Clearly Ballmer has travelled into the future and has seen that Apple does not come out with any more products that appeal to both Mac and PC users!

How else can you explain his eerie, supernatural knowledge?

Does Ballmer have ANY statistics to back up this nonsense?!! And how could he possibly know what's on our iPods? How 'bout showing us some numbers??

Let's see.... on yeah, here are some numbers:
Sales on the iTMS: 100,000,000 plus.
CD Sales: $12,000,000,000 plus.
Record corporation profit on each download: HIGHER than on a CD sale.

Yup, most people must be stealing music! Save us, Microsoft!

Nevermind that when I look at my own collection on iTunes, I find:
Music from CDs I already owned: 50%
Free music downloads from unsigned bands' own web sites: 20%
Cds and live concert recordings of my OWN band: 20%
Music purchased from the iTMS: 10%
Music from illegal sources: 0%

Expression on Ballmer's face when he looks into MY iPod: priceless...

-Ken P

He sees visions of the future while he does his monkey-boy dance.

hahahahahahahahahaa.

And there is little or no stolen music on a PC or in the PC world. And by inventing new "licenceable" drm technology microsoft will ensure all non DRM (and potentially stolen - but potentially not stolen) songs can't be played on Windows.

This is just some propeganda to try to put Apple in its place after they sideswiped them with the iPod. There are other music players and they're just saying "Apple" because they're the most popular.

I heard "Ballmer" was quoted as saying "please shine the spotlight back on us!" Oh wait, we have to fix our security issues first, and our OS. Oops.

"Microsoft can't out-cool Apple"
http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,39168867,00.htm

Tells it like it is.

Quote

pyxl8 wrote:
Does Ballmer have ANY statistics to back up this nonsense?!! And how could he possibly know what's on our iPods? How 'bout showing us some numbers??

Actually according to Tera Patrixcks survey on iPod users and songs. Only 2% of reponding iPod owners claimed "all illegal" for their iPod library. http://www.mac360.com/index.php/mac360/more/mac_poll_how_many_songs_on_your_ipod_legal_not_legal/ The vast majority were "all leagl" of "Mostly legal".

When is Microsoft going to learn? They can't just make mobile video the next big thing beacause they say it will be. The market is king, the consumer speaks with the wallet, and they're not speaking mobile video. If Ballmer had a webpage, he'd be Paul Thurott, but instead he's making half a billion a year.

What a hypocrite. Doesn't he know that the main reason his Windows OS commands 90% of the market is because the people who buy it can get a ton of pirated software from their buddy down the street? That never bothered Balmer until now.

And it's not like users of MS's music store won't be putting lots of illegal stuff on their players too, but since Microsoft doesn't sell the players, I guess that makes their hands squeaky clean -- even though no music store likely would be viable if the players were strictly limited to DRM content.

Balmer's comment is typical of Microsoft's general attitude: "The world of computing belongs to us, and rules are there just to hamper the buttinskies who think there should be somebody other than us in this business."

Looks like Mr. Ballmer is showing his disdain and suspicion of users.

The personal computers which make Ballmer's company wealthy, have become popular because they are "general purpose" information appliances. When your computer becomes "read only" like your television, Ballmer can kiss his empire goodbye.

What a jerk.

Microsoft arrogance is only rivaled by their inability to innovate. Since starting the company they have not invented a single product concept. They only enter a market where there is already established demand. They never improve a product beyond the minimum viable version. They teach tens of thousands of software engineers who to ignore each other and work against each other, while believing that only the smartest people work at the firm.

Lucky for Microsoft, people are happy to buy average software for reasonably low prices. If they were selling cars, Microsoft would be Saturn. But the truth is, they think they are Japan Inc.

Steve Balmer is actually worse for Microsoft than Bill Gates. Steve and Bill should resign and bring in a leader from Pepsi or Coke, or maybe Burger King.

Not a single song stored on an iPod in Canada can be stolen. The reason? we pay a federal tax on mp3 players and blank CD's. Canadian courts ruled that this tax (which goes directly to the record labels for distribution among artists) is sufficient compensation for possible losses by the suits/artists.

It's good to be Canadian.

Unfortunately that's most likely also part of the reason why there is no iTMS here.

Ballmer says: "There is no way that you can get there with Apple," he commented. "The critical mass has to come from the PC, or a next-generation video device."

