Steve Ballmer Trashes Chrome OS, Safari
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Ballmer, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Chrome | Themes: The Internet, Software
With fists of steel, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently gave Apple and Google the one-two punch in the gut, talking trash about the Chrome OS and Safari browser, calling them "rounding errors." But to his credit, Ballmer did have a few positive things to say about his competitors, saying that Mozilla's Firefox browser is actually the most successful so far. Although he claims that Microsoft holds a 74-percent marketshare overall, the company is "competing like heck" to keep its reigning crown.
But what seemed to really rattle his cage as of late was Google's recent announcement concerning the Chrome Frame plugin. Essentially Google's software would replace Microsoft's browser rendering engine, claiming to speed up Internet Explorer. The revelation took Microsoft by surprise evidently, with Ballmer calling it an "unanticipated competitive attack factor" in that Chrome Frame replaces Internet Explorer "without telling you."
"I mean that’s how I would say it," he told Tech Crunch in an interview. "For all intents and purposes of what they’re doing, IE is not there. It’s their operating system. Instead of now masked as browser, it’s masked as a plug in basically to IE. So, you know, we’re going to have to compete like heck and you know, see where things go. The one thing that’s unclear is what’s the economic play for anybody else competing with us at the browser level. Is this all about kind of controlling the search box or is it about something else?"
He goes on to assume that Google must have gotten Android wrong by shifting focus on the Chrome OS. He said that it's generally advisable to get the software right and stay right, especially in the OS business. He expected to see PCs running Android this fall or by the end of the year, but when Google decided to work on the Chrome OS, he assumed something wasn't quite right with the first OS. "I think that’s a little tougher for them now because they basically tell the hardware community Android is dead, Chrome is the thing or maybe Chrome isn’t the thing," he said. "Maybe it is Android."
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I will never use IE as long as there is any other browser choice.
"Is this all about kind of controlling the search box or is it about something else?" --- from the makers of Bing? you really have to ask?
And come on guy, you're acting like google frame is hacking your computer.
I was hoping for a video showing him ranting about them. Textual assaults are so boring.
"He said that it's generally advisable to get the software right and stay right, especially in the OS business."
I can't imagine the world without Microsoft, but this is hypocrisy if I ever saw it. Windows Vista, anyone?
crazy man funny
Meh, I never take what this guy says seriously
. Anyway he is kinda right about Android. Seems like Google lost focus and/or interest in it. I suppose we'll see if anything comes from Chrome OS.
I love Ballmer. I wonder what sunrise looks like on his home planet?
I like Ballmer's fighting spirit but IE has such a bad wrap. IE 8 tries to covertly switch you to a Bing user and all other Microsoft services. It is somewhat understandable because it's a Microsoft product but when 74% of the market share is IE but over 80% is Google for searching, it doesn't really make sense. IE is still too bloated and slow. They need to completely revamp it and focus on making it lightweight, fast, and as far as security goes: include something like FireFox's adblockplus and maybe a toned down version of NoScript. These add ons for FireFox I have been using work extremely well while not taking up much memory or slowing things down. They are stand alone and thus are easily updatable.
I don't think he really needs to trash either project. Anyone with brains knows that safari is crap and chrome os is just another one of the billions of shovelware versions of linux that are out there. I think these companies need to come up with something more original.
I personally don't rly get this browser war : / seems sorta nuts! I just use what works and if there it is 1-4ms slower I rly don't care because it is so insignificant. as long as the browser works and doesn't thing everything I download is an addon and can run and save what I download I'm happy
,Just my two cents
Also I'm switched over to MSIE8 from Firefox now in Win7 Ultimate. Good job Microsoft. Now I only use firefox for plugins. MSIE8 works great.
I use IE8 and have never wanted to replace it. I was one convinec to try Chrome, which did look celan and pretty, but the second site I opened didn't support it ("Please use Internet Explorer x or Firefox x.x or later" stuff). IE8 IS the most supported browser and it does it's job. Since I'm no 3rd party/open source hippie, I'll jsut stick to IE.
"He said that it's generally advisable to get the software right and stay right,...".
From the maker of the Zune that crashes on New Year's, Xbox 360 that needs constant repairing, IE that doesn't follow standards and fails to render webpages correctly, and, of course, so many, very flawed, iterations of Windows.
Fanboys can give -1 as much as they want, won't make it less true.
Steve Ballmer is the reason that company is failling. Chrome OS and Adroid are seperate OS's just like Windows Mobile, Windows Vista are seperate OS's. Bill Gates needs to put this fool in check before his hard work goes completely downthe crapper.
So Chrome is pulling a VISTA? or maybe they are pulling a Windows ME. Steve B. stop being such a hypocrite.
