Steve Ballmer has to be the wackiest executive today working in any large tech company. He never seems to get tired of “putting his large foot in his mouth.” From saying stupid things, to quoting “fuzzy” stats, to allegedly throwing chairs sometimes I do think he is out of control. If I was a Microsoft stockholder (I am not) I would be concerned. This guy should be nowhere near the top of Microsoft. But he sure does make life interesting.

In the latest Ballmer toe suck during the Web 2.0 Summit during an animated discussion, being moderated by organizer John Battelle, Ballmer was throwing stupid statements regarding Google. Google went public in 2004 but already is the second-most valuable company in Silicon Valley. Ballmer says:

“You’re just 3 years old, and we’ve got you in there playing basketball with a 12-year-old,” Ballmer gushed and gesticulated, nearly popping out of his seat. “You’re growing up quick and getting better every day, and you’ve got all the potential in world, and it may take you ’til you’re 7, 8, 9 or 10, but you’re gonna dunk and you’re gonna dunk on the other guy some day, Johnny.”

Well the large crowd got some laugher from this, then guffawed when John Battelle said “Wait, I think we were talking about the Zune” Battelle is a journalist and author of a popular tome on Google, making a similar parallel, comparing Microsoft’s widely panned and unsuccessful digital music player with Apple’s top-selling iPod.

Earlier this year at Stanford University both Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, met during graduate studies. Ballmer called Google the search leader, a “one-trick pony” and described Mountain View-based Google’s growth plans as “insane.”

Today, Ballmer said he meant the one-trick comment “in a very specific way.”

“They started in one area, they get really good in that area and then fill out around core,” he said between sips of his iced vente Starbucks drink. Gee, I wonder how many iPhones were downloading songs while Ballmer was there? You think he picked up his free “Song of the Day” iTunes card?

Ballmer said, “Microsoft is unique in that we’ve already got two areas. We started out as a desktop computing company and now we’ve got a huge enterprise business. We’re trying to do devices and entertainment, and advertising and the Web. We’re trying to be a three- or four-trick pony.”

From a legal document in the lawsuit between Google and Microsoft over Google’s hiring of Kai-Fu Lee:
Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure….At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: “Just tell me it’s not Google.” I told him it was Google.

At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: “Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I’m going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google.” ….

Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay….Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that “Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.”

Stockholders should be asking why Google, a company that makes no hardware, has no operating system, and is only around a three years as a public company is beating the pants off Microsoft. Maybe Ballmer and his team might want to explain to the stockholders why the Zune is such a disaster in the marketplace, why Linux is more secure and growing so fast, why the Xbox’s hardware just cost them over a billion in write-off for defective units, why Halo 3 is the only shining star and Xbox still got the pants beat off by Nintendo? Maybe they might wonder why Mac marketshare is growing so fast, and Windows Mobile lags in usability, behind iPhone 1.0!

FUD, threats, and name calling is not the answer, drop Ballmer, get a new upper management team and actually try an innovate, not just copy. Of course, why listen to me, I own Apple stock, use Linux, and OS X, carry an iPod, and ONLY use Microsoft’s painful OS and applications when I HAVE to!

Maybe Ballmer has Alzheimer’s or hopes others do, so I will help.

Microsoft started as a computer language company, providing a basic computer language for the Altair 8800. They then, with help from Apple began developing software applications for the Mac. Next they bought QDOS written by Tim Paterson copied from CP/M renaming it MS-DOS and licensed it to IBM. Copied the Mac OS, called it Windows. After over 30 years in business Microsoft is a “two-trick pony” with ONLY Windows and Office making a profit, with losses in most all of their other businesses, that would wilt most other companies. Innovation has never been their strong point, even many Microsoft fans agree to this.

Seems when a technology or company is threatening of beating Microsoft, Ballmer goes on a rampage and smear campaign. Ballmer puts the FUD machine in overdrive. I guess with Microsoft lack of innovation, lack or leadership in many of the markets they seem to want to conquer, he reverts to name calling a bit like a 4th grader.

Lets see some of Ballmer’s greatest hits:
2001 – Linux is a cancer – contaminates all other software with Hippie GPL rubbish.
2002 – Ballmer: We’ll outsmart open source
2003 – Ballmer: No sleep lost over Linux
2003 – Microsoft’s Ballmer ‘debunks’ Linux cost saving
2004 – Use Linux and you will be sued, Ballmer tells governments
2004 – iPod users are music thieves says Ballmer
2004 – Ballmer: On the Linux Hot Seat (Again)
2004 – Ballmer Memo: Windows Cost, Security Beat Linux

2004 – Ballmer’s Linux Spin- Microsoft’s CEO argues that Windows is cheaper and more secure than its open-source rival.
2004 – Ballmer ‘fesses up to Linux/Windows cost FUD – Just can’t keep that myth alive
2004 – Ballmer Agrees With OSIA: Microsoft Software Too Expensive
2006 – Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer: Zune can beat iPod
2006 – Ballmer: Vista to Spur ‘Wave of Innovation’
2007 – Steve Ballmer laughs off the iPhone, deems it “most expensive” in the marketplace
2007 – Ballmer: iPhone has “no chance” of gaining significant market share
2007 – Ballmer: No Zune Phone – It’s not a concept you’ll ever get from us.
2007 – Ballmer threatens Linux and open source with patents again
2007 – Google reads your mail, we don’t – That’s not pejorative, that’s just a fact.
2007 – Steve Ballmer: “I would love to see all open source innovation happen on top of Windows”
2007 – Ballmer: We just hope Linux survives the Microsoft onslaught, because it still IS an OS of the (still) free people.
2007 – Microsoft plans Zune Phone – Ballmer backtracks
2007 – Ballmer: don’t get your Vista hopes up too much

2007 – Ballmer: Google’s growth strategy ‘insane’
2007 – Ballmer blames pirates for poor Vista sales
2007 – Mother’s Ire Puts Ballmer on Defense Over Vista

Some of my favorite Steve Ballmer Quotes:

• Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.
• Great companies in the way they work, start with great leaders.
• Vista will be out next year. Vista has never been delayed. I mean, we had earlier conceptualizations, but the thing that is Vista is on its track.
• I’m not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative.
• And then you take a look at Spaces (MS Spaces), there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that’s there.
• My children – in many dimensions they’re as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I’ve got my kids brainwashed: You don’t use Google, and you don’t use an iPod.
• We don’t have a monopoly. We have market share. There’s a difference.
• I don’t know what a monopoly is until somebody tells me.
• We have as an excited and engaged a team at Microsoft as I could possibly manage.
• I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft.
• Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.
• We will make our products work out of the box.
• Our vision and our mandate is to give customers the kind of holistic, simple experiences they want, and we do that every day.
• I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life.

Disclaimer: The author owns a small amount of Apple Stock [AAPL].

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