ON MICROSOFT CEO BANNING GOOGLE AND iPODS

HOPES AND WISHES...

The bloggers on memeorandum are abuzz this morning over this quote by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer from an interview with CNN:

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

As a long-time fan of Microsoft:

• I hope Mr. Ballmer was just joking, playing the "Big Bad Ballmer"-Dad. 
• I hope Microsoft unlike the US auto industry of yesterday, doesn't preclude it's employees from using competitor's products (...not?*). 
• I hope all the professionals at Microsoft, especially the senior management, constantly use competitor's products so that they can first-hand appreciate the pros and cons of their own offerings, and make them better.
• I hope Microsoft's engineers reverse-engineer competitor's products and come out with versions of their own that are at least 80% as good as the original, but then take over the world leveraging the company's dominance in related computing markets.

Err, I guess I don't need to hope for that last one, since it's ingrained in the company's DNA for the last thirty years.  But I stick with the rest of the hopes and wishes.

Footnote:

* From Gary Wisnieswki, Trial by Fire.

Comments

[Gary Wisniewski]

I certainly hope you are right. It is unimaginable to me that such a quote could appear. It would have been better for Ballmer to remain silent.