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."
Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Funny)
Interviewer: Aren't you oversimplifying things? I mean YouTube was taking down copyrighted content once they were notified of its presence.
Ballmer: I'd never be guilty of oversimplifying something--I was merely attempting to explain a situation to the rest of the world about a company that just happens to be one of our biggest competitors and a direct threat in the search and advertisment industries. You don't remember it like that? Well I do and so does DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
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.
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)
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They just bought it. Give them at least a few days to come up with some plan.
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Informative)
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Ah, so that's why Youtube seemed more popular! I'd been wondering...
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not going to argue whether any copyright concept should be abolished, that's a long and different debate. I just want to argue with your reasoning here, which crops up all too often.
Something 'inevitably' drifting to draconian doesn't mean it is preferable to do away wit
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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 enoug
Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:5, Interesting)
And it's a fine example of how copyright is entirely out of whack, that actual creative effort gets the shaft in favor of so-called "rights holders" that do nothing more than sit on their asses all day! It is exactly this kind of situation that copyright is supposed to encourage, not prevent!
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.
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Re:Deleted Scenes from the Interview (Score:4, Informative)
But the monarchs knew that a corporation was essentially a landless, peasantless fiefdom. Corporations would have enormous power, so in exchange for the limited liability which would attract investors to risky, long term projects like colonization, they would say that corporations could only do the business for which they were chartered, in the region their charter covered. The East India company could neither trade in the Americas nor grow crops in the East Indies. And corporations were limited to the lifespan of the original founders: when the last of them had died or sold their shares, the corporation would be dissolved.
Finally, a corporation had no legal rights as a person seperate from its officers. This was one of the biggest limitations, and one of the last to go. But money buys power, and over time the concentration of money available to corporations allowed them to buy politicians who would enact legeslation expanding their power, allowing them to make more money and buy more laws in a vicious cycle.
Now, a corporation has always been able to own things, and to owe money. Seperating ownership and liability was the whole purpose of corporations and the thing that made them different from partnerships. But in exchange for that, severe limits were originally placed on what they could do. Now those limits have been erased and corporations have all the benefits with none of the societal responsibilities.
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.
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You've made a fundamental mistake in your argument: erroneously assuming that you "own" the content just because you created it. This is not the case; all you "own" is a government-granted (not inherent) monopoly over distribution of it. In fact, the public owns the
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But it's not like you're doomed to n
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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 fi
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True, but in a different way than you think. Because (I guess except for the soundtrack) one might argue that we have fair use here. Consider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_und er_United_States_law [wikipedia.org]
Sorting this out could go al
So what you're saying is..... (Score:3, Funny)
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Personally I'd prefer that they use the leverage to draw more attention to how much free/creative-commons work is out there, but to each his own.
Uh... (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?
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I'd say it's pretty certain. Even YLE(the Finnish national broadcast company, about the same as BBC is in UK) is looking into Youtube and unauhorized use of its content. They haven't excluded the idea of suing Youtube through USA courts.
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I mean, if you were Ballmer, wouldn't you be thrilled that Google had bought YouTube?
No. Now I have to compete with Google in yet another arena that I don't want to. Every time Google makes a move, I have to counter or be caught behind the eight-ball. True, Google is going to have its hands full with litigation, but then this is what Google wants, so it can force media agencies to make concessions about allowing content on Google. Their pockets are pretty deep too.
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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,
Re:Uh... (Score:4, Funny)
Ballmer: The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google.
Translation: They're going to undercut the video section of Zune Marketplace...wahhhhh
-Eric
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You have to waste some money up front if you want to be #1. And MS badly needs to become #1 somewhere in the online space to really deliver value to their advertisers. They may have "learned their lesson" from the Xbox, but they wouldn't have been competitive in the console space without it.
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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.
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if only... (Score:4, Funny)
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you forgot the "Oh wait..." part.
Re:if only... (Score:5, Funny)
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He's right about the rights (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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: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.
Ow, my brain... (Score:5, Funny)
Coming from anyone else, I can cope with the picture that brings up in my mind. But from Ballmer?
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That's because there was no mention any dog food in those pictures or videos. Now squirt pictures of his kids eating Alpo or a video of recent family vacations to the Purina processing plant in Des Moines, Iowa, and now you've got media that Ballmer would be overjoyed to see!
Talk About Horrible Slang (Score:4, Funny)
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No Business Like Model Business (Score:5, Interesting)
That sounds like a business model.
At $1.6B, Google has transferred wealth from rights holders to the (outgoing) owners of YouTube.
What is clear is that Ballmer has no clue what's going on. Just like during the last bubble, when Microsoft was the last to "get" it. But then there was no Google producing apps closer to the consumer than Microsoft sits. So maybe this time a bubble, maybe its pop, will actually finally wash MS down the drain, the way we all thought we'd see with "missing the Internet" or Netscape or "Bob" or the monopoly decision or...
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This could be a mistake on Google's part - I have no crystal ball, but I'm betting that the brains at Google gave this a little bit of thought before deciding to spend the money and have so
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That might cost another $billion, but if Google can free video content among the huge YouTube audience, they will have "invented" Internet TV, without hardly trying.
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Napster's business model was a payoff to its previous owners for throwing the lawsuit that purchaser Bertelsmann brought. That precedent bought the music biz several years legal power over their customers, while switching many of the downloaders to a legal model that put some money into Bertelsmann's pockets. A bad business model, but brought to you by the record labels with more political than busi
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.
