Ballmer Sounds Off 335
PreacherTom writes "Steve Ballmer shares his thoughts on the Web 2.0 phenomenon, Zune, XBox, Vista, Bill's upcoming 2008 retirement, the future of Microsoft, and other subjects. For example, regarding the GooTube deal: "Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion. And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that's up there is owned by somebody else. The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google." He's blunt, if nothing else."
He's right about the rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Jealous, perhaps? (Score:2, Insightful)
Youtube is not a terribly complicated web application, yet the founders are going to cash it in and walk away with USD 1.65 Billion (with a B).
Certainly Ballmer's developers! developers! developers! could have come up with the same thing and brought it to market far faster... but they didn't. Redmond even think about it, did they?
Sounds like a bit of jealousy... or sour grapes.
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Insightful)
Youtube is a very, very young company...just like it took the RIAA a few years to realise what Napster was, I'm sure the MPAA is having closed door sessions today to figure out how to litigate/shut this down.
In the land of the DCMA, laws banning online gambling, the RIAA and MPAA, this is a huge legal disaster waiting to happen. I'm supportive of Google pushing the envelope, but I think they have overreached on this acquisition. Their first major mistake IMHO.
GooTube: Legal Spew For You (Score:5, Insightful)
This blog post http://battellemedia.com/archives/002973.php [battellemedia.com]
Has this thoughtful closing:
It's about managing the debate, it seems.
Re:He's right about the rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Video has been selling legit videos for a while now, they have the experience. YouTube had started legitamizing some of their videos, cf. their recent deal with (I think) Warner. This whole situation has the potential to converge quite nicely for all concerned, and combine the freebies and community YouTube developed with a full-fledged digital video competitor to iTunes and Amazon.
YouTube has a lot posibilities (Score:4, Insightful)
What happens it you put Google adverts there? Yes, you guessed. You will have damn a lot of clicks.
Does it sound like a business model? Yep, I think so.
Is it highly overpriced? Up to Google, they had cash - they need to invest it. It gave them about 80% of downloaded videos. Is it good? For them, for a while, for sure. What happens next is up to them, and RIAA, MPIA and so. If they can struck some kind of deal, who knows. With their cash, influences.
That's exactly what Ballmer said. He 'wouldn't pay that much cash.' He MIGHT. Because it's very risky - but we all know that risky actions are most profitable. Time will show.
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Insightful)
In the land of the DCMA, laws banning online gambling, the RIAA and MPAA, this is a huge legal disaster waiting to happen. I'm supportive of Google pushing the envelope, but I think they have overreached on this acquisition. Their first major mistake IMHO.
On the upside, the impact of such litigation on The Common Man might just wake everyone up to how out of control copyright laws have gotten...
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:let's face it... (Score:1, Insightful)
You're surely joking- no one in their right mind would claim that the market leader is "irrelevant".
Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube (Score:4, Insightful)
The only people that lose out are the Youtube users who got used to the free ride with the copyrighted stuff and don't want to pay for legit downloads on GooTube, but they can always head back to the fileshares.
Re:let's face it... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet they keep on being relevant.
Re:Jealous, perhaps? (Score:1, Insightful)
Sounds like a bit of jealousy... or sour grapes."
Eh, Microsoft could have easily coded something so simple in design, however Microsoft is far too integrative with paid content providers to ever get such a thing off the ground. They have enough legal red tape with their other digital media projects.
Our grandkids will hate us (Score:4, Insightful)
That really is the question, isn't it. Today advertising is where a large portion of the money is being made on the web.
It makes me want to go back in time and find and then murder the "clever" person who thought "I know, since we can't charge each listener for our radio program, we'll charge companies to advertise on our show!"
Advertising is a blight on our society. I can't even watch a frickin' movie that I paid to see without having advertising shoved down my throat...even in the damned movie!
Hasn't any business been paying attention?! People will actually spend money to avoid advertising. PVRs, DVD collections of TV shows, movie and music downloads...to a lot of people, it's not about "convenience", it's about not having to put up with commercials.
So to all the advertisers out there: FUCK OFF. When I want to find the best product for my money, I'll grab the nearest advertsing executive and beat it out of them.
My eyeballs are not for sale!
Oh come on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically all it boils down to is that You Tube is the biggest video site on the net which Google now control and Microsoft are just pissed because they've just lost out on the biggest multimedia opportunity of this decade.
Re:Gross oversimplification (Score:1, Insightful)
"Plays anywhere" (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a paraphrase but essentially Ballmer delivered that message. Then sometime later MS decides to release its Zune player and to say to its former music partners. I guess I could fill in the blanks here, "Sorry that you didn't realize MS+'Anyone' = MS." Namely that your interests are not ever really a consideration.
