. He shakes his head before everything he says when he's lying (e.g. when he says how they're On Track for Vista) as if he doesn't believe it. He's so tense it makes me feel tense just watching him.
The guy needs to rest, or leave Microsoft. Banning his kids from google or ipods is just symptomatic of his increasing panic as he tries his very best to banish anything that suggests Microsoft is losing the race from his life. Any rational man would realise that Google and iPod are great products and it doesn't matter if his kids use it. It would be something to aim at. I would be saying "You think that iPod is fucking awesome, son, well just you wait for the crazy shit daddy is going to pull out of his ass," I certainly wouldn't be banning them from my household. I would use one.
I'm genuinely concerned for his health. He really shouldn't be in the position that he's in, his buddy Bill Gates put him there to act as a forcefield between Gates and the reality of Microsoft. And while BillyG sits back with a fat spliff and chills between dictating endless new features for Vista, poor old Ballmer is shipped around the country to give uncomfortable interviews and spew his insane Microsoft evangelism. I think he's the only Microsoft evangelist there is right now, and he's trying his best to be a one man army. Shame he's losing the battle.
Parent Teacher Meeting (Score:3, Funny)
Like an Amway family (Score:4, Interesting)
Another bad article summary (Score:5, Insightful)
And "brainwashed" is supposed to be a joke, although nobody here would recognize one of those when it comes to Microsoft.
If it were Linus saying "but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Windows, and you don't use MacOS," everyone here would get it.
The Children Shall Lead (Score:4, Informative)
I spend a lot of time keeping up with new tech as part of my job and my hobbies, but still my kids manage to find all sorts of new things I haven't heard about. So what better way to keep up with trends and the competition than one's kids? So don't let Ballmer's joking around lull anyone into a false sense of security, his kids and Gates' kids may turn out to be among Microsoft's greatest assets.
Re:The Children Shall Lead (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that Steve was just joking.
I thought that when monkeys joke, they throw feces at you. Of course, it is his house, and his rules too. Based on his previous statements (i.e. throwing chairs while swearing profanely, "I'm going to f***ing kill Google!"), then google is likely a "bad word" in all n 100000 square feet of his home. And the fact that he called iPod owners "theives" doesn't help the prospect of those in his massive dwelling either. Maybe when they get angry in the Ballmer household,
Hey Bill just a suggestion. (Score:3, Insightful)
Really if you can not get him to shut up and act like a human being then he has to go.
1. Throwing chairs and saying that you going to f'ing kill someone has no place outside of a high school. Even in a high school kid it would be a sign of immaturity.
2. Talking about not letting your kids use Google is great PR. For Google and Apple!
3. For Steve Baller's next trick I see this. "Apple and Google are so much better the junk we make that I had to beat the crap out of my kids with a chair to keep them from using them!"
BTW Steve Jobbs says "thanks".
Telling us what he thinks of his own product. (Score:4, Insightful)
No Google groups for the kids? (Score:3, Insightful)
If Ballmer's kids cannot use Google, they might be deprived of a tool which no other serious alternative exist.
A glimpse to the future... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'd let my kids use a competitor product so I can find out why they chose it, what it brings, and how we can beat it.
It is clear to me MS needs a complete managment change. There methods were fine when it was an emerging market, and they had contracts gaurenting OS sales with every computer sold.
I always thought (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:He performs anticompetitive maneuvers on his ki (Score:2, Funny)
Ipod -> Chair -> pain
Google -> Chair -> pain
Re:My children will inherit billions... (Score:3, Funny)
That's so middle-class. Real billionaires hire the orginal performers for their kids, not cover bands.
Re:Child abuse (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This guy is a world-class IDIOT (Score:5, Funny)
PS - I don't think Stallman has any better overall appearance either.