I love Mozilla Firefox and will not use any other web browser but Firefox. I do respect Microsoft but I do wish they'd listen to their customers and to software developers more. Would it kill them to make a "Windows Gamer 64 bit"?
i think they're making one for pc/mac's and i think android is more for phones
Balmer is an overpayed faggot!
I personally don't rly get this browser war : / seems sorta nuts! I just use what works and if there it is 1-4ms slower I rly don't care because it is so insignificant. as long as the browser works and doesn't thing everything I download is an addon and can run and save what I download I'm happy ,Just my two cents
IE has problems with standards compliance and other performance issue that they've been too slow to address. Biggest recent example? IE 8 cannot run Google's upcoming Wave service because the Javascript performance is simply not there. Google attempted to make Wave work with IE, but in the end just gave up. That's part of the reason why Google made the Chrome Frame plugin for IE. A lot of people have questioned the real-world impact of all the work Mozilla, Apple, and Google have put into accelerating JS execution. Turns out it actually does make a real-world difference, especially with emerging web technologies.
All I can say is that this guy fights hard for his team.
Why would you care about market share on a free browser???? It's free to everyone, why are you bickering about this???????? It's Free.............
If he wants to trash talk Safari and Chrome that's fine. However don't try to say that your product is any better. IE is by far the worst browser on the market today. It doesn't comply to web standards, its slow, and insecure. At least Chrome sandboxes its processes and Safari is the only browser to be 100% compliant with the W3C.
Well, IE8 is the most secure. Searching google will tell you that.
I personally don't rly get this browser war : / seems sorta nuts! I just use what works and if there it is 1-4ms slower I rly don't care because it is so insignificant.
Totally agree with you there, I mean my internet connection has a chance of slowing down whatever improvement the browser has 10 fold.
Shut the hell up Steve Ballmer, you are sounding pretty foolish about now...
If he wants to trash talk Safari and Chrome that's fine. However don't try to say that your product is any better. IE is by far the worst browser on the market today. It doesn't comply to web standards, its slow, and insecure. At least Chrome sandboxes its processes and Safari is the only browser to be 100% compliant with the W3C.
Of course doesn't comply with W3C standards I don't think Microsoft ever did, after all like any other monopoly/near monopoly it wants to define the standard, so that it is first out the door with innovation and everyone else simply follows, never catching up and as a result the Goliath keeps it's market share. It doesn't matter if what you're developing/pushing is inferior to someone else's product, just keep the market share. The same can be said for Manifold GIS (www.manifold.net) vs. ESRI (www.esri.com). Manifold is totally building on CUDA and SMP computing while ESRI is still supporting legacy code from the 80's and 90's (e.g. DOS 11 character file names for RASTER data).
Some are innovators some are just stuck in their own legacy core architecture. When it's too impossibly expensive to redesign from the ground up and support all the installed base you have, newer products written from the ground up to take advantage of new tech are always going to nip at your heels.
Totally agree with you there, I mean my internet connection has a chance of slowing down whatever improvement the browser has 10 fold.
It's not just about speed here. IE's lack of support for nascent internet technology, standard compliance and javascript performance is holding back developers from coming up with truly innovative services. Also, it's naive to think that javascript performance is secondary to internet connection. Sure the initial load time of javascript code depends on your connection but the performance of web app after load traffic is highly dependent on javascript performance.
A good example of what developers can achieve in a world without IE is the Google Wave project. It officially does not support IE but look at how powerful the web app is! Ars has a good article on this matter:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source [...] e-wave.ars
seriously WTF! where does the money come from in the browser industry? I mean anyone would think it was a billion dollar industry they way everyone fights over it! It's the same with most of those web2.0 apps "wow they have tones of users using their site, thats a lot of potential money to be made, I value that site a $50 squilion without even seeing its actual earnings!"
Get Chrome OS for free, and you only have to deal with google ads.
I do like Balmer's Reaction. Instead of pulling an Apple and denying the app on their systems. He instead calls Google Chrome Frame a piece of garbage app.
Since when is someone trashing Apple news? I thought everyone did that
Firefox all the way.
Funny all the dork computer users here "M$ sucks, bla bla bla". Grow up. IE holds the market share for a reason, same reason Windows does. No one else makes an OS or browser better than MS. I don't know of even one medium sized company that would trust some hack browser like FireFox or Chrome into their networks, let alone some fly by night OS. IE8 is proven to be the most secure browser.
You MS basher kids are the real "noobs" and don't know your head from a hole in the ground. And for you that think IE8 isn't standards compliant, Ok prove it. Show me one compliant built web site that has a problem rendering on IE8...just one and I'll send you $10.
IE8 is still slower and more cumbersome to use than FX3.5 or Chrome, in my experience.