MS actually started its down video site. So if Mr. Ballmer feels so strongly, the question is, why? I know the answer by and large.
Ballmer simply has no tact whatsoever. He gets all emotional and contradicts himself later making him look like a capricious idiot.
-M
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:3, Insightful)
Who would have sued YouTube before? Universal hinted but never made good, and considering YouTube would probably have been barely able to cover fighting all these lawsuits let alone winning/losing, it seemed like an uphill battle trying to squeeze the money these companies 'deserve'.
Now that YouTube is backed by deep-pocketed Google, this is every lawyer's wet dream waiting to happen. Let's hope that the deals that Google have already signed with some of the major players are enough to stem the tide of lawsuits waiting to happen.
Also, let's be honest, if Steve Jobs had said this people here would have thought about it rather than the rampant anti-Ballmer sentiment that seems to be throwing itself up here. The funny thing is that if Jobs had said it, he has far more of a reason to be biased because Apple are in the business of actually buying video content before they sell it.
There's no bussines model but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is that I suspect that Microsoft also tried to buy youtube?
Re:No Business Like Model Business (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:4, Insightful)
$Google$ (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:He's right about the rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that YouTube has money behind it, Google can expect legal action from a whole bunch of people... some of it justified.
That was truly insightful, at least for me.
Google's core business model revolves around "fair use" and similar provisions of copyright law. I think they are most vulnerable in this area-- look at Belgium. So Google needed to buy YouTube for a couple of reasons related to this.
The first is because YouTube's business model also revolves around many of the same "fair use" provisions, and if YouTube loses its upcoming court cases, the fallout could fatally poison Google's business model. It would be very hard for Google to immunize itself from any judgments against YouTube that changed the interpretation of copyright law. Purchasing YouTube allows Google to directly counter such an attack with all its resources. It also decreases the likelihood of such an attack, since all the ambulance chasers who were smacking their lips in anticipation of an easy meal from YouTube's carcass are now slinking away, looking for easier prey that won't be able to fend them off for years with delaying tactics.
The other reason that occurs to me is that the most important part of strategizing any conflict is choosing your battlefield carefully. Google is under constant threat of serious litigation over copyright concerns. Google has just bought a battlefield where these litigations can be played out, that is comfortably distant from the fields of green where Googles' cash cows graze.
I expect that Google is developing the muscles it needs to directly influence copyright legislation, and I expect it is also going to be increasingly influential in copyright litigation as well (intervening with friend of the court briefs, etc). This all seems to be part of Google's mission statement: [google.com] "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, please. No one voluntarily chooses to give up the rights to copy and play their own music. They do so under duress, to make a living. They always gave it up because the other choice is to work at McDonalds.
Those people they voluntarily give up their rights to steal all the profits for decades. If they decide to give the artist anything at all, after the "expenses" are deducted.
If any artists are on the side of the corporations that hold the copyright gates, then they are usually young, dazzled by the bright lights, and were brought up thinking that the proper way of things is to submit to the flashy men in the conference room. They were born in a slave culture, and they think like slaves. This is the downside of feudalism: serfs eventually wholeheartedly support their lords -- they can't imagine that it could work any other way. And corporatism = feudalism; it's not even a metaphor.
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Our grandkids will hate us (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway... I specifically prefer companies that have not gone out of their way to shove their products at me through advertising. I like to find small companies with good products on my own. Besides generally getting better quality products (because these companies don't spend a large portion of their revenue on advertising), I have more satisfaction in my purchases because of the fact that I researched them and discovered the best product *on my own*.
Because of my satifaction, I tell my friends about it. Gee, I guess those companies do advertise after all...they just don't (over)pay an advertising company to develop a stupid and annoying 30-second waste of space!
Admittedly, there are plenty of things that I buy that I don't research first...but I don't have to do any research to know that my local grocery store has fresh fruit. I just go in and, since I've taken the time to actually get to know the people that work there (*gasp* - what a concept!), I ask what the best, freshest stuff is.
Re:MS redefines the meaning of Open Source (Score:3, Insightful)
First RFC April 1969 for the ARPANET. The Open Source Initiative originated in Feb 1998.
1969 is not "new." The OSI is also all about business. ESR and crew have cared more about corporate evangelism than anything else. (And yes, that is easy to verify)
"In the last three or four years, we have competed very well by extending our value", SB
Propoganda, sure.
