So Microsoft will “win”, eh?

And there we go again. Recently, Microsoft has made a lot of good decisions, especially when it comes to collaborating with WaSP about having their products, such as .NET, generating more valid and accessible code. This also includes in getting their next version of Internet Explorer to implement a better support for web standards and CSS. All this is great news and very good for the future. The developers at Microsoft seem to really try to do a good job.

But then Steve Ballmer comes along with this quote in Business Week:

We won the desktop. We won the server. We will win the Web. We will move fast, we will get there. We will win the Web.

This has already been discussed by, amongst others, Molly and Roger Johansson. And yes, I know that Ballmer is a business man, he’s got to have this cocky attitude.

But the problem is, especially in light of all the good things Microsoft have done recently, these kind of statements just ruins the goodwill created, it just annoys people who have recently started to think about changing their opinion about Microsoft and to forget the past.

Ballmer is probably just doing this to spite, or to get Microsoft investors all aroused. But please, some balance…

8 Comments

  • Wouldn't disagree with the desktop comment, but everything else is at best optimistic.

    Ballmer seems full of something else beginning with 'B' especially when read in conjunction with Avalonstar's post about employees deserting to Google.

    He's 'Burke' from Aliens IMO. If you know the film, you'll undertand what I mean 🙂

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Steve,

    So he's Burke? 🙂

    His statements about everything about the desktop isn't really true either, but that's not the point to me.

    Just unnecessary to make such statements…

  • Jens Meiert says:

    Though I was really furious at first, I now think that one must not overvalue this statement – it is pure marketese, and Ballmer surely (apparently) does not understand the philosophy of the Web. And I can imagine other corporate heads resolving to "win the Web", too, rotfl.

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Jens,

    You are right; one shouldn't put too much weight into it.

    But the problem is all the people, like you, that get furious about it and if they maybe were on the way to finally accepting Microsoft, this might change their minds.

  • Yeah, Burke, y'know the two-faced *company* guy:

    Ripley to Burke, 'At least you don't see them f#####g each other over for a goddamn percentage'

    I believe M$ *owns* the desktop, at least for now… the future… GDrive ??

    I'm not sure I could ever believe M$ has changed its spots, and GEM was much better than Windows 2 IMO.

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Steve,

    It’s all coming back to me now! 🙂

    And I also really do wonder what the future holds. I think Google’s plans and the goodwill they still have will affect us a lot.

  • andr3 says:

    it just annoys people who have recently started to think about changing their opinion about Microsoft and to forget the past.

    You’re right. After all the news that have been getting out, specially the ones regarding IE7 and the WaSP collaboration, this just shows that somethings will never change.

    I really hope this attitude is just to please stockholders and doesn’t translate into real cocky tactics to “win the web”. Actually, those tactics can end up backfiring and hitting them on the face.

  • Robert Nyman says:

    andr3,

    Yes, they can definitely backfire. But hopefully there's not that much more to it than being cocky and saying it to spite.

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