That same statement could've been made about the music and MP3 players. Doesn't Ballmer realize that Apple has sold more iPods to PC owners than all the other MP3 mfrs combined? And now with HP selling Apple iPods, the gap only grows bigger. And doesn't Ballmer realize that the AirPort Express works with PCs?

As long as Apple keeps making home CE products that work as good as or better on the PC than other PC products (and of course, works even more seamlessly with the Mac), they can compete and even dominate the home technology market. The Media Center PC with malware-ridden Windows XP is not the answer.

One thing though: Apple will need to use their Apple Store advantage to better sell home technology (than Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's, CompUSA). When they release such a home product, it better be better demonstrated than AirPort Express. And where is that remote!!!

with apple, it's not product quality. we already know the quality's there. as always, it will come down to price. will the average american be able to afford what apple has to offer?

as far as macintosh computers show, the answer's "probably not".

You know what's sad is that Ballmer is saying Apple products steals music when others are busy pirating Windows operating system. That tells you something about the flexibility of the PC environment.

Quote

Contrary to other published reports, Mr. Ballmer was not quoted as saying iPod users are music thieves.

That's a rather fine point.

If the "most common format" is stolen, then the owner is a thief -- unless you think Balmer believes someone is loading stolen music on the iPods of innocent users.

From Michael, and Britney, to the Nightmares on Wax, most good music is stolen and the rest is just whaaaaack...

Apple sells 25 songs per iPod so Ballmer feels the only way to make a profit is to implement more restrictive DRM. I, for one, am sick of DRM and have vowed to never buy a DRM song again. eMusic has the right idea.

The subject header says it all.

He's worse than a troll. He's a troll with power and a mic. He doesnt usually use that mic for anything other than shouting "developers" a bunch of times, but still.

My iPod only has a paltry 3.1gb of music on it, but all of it is from CDs that I've bought. When I put more on it, it will come from other CDs that I've bought, or LPs that I bought and converted to digital. There's not a single downloaded piece of music, DRM'd or otherwise, on my iPod, and I'll wager that a lot of iPods are the same.

Ballmer's so full of crap he has to release some occasionally to keep from exploding.

Ken,
If you have no "illicit" music stored on your IPOD, then you are in the solid minority. However, if you have any friends at all, you know darn well know that most, if not all, have some.
So, who you crappin?

Some appropriately snarky comments from The Register on this topic:

http://www.theregister.com/2004/10/04/ballmer_ipod_thieves/

It is true, not just trying to get you guy's dander up.

The next wave of cell phones will enable you to download tunes from your wireless provider, Some of the new phones that have not hit the US market yet have FM radio, MP3, still and video camera features. I saw the arricle on CNET the other day. How cool! But all this does not bode well for the iPod. It's glory days are numbered.

Unfortunately, most cell phones get pretty lousy reviews when the number of function increases beyond being cell phones. Look at the complaints about battery life. How much battery life do you think you are going to get if you are take and sending photographs on your combo device? The reviews of many of these devices tend to emphasis that usability drops as the number of functions increases. What are you going to do if you have been listening to music for two hours and then try to make a call and the battery dies? Sometimes, a device should do just one thing, and do it extremely well. Admittedly, it is sometimes a fine line to walk, but I see no justification so far that the iPod will be supplanted; perhaps just wishful thinking by MS.

Quote

Guest wrote:
Ken,
If you have no "illicit" music stored on your IPOD, then you are in the solid minority. However, if you have any friends at all, you know darn well know that most, if not all, have some.
So, who you crappin?

I didn't say illicit, o anonymous one, I said illegal. However, plenty of the music I've downloaded IS illicit in the sense that it's not concidered socially acceptable or "normal" MUSIC by most people.

YOU DO NOT KNOW ME, so I will tell you that I have plenty of friends (with real jobs), and many of whom are independant musicians. We trade OUR OWN music freely online, swap OUR OWN CDs with other bands, and generally work outside of the mainstream music business.

Some of us even make good money by sellingOUR OWN music (get it yet?), and we-- as musicians-- know that a lot of hard work and time went into that music. So when people bitch and moan about how terrible the music industry is and yet don't think an independants' efforts are worth ONE lousy buck on the iTMS, then who's ripping off who? Explain to me how that makes a person a music lover... instead, the word "leech" comes to mind.

