No, Steve Ballmer actually did a really good job, but the questions had more than a lot to be desired. I caught this originally in the car, and the News Radio announcer continually referred to Ballmer as Bal-a-mer, and I knew it was just going to get worse from there.
Here’s some choice questions from the ABC’s Ticky Fullerton. I can’t embed the video unfortunately, but if I find a copy I’ll add it later. Full transcript here.
Opening question
TICKY FULLERTON: You are in Australia, of all places, during US election week. What will an Obama government do for corporate America?
WTF? You’re interviewing the CEO of Microsoft, and you ask him about Obama???
TICKY FULLERTON: The next stage for business users in particular could be Cloud. What is Cloud, and won’t it cannibalise some of your existing products?
“Cloud”???? Oh, THE CLOUD….just bizarre. Ballmer responded extremely well
TICKY FULLERTON: Microsoft Outlook has become the lingua franca of communications; you captured the world with it really.
How are you going to keep that loyalty, when you now have companies like Skype, like other telcos going for the customer and going for the directory?
Ummm, Outlook has a 27% market share, and recent numbers show Hotmail is used just as much in business. But comparing Outlook to Skype and telcos? WTF x100???!!!!!
TICKY FULLERTON: Yet you say nothing is given. I mean, looking forward we’ve got voice, we’ve got face and expression, handwriting recognition, and what they call the new wireless direct neural interfaces.
Where do you think the drivers of value will be in these spaces and how is Microsoft going to grab the drivers?
I just don’t get this at all. Looking forward we’ve got voice???
TICKY FULLERTON: How much of a threat is open source code? I know it’s been around for a while. I think the Queensland Government is looking at it now.
But in this time of global meltdown, could we see emerging markets like China and India looking at the free alternative and being a threat to Microsoft?
I think she means Open Source software….or maybe it’s just random parts of free code 🙂
TICKY FULLERTON: The other battleground is the mobile. Windows mobile is growing rapidly as the market grows.
Do you accept the criticism that perhaps once again you haven’t been listening to the end customer as well as say Apple, in terms of functionality and simplicity?
Windows Mobile isn’t growing, and it’s still a small player, unless she’s talking about a specific country. talk about slanted facts though.
TICKY FULLERTON: Back to Australia and the long awaited broadband tender, which seems awfully laboured. Do we seem very troglodyte to you?
WTF WTF WTF WTF. Some Australian angst thrown in with something Ballmer would no little about. He responded like a gentleman though.
If this is the current state of reporting at Aunty….well, OMG