"Microsoft has proposed a licencing agreement blatantly tailored to exclude free software from accessing it.", FSF Europe
Right...sure. Just like Stallman having warned people off the BSD license, telling people not to use the CC licenses, insisting that every other FOSS license on the planet be "harmonised" with the GPL, etc. The FSF complaining about *anyone* else using exclusionary licensing is about the degree of consistency I've come to expect from them...which is also why I no longer listen to a word they say. I wish I understood why I seem to be the only one who's seeing that Stallman wants his own monoculture just as badly as Gates/Ballmer want theirs...and neither are a good thing.
The rest is the usual propoganda and doublespeak BS, admittedly...but I actually did agree with him to a degree about the YouTube acquisition. Google have sunk a lot of money into buying an operation that is essentially a net-based hybrid of Funniest Home Videos and MTV, whose first profit was also actually the money Google paid for it...it's going to be interesting to see if they can create something profitable out of it.
My opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
The good thing is that Google has a steady income of more cash which they can throw against the case if need be and they are thus going to be less likely to settle for a lump-sum and give up. They can also afford better lawyers and finally open the IP box of pandora and set an example/precedent.
Remember what "Wealth" means (Score:5, Insightful)
Information (music, videos, etc.) has economic value, and is therefore wealth. That is what Ballmer was talking about, the transfer of that economically-valuable information from the copyright holders to google.
Now, this statement is still absurd, because of some "have your cake and eat it too" mentalities at work behind the concept of intellectual property.
If I take raw materials and use them to build a car, I have created wealth. I am now wealthier because of it. I also own the wealth I created, which means I control it. I can give it to you if I want, in which case you are more wealthy and I am less wealthy. Obviously I can't keep doing this endlessly without running myself dry, so I will need you to give me something back. Hence we barter. But what's important is that once I give that item to you, I don't have it anymore.
With information it is different. I can give you a copy of it without giving up my copy of it, and without having to expend resources in its creation. So, that means, I can give it to you and still keep it! Thus I get to make money by claiming your wealth (in the form of the money you pay me) without actually giving up any of the wealth I already have (the music/video/whatever).
Of course this is absurd, and demonstrates where common information-as-property metaphors fall short. It doesn't make sense for me to sell you a car and then claim that I still own it, so why does it make sense for me to sell you a digital file and then claim that I still own it? In the real world, I wouldn't have that car anymore, so does that mean that I am obligated to delete my copy of the song once I sell it to you? Of course not. Treating information as property leads to these sorts of contradictions because information is not property, and doesn't work the same way.
"Intellectual property" is basically a game of pretending like information works like property in some ways, but insisting that it does not work like property in other ways. We pretend it works like property when individual consumers are concerned (they can't make copies of cars without resources, so they shouldn't be able to make copies of information without resources either), but we insist that it does not work like property when rich businesses are concerned (sure, I sold you a COPY of the data, but really I still own the data). This is not only logically inconsistent, but economically harmful (it results in lots of money flowing upwards without any real wealth flowing downwards).
We should instead treat information as information, and rethink copyright laws. They should not arbitrarily restrict the zero-cost duplication and distribution of information (which is a great benefit to humanity in and of itself). We must also recognize that money not spent on electronic information is not money lost to the economy, but rather, money that can be spent in an economically healthy way (used to buy food or cars or any other traditional exchange in which the wealth flows in both directions).
I have already written more than anyone will read, so I won't bother to get into the false claims that intellectual property laws protect content providers (which they do not) and that giving them up will result in no new creations and cultural starvation (which it will not). I just hope that the next generation will be able to see through these hypocritical fallacies of "intellectual property law" and act more intelligently than the current generation is acting.
Both points backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because Google can spend huge volumes of cash defending itself - and as long as the service remains timley in removing copyrighted material, there is no problem. Basically, they have a lot of money to sue for but they can make sure you spend a lot as well. The are a larger, but a hardened, target.
I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?
No. Read the interview again - where he says "Someone has to compete with them. Maybe us, maybe Yahoo" and that "there has to be two companies competing in the media space for media owners to see value". Notice the realization and admission in that statemnet is that Google is ONE of those two companies. That means only ONE spot is left - and by admission it may not be Microsoft! Do you think that makes Balmer feel cozy, that 50% of the opportunity to control the media market online is gone now? Look at how dizzy he was on the question about YouTube valuation. He can't see it, and it's killing him. He feels like he's missing some part of the picture. He's essentially saying "I would pay 1.6 billion if I knew what the hell was going on!". Even his staement about the need to get in and "milk" a service was classic Microsoft that misses the value of a social network, which is in expansion and not squeezing it to death.
