Articles about Steve Ballmer

It would be a merger whose size and scope could only be rivaled by pharmaceutical companies earlier this decade. But Microsoft's objective now is to somehow convince everyone -- Yahoo's shareholders, its board, their combined customers, and let's not forget the trade regulators -- that the whole of the two companies will somehow be greater than the sum of all the other sums of their parts put together.

There are an inordinate number of questions arising from Microsoft's announced takeover bid of Yahoo, only a few of which financial analysts managed to successfully squeeze in this morning, during a conference call that was abruptly cut short at under a half-hour.

Continue reading →

A team of Microsoft spokespeople have been working throughout the day to devise a plausible explanation for a comment made by CEO Steve Ballmer during a company gathering in the UK, which on its face appears to say it is considering litigation against users of Red Hat Linux for patent infringement.

But one spokesperson acknowledged late this afternoon that multiple sources have yet to come to an agreement over what the company should say.

Continue reading →

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer boldly touted the success of Windows at the company's annual Financial Analysts Meeting Thursday, saying that the number of PCs with Windows installed will surpass 1 billion by the end of Microsoft's next fiscal year on June 30, 2008.

"There will be more PCs running Windows than automobiles at that point," Ballmer suggested. He also provided some guidance on sales of Windows Vista, announcing that 60 million licenses of the new operating system have been sold. 20 million copies of Vista were sold after mid-May, when Microsoft announced 40 million licenses sold in the first 100 days.

Continue reading →

Microsoft fired back at Google's attempts to have antitrust regulators take a second look at Vista's search capabilities, calling the search giant's claims "baseless." Google has issues with a feature in the next generation operating system that allows users to search their hard drives. The company claims it does not allow for competition from other search providers.

In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stressed that the company continues to comply with all restrictions handed down by the US government regarding Windows. "We think all claims to the contrary are baseless," he was reported by Reuters in response to a question on the matter.

Continue reading →

Comments made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last Thursday to an analyst conference for the most part went unnoticed until stories this morning cited excerpts from a freshly published transcript of that conference. In one such story, an excerpted partial sentence was interpreted as part of a statement that Microsoft may yet exercise its option to sue manufacturers of Linux operating systems other than Novell for infringement of patent.

A fresh read of the extended excerpt from that transcript, however, suggests at first this may not have been Ballmer's intended meaning. Here is the extended excerpt from Ballmer's speech to the analysts' group:

Continue reading →

UPDATE: In a statement to BetaNews, Microsoft clarified that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were already on the company's witness list submitted in September. The judge's ruling now means the plaintiffs can call the two as witnesses, rather than just cross examine after they testify for Microsoft.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer are slated to appear in an Iowa court later this month to testify in a $450 million antitrust lawsuit - one of the last remaining cases stemming from company's alleged anticompetitive practices.

Continue reading →

Following a news conference announcing that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates would be leaving his role as chief software architect in two years to focus on his Foundation, both Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent company-wide e-mails to employees. The memos provide a look into what the future will bring when the software era of Bill Gates comes to an end.

E-mail from Steve Ballmer on June 15, 2006:

Continue reading →

Microsoft's outspoken CEO accused Google Thursday of wanting special treatment, saying the company is attempting to force Microsoft to change the way Internet Explorer 7 does search. Steve Ballmer made the comments following a speech given at the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, Calif., to CNET News.com.

Google has claimed that IE7 would allow Microsoft to have an unfair advantage by making its search engine the default for new users. However, both Microsoft and now Ballmer have disputed this notion. Microsoft will do nothing to change a user's search preference, they say.

Continue reading →

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to meet with European Commission competition chief Neelie Kroes next week, her spokesperson confirmed to the press on Friday. While the exact topic of the Wednesday morning meeting is not known, the EU had received complaints that possibly could lead to a new case against the software giant. Last year, Microsoft was forced to pay 497 million euros for antitrust violations.

A spokesperson for Microsoft played down the meeting's significance, saying it was a routine meeting to discuss policy issues with the organization. The discussion was not requested by Kroes, however; Ballmer is on a business trip and had requested a meeting with her while in Europe. Ballmer is also scheduled to meet Siim Kallas, EU administration head.

Continue reading →

In an interview with the Telegraph, a British daily, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer strongly denied accusations that he became violent when Kai-Fu Lee informed him that he was defecting to Google. While he did not directly deny he threatened to "kill" the search giant, Ballmer says he "made a commitment nine years ago that I was not going to curse" which he's broken only twice. "Is that one of them? I don't recall," he said.

Ballmer also denied throwing a chair, saying "I've never thrown a chair in my life." The paper described Ballmer as upset about the whole ordeal, which has brought a lot of negative press on Microsoft since the release of court documents two weeks ago.

Continue reading →

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has issued an executive memo explaining the company's new push to deliver software that targets small and midsize businesses. Read on for a transcript of the memo, which coincides with the start of the Microsoft Business Summit in Redmond.

Together, We Build Business

Continue reading →

Court documents publicly released late last week in the increasingly nasty battle between Microsoft and Google over the hiring of Kai-Fu Lee include an outburst by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer where he vowed to "kill" Google.

Mark Lucovsky, a senior engineer who left Microsoft in November 2004, recounted his conversation with Ballmer in a statement to the court. "Just tell me it's not Google," Ballmer said. Lucovsky claimed that when he confirmed that he was leaving for Google, Ballmer reacted violently.

Continue reading →

At the company's annual Financual Analyst Meeting Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had no qualms about boasting his expectation that Microsoft will win on the Web just as it did on the desktop. While MSN may be struggling to keep up with Google and Yahoo, Ballmer said the Web is now a top priority for Microsoft.

"When you look at the last 10 years, we have won on the desktop. I think a lot of people can now fairly say, with what we've done with Windows Server, we have won in the business marketplace. And now we really are going to win on the Web," Ballmer said in his presentation.

Continue reading →

At an all-day conference for financial analysts in Redmond, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told attendees that the company is working on bringing high-end versions of Windows and Office to the market. Ballmer cited success with the current premium version of Windows XP Professional as one of the primary reasons for continuing the program.

An enterprise version of Windows Vista is in the plans, as well as Office 12 Premium. It is unclear as to what advantages these new versions will offer above and beyond the current editions, as Ballmer did not supply any specific plans.

Continue reading →

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the company's annual TechEd Conference on Monday, telling an audience of nearly 12,000 that IT has taken a central role in the success of many modern companies. He also said that Microsoft would be making moves in the future to help people leverage technology to make a bigger impact in their business.

"We're all here because we share a vision of how technology can enhance business performance and help people do great new things," Ballmer told the audience. "Microsoft's job is to help realize this vision by arming IT professionals and developers with the right tools, best-of-breed products and an unparalleled computing platform."

Continue reading →