Microsoft’s Ballmer laughs at iPhone

January 19, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

ballmervideo.bmpApple’s Steve Jobs ridiculed the Microsoft’s Zune, saying by the time you finish fiddling with one of its main features, “the girl’s got up and left.”

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer now laughs at the iPhone (click image above for video), saying it is “the most expensive phone in the world” — even after being fully subsidized (with the Cingular plan) — and that it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard. How vulnerable the iPhone looks, now that the hype dies down — even without Ballmer chiming in.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • If it were only a phone, then it'd surely be the most expensive phone in the world. But it's much more than that. People easily pay $249 for a 8gb nano iPod, so jumping to iPhone prices is very reasonable for all of those features.

    Beyond that, do you really expect any Microsoft executive to say anything good about the iPhone? Of course not - they'll just try and copy it down the road.
  • There was a report in the Mercury News today http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/busi...
    that it costs Apple $246 to produce an iPhone (a coll 50% margin), so there is plenty of room to bring down the price. Despite the short comings(high price, tied to Cingular, still months away from shipping etc.), Apple could still pull of another great success. For now, Ballmer's comments are very valid in my opinion.
  • Audrey Ng
    The Apple iPhone does have a keyboard. It's all touchscreen. We just have to wait for the review from PCMagazine and marketplace acceptance for the final verdict on usability.
  • Raj
    Who wants a touch screen keyboard... typig e-mails or other things are going to be a pain on this thing...
  • iphoneguy
    Actually there was an article on Digg where a reporter spent 45 min with the phone, kb, etc. He said he typed faster than with any other smartphone he had used because the onscreen keys were big and because the phone corrected for errors.
  • km4
    Steve 'Uncle Fester' Ballmer should retire because he ( and MSFT ) are a joke who clearly do not get or offer simple yet very functional technology with very compelling UI's.
  • Ved
    In Asia, there are many existing phones which provide most of iphone's capabilities at much lower price (though user interface may not be as easy as iphone).

    Unlike mp3, there are already many established players in the mobile phone area. Therefore, it would be very hard for Apple to take away the market share from others. For sure, it is a good development for consumers as iphone introduction creates even more competition among mobile manufacturers.
  • sbug
    Well, before iPod, Asia also have a lot of MP3 player on the market but they can't create any hype. Now, iPod is not the most powerful MP3 player on the makret but it's dominate most of the market sharing.
  • TA
    Appropriately enough, this page comes up high on a Bing search of "steve ballmer jackass".

    Yup, iPhone is looking pretty vulnerable. Have you noticed how Win Mobile's market share is so much larger, and growing fast? ;-)

    Good luck with that CEO thing.