In my experience (and don't assume someone's OPINION is crap just because it doesn't fit YOUR narrow slice of reality), if a friend burns a CD for me, it's often for the purpose of turning me on to another artist's work, and if I like it, I DO go out and buy the "real" CD. As far as I'm concerned, this distribution method is a win-win for everyone involved and increases the artists' fan base.

Read this if you need to be enlightened further on this concept:

http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html

When a copied CD "gift" doesn't deserve a second listen, I discard it or pass it on to someone else who might like it. Granted, to the RIAA this is technically illegal, and I do NOT agree with their zero-tolerance policies. But this geeky posturing for the "who has the most music downloads" title is not adult behavior, and is not condoned, at least not in my circle of friends. This behavior is EXACTLY why the RIAA and Microsoft and Sony are trying to restrict us with DRM, and is exactly what leads someone like Ballmer to make these unscientific claims.

Wait 'til MS figures out a way to monitor your MP3 collection and see at happens next. No joke... who'd have thought the Feds would ever be arresting downloaders? Those who continue to abuse the technology -- no matter what the supposed moral justification-- are going to see the DRM screws tightened. If you've got illegal music on your iPod, I hope you're happy when ALL music is restricted, even the music of unsigned artists. It's coming...

When Apple is forced by law to include file scanning software to verify the legality of everything in iTunes and your iPod, you'll only have yourself to blame. Until then, go on blissfully building up your massive music collection without a care in the world. You're not hurting anyone!

Let me guess: You also have 10,000 fonts on your computer, right?

-Ken P

The next wave of cell phones will enable you to download tunes from your wireless provider, Some of the new phones that have not hit the US market yet have FM radio, MP3, still and video camera features. I saw the arricle on CNET the other day. How cool! But all this does not bode well for the iPod. It's glory days are numbered.

And what kind of technical degree does it take to make THAT work? How many buttons does it have? How long does it take to download a song? The iPod's success is primarily because ordinary people can make it work. It looks simple, it is simple and it works at high quality.

I used one of those camera phones once. The pictures were awful, and it took a good 5 minutes of fiddling with menus each time you wanted to get the thing to e-mail a picture.

Most people who read this board are probably much more tech savvy then the average joe, so it's easy to forget that what we might find annoying, most people would find unusably complex. It's that average Joe that decides what is a success in the market.

Because what you say is totally out of date. Apple now beats Dell and other name brand PC makers on price for equivalent features. Apple just doesn't scrape down to the level of common denominator because they still care about quality. Oops, my bad, maybe you were just trying to insult the inhabitants of the USA by insinuating they are the down there at the bottom of the barrel. Soh-reeeee.

Quote

Guest wrote:
with apple, it's not product quality. we already know the quality's there. as always, it will come down to price. will the average american be able to afford what apple has to offer?

as far as macintosh computers show, the answer's "probably not".

http://www.macboy.com/cartoons/ballmer/

Enjoy.

…and to live in Switzerland, where the same tax on CDs and digital media allows copies from friends and downloads for private use.
What's illegal is SHARING music...

Anyway, the fact that “stolen" music can be played on the iPod is probably a major reason why it is so popular

They have their quirks, but they are only going to get better, You know how fast pace technology works. Once they start working the bugs out of these guys..good bye iPod.


http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6454_7-1009643-1.html?tag=fs

Quote

Anonymous wrote:
They have their quirks, but they are only going to get better, You know how fast pace technology works. Once they start working the bugs out of these guys..good bye iPod.

Based on what? Over the last 5 years my cell phone has gotten HARDER to opperate, not easier. They've got more menus and features than ever...to the point where I don't even know what most of them do. I guess that's a "fast pace" but I don't see how that's a threat to the iPod.

Featuritis is a peculiarly geeky disease. "Hey, look at all the stuff I can do with this here little box." It rarely does any of them well and certainly doesn't do them easily. The fact that jamming all this stuff together can be done doesn't mean it will be done well or that anyone will want them. Lots of digital music players already have more features than the iPod, yet the iPod outsells them. Adding more features to already-overfeatured little boxes won't kill the iPod.

On the issue of cell phones with musical capability, thats a horrible, horrible idea. It takes a few seconds to send a text message, and ten to fifteen to open up a web page. Imagine using iTMS on a 14.4 KBPS modem. Unless we can hook our phones up to our computers with a FireWire, I'll die before I trade in my iPod for a phone with an HDD.