Now, now... (Score:2)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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That's rather a broad generalization. Not all situations where IP is used by someone who is not the "rights owner" as Ballmer says (that should be "primary rights owner, as we ALL have rights, such as "fair use rights") is illegal or unethical. There is a lot of gray area in that regard, and certainly some of what is posted to YouTube is illegal and/or unethical, but you can't make a blanket statement like this.
Guess it goes to show that th
YouTube *can't* determine the rights upfront (Score:2)
It's fine if you have a single person making a video. But what if you have several people working to produce that video? Technically they all own a piece of the rights, unless it's a "work for hire" for a single company. And how would you know that if you were an individual buying it from just one of them? Until you got a "cease and desist" letter from one of the other guys, there is no
Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube (Score:4, Informative)
That's because you're either not up to date on US law or you've been listening to Ballmer for too long. Title 2 of the DMCA [wikipedia.org] creates a "safe harbour" which exempts Google (and any other "Online Service Provider") from liability for this sort of thing, so long as they comply with certain rules. Google almost certainly plan to follow these rules to the letter, as they do for all other other services, which means nobody can take them to court in the US for anything posted on YouTube by a third party.
Basically, if you post something to YouTube, it's your fault and not theirs. They are not obliged to screen the content. If somebody sends them a "takedown" notice, they are obliged to presume guilt and remove the content (without investigating). If you then send them a counter-notice, they are obliged to presume innocence and restore the content (still without investigating), and then you and the person who sent the notice get to fight it out in court.
(This is the "good" part of the DMCA, providing a form of common carrier status to hosting companies; Title 1 is the "bad" part, enslaving the US to DRM)
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Smart Move, Managible Risk (Score:2)
Google stock went up on the news, so I think the shareholders are fine with the deal. YouTube has been cozying up with the media companies over the past few months to prevent IP battles from er
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.
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> Is it highly overpriced? Up to Google,
> Is it good? For them, for a while, for sure.
When did you get a Slashdot account, Secretary Rumsfeld?
Gross oversimplification (Score:4, Interesting)
Less than half of the popular videos when I just checked were from TV. Of those that were, 3/4 of them were news clips or Jon Stewart/Colbert Report. Even then, it is short clips.
What this quote is missing is that the majority of the content on YouTube is produced by the "You" in YouTube. That's what the new phenomenon of these video sites is really about. People producing and distributing their own content.
In fact, I wish people would just stop posting copyrighted videos. There's BitTorrent and a wide variety of other means to share that, if that's your thing. Why bother using YouTube for it, when you know that already having a popular video is enough to get it seeded?
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The one thing filesharing in general and Youtube in particular have really helped to jumpstart, is letting progressive rights-holders like these know that demand for streaming their stuf
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Youtube is easier to get to, easier to see small speific bits of a larger show.
Mostly it's easier to get to, and THATs where internet money has always been. Giving people what they want in a few clicks.
Venture Capitol (Score:5, Funny)
against google for infringement....you know wink, wink we got your back bro!
Ballmer's Like that Girl from the Exorcist... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Anyway, he's only pissed off because Microsoft wants all that money and Google's proving to be a better player of the game of Monopoly. And they don't charge you $400 when you land on Park Avenue. It's kind of interesting to watch a company with the motto of "Don't be Evil" running circles around a company whose motto has to be "Be Evil" based on everything the've done in the past c
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!
Re:Our grandkids will hate us (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, that company exists. But you've probably never heard of it because they never advertise.
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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 researc
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Really interesting thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
"...we'll have to push the button because our partners--hardware makers and retail chains--need time to ramp up supply chains, marketing, and demand generation."
Demand generation. Vista itself has no demand (meaning no extra benefit over XP), so they have to artificially create demand now.
Isn't that just like any other business? (Score:4, Interesting)
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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.
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I also wonder if there's more going on. Right around the same time that Google buys YouTube, this quote [arstechnica.com] comes out of Disney:
"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
Third competitor (Score:3, Informative)
I thought the iPod model was where content get monetized through hardware. Unless Ballmer is equating content with software. Maybe I'm looking at this differently but in my world view content is faciliated by software but not an integral part of it. A novel is more than the word processor used to create it.
Enforcement (Score:2)
There's no bussines model but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is that I suspect that Microsoft also tried to buy youtube?
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this whole msft vs goog thing (Score:2)
MS redefines the meaning of Open Source (Score:2)
First RFC [faqs.org] April 1969 for the ARPANET. The Open Source Initiative [opensource.org] originated in Feb 1998.
"In the last three or four years, we have competed very well by extending our value", SB
"Microsoft has proposed a licencing agreement blatantly tailored to exclude [regdeveloper.co.uk] free software from accessing it.", FSF Europe
" RealNetworks
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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 ta
Battle Royal (Score:2)
It's a very different problem if your opponent has as much or even more money than you are. Google can afford lawsuits, and they might even want to dish it out on one occasion or another, which could set some rathe
$Google$ (Score:2, Insightful)
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Video of the interview? (Score:4, Funny)
Is there a video of the interview anywhere?
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.
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.
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.
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And yet they keep on being relevant.
Re:let's face it... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Microsoft is desperately trying to move the PC upmarket into multimedia entertainment centres (DRM'd to the eyeballs) but joe consumer (as long as he's not easily diverted by ohh shiny shiny...) is gonna balk at the cost of Vista and the hardware required to run it decently. and is gonna balk even more furiou
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But why stop there? I can even see a comic book, where Steve "Da D Man" Balmer and Billy "640k" Gates save the day from such dreaded terrorist ideas like open source or free enterprise.