On a side note Balmer is dead wrong on that score, YouTube even when sending no money directly to media is creating value for the media companies even with illegal content by increasing mindshare and viewership of a show so media companies can collect money via other channels.
Balmer is Lame (Score:3, Insightful)
Balmer is so lame. He's lucky to be with MS, since I doubt anyone else would have him.
Re: quote above, the so-called "rights holders" wouldn't have this money otherwise. There wouldn't be any money otherwise since no one would be doing anything with it. Balmer is trying to start a fire by telling the RH's that somehow they're entitled to this unearned money, and cause problems for the competition. Wish we could just shut him up entirely, but that's not likely.
Of course, if MS was doing this instead, Balmer would be calling it a victory for the RH's.
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you read Slashdot yesterday? If they don't react, people will start to question whether Windows (and the whole concept of OS as platform for applications) is still relevant. Microsoft felt threatened by web 1.0 turning the browser into an application platform, slashdot types started to ask if PC operating systems and local applications would be relevant in the future. Something had to be done, so they introduced MSIE, WMP, MS Java, Active X, and gratuitiously incompatible html and javascript. Eventually they killed off Netscape and gravely wounded Real and Java. For 6 years after that nobody, not even the die-hard Linux and Mac zealots, asked whether Windows was still relevant.
Now they're even more threatened by web 2.0. The ghost of Netscape is back to haunt them. Flash and AJAX make a much more compelling platform than html forms, Java and Realplayer ever did. Articles questioning whether Windows is still relevant are back on the front page of Slashdot. They've got to kill somebody soon, and Google and Yahoo seems like the obvious targets.
translation (Score:5, Insightful)
or, translated to normal english:
"We have no idea how they plan to make money on this, so it must be impossible."
The sounds of a man who can't accept that there might be people smarter than him on the planet.
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:3, Insightful)
Something 'inevitably' drifting to draconian doesn't mean it is preferable to do away with it all together. It just means that you have to a system in place to protect against that occuring. The founders of the constitution attemped to do this by placing a system of checks and balances in place, but sane political analyses shows they were unsuccessful, and some modfications are needed.
Same thing with copyright. Severe modifications are needed, I'll grant you. Maybe doing away with it alltogether is prefereable, but I personally kind of doubt that. It's pretty tough to create any kind of a security system (in comptuers, in national or emotional security, whatever) that will work against any assault. People are clever and will always try to find a way to twist a system to their advantage. What's needed is a populace that's alert and motivated enough to guard against this. Tough sure, but that's life.
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:3, Insightful)
You seriously think all he did was to "stck together" other people's work?
For a start, he co-wrote the treatment used to sell the film to the studios. Then he worked with a team on the animatics, to create a shot-by-shot walkthrough of the entire movie. After that he actually directed nearly the entire thing over the course of about five years, often out in the wilderness somewhere in New Zealand. During this time he managed to keep his actors positive and focused, the film on track (they hit the release day for each film spot on - that's solid project management right there) and stay in control of the film's look and feel.
On top of this, he was personally involved in the creative aspects of the film, approving, suggesting and improving models, visuals and CG. He oversaw the cutting of the film and to a lesser extent the scoring. He'd watch the daily rushes after the actors had left, reviewing each take.
Do you think a five year project with 18-20 hour days for almost the entire period is just sticking stuff together?
As for the money issue - yes, people running the show take the lion's share. That's business. The CG people at Weta are pretty much set up for life-long careers now though, as are the model-makers. In fact, the wage-earners on the film have generally bright careers in front of them now because the whole production was so well done.
I usually like your posts, but this one was particularly egregious. You clearly don't know what it was Peter Jackson actually did, or what good directors and producers do either for that matter.
I must have misread sarcasm or something. You can't be this far off-base, surely.
Re:He's right about the rights (Score:4, Insightful)
There are more players in the video distribution game outside of YouTube and Google Video and many of them do not have the deep pockets of Google. By the rationale of the parent, then the old, played Slashdot joke applies:
1. Make video content distribution site
2. Have users post content protected by copyright.
3. Google will then swoop down and buy your site to avoid legal precedent to protect their own legal future and future business model.
4. ???
5. Profit.
It's absurd to think that Google bought YouTube to protect themselves against poor legal decisions. Legal decisions are not based on "scale" i.e. just because YouTube is the player in video distribution right now doesn't mean they are going to be the end all and be all of legal decisions.
The overanalyzation of this purchase is mind numbing. It's as simple as huge user base, it didn't cost them anything outside of stock (which is overvalued as is) and it protected themselves from other large players acquiring YouTube.