Talk about a case for a class action suit. You could probably find 100,000 iPod owners willing to form a class action defamation suit against Mr. Ballmer.

Or maybe they could make him drink twice for being stupid....

Ballmer is an idiot.

It is plain that he is attacking the iPod because a) it is made by Apple and b) because it is the number one portable music player anywhere.

Also, what operating system was responsible for the "lion's share" of illegaly traded music files? Windows. Napster was PC-only for a long time, and the Mac version was quite horrid and only came out near the end of the software/company's life.

So picking on iPod users for having stolen music on there is just deferring blame from the company whose operating system made it all possible (in wide spread use) in the first place.

Ballmer & Co. need new spin doctors.

I for one will not replace my iPod for something that has a monthly fee to use.

As the author of this story, let me explain that there is a very fine line between a major corporate executive saying iPod users are thieves and saying people copy copyrighted music to their iPods. He might mean the same thing, but actually saying it is the difference between accusing someone of something and literally attacking.

Brad Gibson

Sorry to disagree Brad but I don't see the fine line. silicon.com may have paraphrased his words but Ballmer said most music on iPods is stolen.

If it's stolen, then how did it get there? You can't say one thing without meaning the other. If you say most music on iPods is stolen (and I'm not judging whether that comment is correct or not) then you are saying the person - the iPod user - who put it there stole it. It's illegal. end of story.

Stop sitting on the fence.

To me the line i so fine, I fail to see it …
A poster had an interesting point: Apple is expensive, the average American can’t afford it. That is of course old (and totally inaccurate) news. To prove my point, I would like to direct you to the Amazon web site. Please look at the best-selling computers. In the top 20 spots are 10 Apple desktops/portables, and THAT INCLUDES THE FIRST FOUR PLACES !!!! (Or, at least, this was true as of last Friday evening … I haven’t been back there since). So, unless Amazon’s customers are particularly prone to buying “expensive” stuff, it seems to me that the average American is quite comfortable with the price of Macs …

Mac users are apparently only what ? 5% of ALL computer users. Yet the iPod (as its own device, being an mp3 player) has what 52 or 53% share of the mp3 player market. So I guess it's mostly windows people who own an ipod. Ergo it would be predominantly windows people who are doing most of the pirating. What about software piracy. Let those music terrorists the RIA worry about the freakin' music. Microsoft needs to clean up it's act befor it embarks on ANY new endeavours. Get rid of the virus and spam. Make your OS secure. That should be MS no.1 priority insted of pissing about with this crap.

M$ is a conviced felon according to a judge in Naterre (suburb of Paris, France)

http://www.diaplous.org/nanterre.htm

Quote

jacrav wrote:
To prove my point, I would like to direct you to the Amazon web site. Please look at the best-selling computers. In the top 20 spots are 10 Apple desktops/portables, and THAT INCLUDES THE FIRST FOUR PLACES !!!!

However, unlike Apple, Dell actually advertises the fact that you can order direct. Perhaps that is a partial cause for Apple's dominance on Amazon's chart? Considering how small of a market share Apple has, there must be a wide variety of reasons why Apple computers are Amazon's top sellers. It does not necessarily suggest that Apples are considered affordable by the average American consumer, no matter how nice of a statistic it is.

And back on topic...Ballmer is a jackass.

here is the next statement from ballmer

Quote

most operating systems on apple computers are stolen!!!

this will definately get mac users to switch to the wintel side...

either that, or piss us off more at the general crap that comes from redmond

the only decent thing to come out of redmond is the xbox, and that is "switching" (pun completely intended) to PPC processors...

must show what is the superior processor as it is in all the intensly graphic machines on the planet

TRO

We all know MS will say one thing when it really means another. This is simply another case of it. Balmer says the future belongs to MS, not Apple. Well that for one means the present belongs to Apple. Also, using MS-speak, the future really does belong to Apple, not Microsoft.

And another thing:
I've spent hours downloading music on the net, but I did a quick check and less than 10% is a cases where I don't own the CD, and about 30% of these were free downloads, or original material. So the most common format on my iPod are legit MP3s,not pirated.

MP3s:
As long as companies put DRM out, the MP3 will live no matter how hard MS stomps on it. MP3s are kinda like Darth Vader, you can't keep a good Sith Lord down!

I have 100% stolen music on a stolen ipod... I WIN!