Ballmer Makes Fun of iPhone-touting Employee

By Jane McEntegart
published

What happens when you wave an iPhone around in Steve Ballmer's face? He makes a complete show of you, that's what.

Microsoft had its company meeting in Seattle this week; and apparently, Steve Ballmer's entrance was comparable to all those YouTube clips we've seen of the excitable CEO. TechFlash reports that while he was running around, whooping and high-fiving everyone he could reach, someone from the Windows team tried to take a picture of him with an iPhone. Uh oh, spaghetti-oh.

While a staff member in attendance says Ballmer "placed the iPhone down gently and walked away from it," TechFlash reports that Ballmer grabbed the Apple device from the employee and made some funny remarks as everyone booed. The report goes on to say Ballmer put the phone on the ground and pretended to stomp on it, before walking away. Ballmer is said to have referred to the episode again during his presentation, teasing the person and making it clear that he hadn't forgotten what happened.

Wow. So Bill Gates won't let his kids have iPods and Steve Ballmer threatens to smash iPhones. I wonder how they feel about Android phones?

Jane McEntegart
Topics
iPhone
Microsoft
74 Comments Comment from the forums
  • timaahhh
    That is an awfully bold move by the employee, seems like he was trying to provoke a response rather then just take a picture. Glad Ballmer didn't crush the iphone though. Would have looked really bad.
    Reply
  • jerther
    Hahaha man I like Ballmer :D
    Reply
  • Jerky_san
    Having a competing companies product at a company meeting probably wasn't the smartest move for the employee.. Although it would seem Ballmer kept his cool..
    Reply
  • gereth
    I make fun of my friends who have iPhones too. Talk about lemmings. This doesn't really surprise me, I'm glad MS can joke about it in front of the media.
    Reply
  • Hanin33
    that picture needs a 'wassssssuppppp!' caption in it... i know it was annoying from the commercials but that picture is just screaming it!
    Reply
  • Honis
    Anyone want to bet this may have been staged?

    Assuming it wasn't staged, the employee is probably happy to still be an employee. When you only have a hand full of competitors in a market it's usually blasphemy to support the competition even just a little.
    Reply
  • chaohsiangchen
    Mr. Ballmer could have sued the employee for endangering others by carrying an explosive device.

    Reply
  • hellwig
    gerethI make fun of my friends who have iPhones too.LOL.

    Why would you need a picture of Ballmer? I ran into the guy in an elevator once, he's just human.

    I do like Balmer's enthusiasm, even if it is for Microsoft. If you have a big company, you want your CEO to be as excited and loyal to your product as possible. Its better than the opposite, where every day your CEO just tries to change his current company into his former company.
    Reply
  • crom
    If he hates Apple so much why does he keep selling technology to them, and supporting their technology on his platforms? Smells like a bullshit to me.
    Reply
  • pocketdrummer
    what a douche
    Reply