Ballmer: We're Not Leaving Any Space Uncovered to Apple
Ballmer is making it clear that Apple needs to gear up for tablet war. Get 'em, tiger.
Despite possibly ruffling the feathers of several hardware partners, Microsoft is intent on its quest to dethrone Apple as King of Tablets with the release of its own magical weapon: the Windows 8-powered Surface tablet. Leading the assault is none other than Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, who told CRN in an exclusive interview on Monday that his company will leave no "stone unturned" in regards to innovation.
"We are trying to make absolutely clear we are not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple," Ballmer said in a 30-minute interview after addressing around 16,000 partners at the company's annual Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto. "We are not. No space uncovered that is Apple’s."
He went on to say that Microsoft, which is producing its own Windows 8 tablet, has advantages in productivity, and in terms of enterprise management, and manageability. The company also has advantages in terms of when end-users plug into server infrastructure in the enterprise, he said.
"We are not going to let any piece of this [go uncontested to Apple]," he said. "Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch. We do feel empowered to innovate everywhere and bring our partners with us. We are just not going to leave any -- what’s the expression people like to use -- we’re not going to leave any stone unturned, so to speak, as we pursue that."
With the company making its own tablet, there has been an assumption that Microsoft may produce its own Windows Phone 8-based smartphone as well to directly compete with Apple's iPhone. When asked about such a device, Ballmer said Microsoft is currently working really hard on the Surface tablet. That's the focus, he said. That's the core.
"Look, we’ll see what happens," he said. "We have good partners with Nokia, HDC in the phone space. I love what we've got going on with the Surface. We are going to focus on Surface and our other Windows 8 tablet partners and see if we can go make something happen."
Still, Microsoft has "good partners" with HP, Dell, Lenovo and others, yet that didn't stop Microsoft from producing its own branded tablet. A branded Microsoft smartphone doesn't seem unlikely -- the company may merely need to focus on one branded product at a time. As Ballmer stated, Microsoft needs to "put one foot in front of the other."
During the interview, Ballmer was also asked if hardware partners will be able to sell Surface devices. As it stands now, they'll only be available through Microsoft.com and Microsoft retail stores.
"If a partner says, ‘Hey look I want to sell some of these things. I want to put them in solutions,’ they can order some off Microsoft.com and sell them," he said. "There is nothing that gets in the way of that. But, we have not set up what I would call industrial distribution as sort of a first element. We may get there. But, if a partner wants to order some and put them in a solution with the customer, we’ll be excited to see that happen."
Microsoft plans to release two Surface tablets: one featuring an x86-based chip sporting Windows 8 Pro, and one packing an ARM-based chip with Windows RT. Apple, on the other hand, only offers ARM-based tablets.

Sadly, the next thing that came to mind is that you can bet Apple is already polishing its lawyers to stifle anywhere they can.
Sadly, the next thing that came to mind is that you can bet Apple is already polishing its lawyers to stifle anywhere they can.
Surface RT will fail because it has nothing on Android tablets or the iPad. It will only have 1366x768, Tegra 3 (which will be almost a year old when RT is released), it will have relatively few apps to begin with, but it will be as expensive as the iPad and top-of-the-line Android tablets. It's a brand new software ecosystem, and a user interface that failed to materialize phone sales in Windows Phone 7 (and probably won't in WP8 either).
I'm actually thinking about buying the x86 Surface haha. I need a portable "ultrabook" essentially to run some fairly light productivity tasks, and I'd like that same ultrabook to function like an e-reader/tablet for reading/annotating journal articles etc. I think the surface will go far in the scientific and medical world
CHEAPER prices for the consumer. that's all I care about. And if I can avoid an overpriced apple device, I will.
In my company the head of Group Security used an iPad, tried to use it for business purposes, but in the end as he couldn't use Exchange and a few other Enterprise class tools it went back into gold stock.
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Apple can't compete against Microsoft in that regard even against existing software that is 10 years old, Windows 8 will still allow all the good business honey to drip through and short of deliberately stealing Microsofts enterprise class IP they will never get into that part of the world
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Ripping off the Beatles or Creative is one thing, Microsoft is one kid who won't stand there and let you steal his lunch money, he'll tear your f**king arm off and beat you to death with the wet end
"We are trying to make absolutely clear we are not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple," "Not hardware software innovation." "We have good partners with Nokia, HDC in the phone space. I love what we've got going on with the Surface. We are going to focus on Surface and our other Windows 8 tablet partners and see if we can go make something happen."
His ideas are all over the place. "see IF something happens"?! "Trying"? Its like they are throwing darts at a wall and see what sticks. Yeah, they are hitting Apple in all markets.
ZUNE = FAIL
WP6 = FAIL
WP7 = FAILING
Tablets = 11 Years of FAIL (okay, fine in limited markets)
Streaming device = none (AppleTV is doing okay)
Win8 = Most likely to fail
Wow... so, the ONLY way to buy these AWESOME devices is from MS online or at a store that doesn't exists. okay, there are 25~30 stores in the world. (Apple has 364 world wide). Wow, they pretty much copied the Apple store style... how original.
Okay, so I have to drive about 300miles to actually see the APPLE killer device (that is not out yet) to so see if its worth buying... Because the MS Tablet is SOOO damn cool, its only available from Microsoft.
Meanwhile, you can buy a iPads and iPhones (some other Android tablets & phones) at: Best buy, Frys and pretty much any retail shop INCLUDING Walmart!
Wow, I feel the energy!
I see ballmer leaving after this fiasco!
Some would argue he should have left a long time ago or at least stepped to the side with a less important role. It's a shame Bill will never return, right now it seems like MSFT is struggling with an identity in this modern environment from all fronts. Still making bookoo bucks so it's probably allowing MSFT to continue to make these mistakes even if it's ultimately holding them back.
Despite that, I'll be interested to see how the surface manages. I've steered clear of the tablet market, but I'm guilty of purchasing a few netbooks here and there for the pure mobility of them. So maybe I'll take this chance to give them a try in an environment I'm familiar with; Windows.
Who knows. A lot of people don't want to leave Windows because of it's wide spread adaptation and most of us grew up with it. Maybe this will give the rest of us a reason to 'give it a go!'
I'll purchase one, just to see.
It will all depend on the price, which I have no clue about. I just hope they give us employees some discount, lol.
Aside from Kinect I dont recall MS releasing anything innovative. Sure MS tablet will most likely compete but it is not innovative because it is a late comer to a highly dominated tablet market. Time will tell the out come. Until then, innovative companies like Apple will hopefully thrive so us consumers will have great products to enjoy! *Here comes the negative votes from Apple hipster haters
Apple have been saying the same about OSX vs Windows for years, they have been playing catchup in marketshare, are you saying there is no innovation in OSX?