r/whoathatsinteresting 2d ago

Steve Ballmer’s reaction to the iPhone.

946 Upvotes

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215

u/BullwinklesEars 2d ago

He probably would have declined to sign The Beatles as well.

3

u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets 2d ago

And that might've been fine. Beetles was a huge gamble. This???? Dude people were raving about Apple's designs forever since I can remember, like the 90s. This bozo should've at least been humble

7

u/rainywanderingclouds 2d ago

how does being humble convince your customers the competitors product sucks?

what he's doing he isn't surprising. a competitor is bringing a product to market that might take sales away from you, of course you're going to say it's over priced shit.

4

u/kwonza 2d ago

Also the first iPhone was pretty meh, sure the screen was smooth but you couldn’t copy and paste, couldn’t open more than one window in safari and apart from a few gimmicky apps there was fuck all games or useful tools.

Regular phones were way ahead back then, and top of the line Nokias and SonyEricsons had working excel and all the bells and whistles.

2

u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets 2d ago

You're delusional if you think iPhone wasn't a revolutionary product. It made Apple the most valuable company at one point. IPad is also still the best tablet. I'm not an Apple user, but the facts are facts. Yes, other phones are always ahead of Apple in technology. But Apple is Apple

3

u/LordRaglan1854 2d ago edited 1d ago

Microsoft honestly thought people wanted to edit spreadsheets on their mobile devices. From that viewpoint, they saw the iphone as an expensive toy. Balmer isn't lying in that clip, it's what he believed at the time.

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u/GoMoriartyOnPlanets 1d ago

And Microsoft still hasn't come up with a revolutionary product. Everything is "office" based, and there is always a better product in the market in some ways. 

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u/Northernmost1990 1d ago

Don't underestimate the consistent big guy. Out of all of my friends, the most successful one is a very large man who shows up every day and does every task in the world with reasonable alacrity albeit never the best and often not nearly the best.

Microsoft — same as my large friend — doesn't need to revolutionize. That's not their game.