Ballmer offered a controlled beginning: “Microsoft’s culture is very strong”.
Advertisement
“I think they (Amazon) are a place people don’t want to work”, he said in an interview Friday on Bloomberg TV. “It’s just not a great place to do innovative stuff as an engineer”.
Seeing Ballmer acting like this makes us wish he was still working for Microsoft because we miss it. It also shows that the man is still very much passionate about Microsoft despite what many might think of his reign as CEO. He added a few context, pointing out that Seattle isn’t Silicon Valley, where tech employees are constantly switching between the thousands of startups and hundreds of bigger firms.
“They’ve done a great a job”. We, Microsoft, made an investment. The interview drifted to Amazon vs. Microsoft after the Bloomberg interviewer mentioned something Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in the past about the software giant being a country club.
Ballmer praised Apple for how it has managed to grow over the years to become the world’s most valuable company.
Notice that Ballmer still speaks as if he works at Microsoft.
He was also asked about Apple. In the brief discussion, Ballmer said that Microsoft will give Apple a good run for their money. I mean who’s really going after the Mac? You could basically say Microsoft and Samsung.
This makes Microsoft the one and only true rival for Apple because it has the software, Windows, plus the hardware, Surface, which makes the ultimate high-end device.
Ballmer went on to explain that both Microsoft and Apple have the software plus hardware combination that’s missing in the case of so many other companies trying to compete in this side of the business. “And I believe in that”. “Microsoft or Apple. Those are really the only two companies who have that software/hardware skill”. And with the growing Surface lineup, he’s unsurprisingly more bullish. And anyone making comparisons in Surface Book reviews is making comparisons with the MacBook Pro, too. It’s an innovative category. And the truth of the matter is, who is going to get to those categories first?
Advertisement
On Uber, Ballmer said he loves the company, and even though he doesn’t understand the business’ economics, he noted that it’s a “heck of a service”.
