Oh No He Didn’t! Ballmer Disses Yahoo!, Apple, Google

Steve Ballmer? He doesn’t want to be “the Jerry Yang Web search.” Ouch.

That that was just one of the competitive zingers that the Microsoft Corp. CEO tossed out at an event this week in Manhattan.

As far as Yang goes, who is the former, and disliked, CEO of Yahoo! Inc., a company Microsoft is nonetheless still apparently interested in acquiring, Ballmer didn’t stop there. “That whole episode left me understanding how shareholders can get frustrated with managements who aren’t serious about performance.” D’oh!

Then it was Apple Inc.’s turn. Discussing Apple's computing market share growth, he said: “Apple gained about one point, but now I think the tide has really turned back the other direction...The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment - same piece of hardware - paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.”

Snap!

But what about arch-rival Google Inc.? In a, shall we say, “creative” take on things, he said the GOOG is too big to innovate. Microsoft on the other hand? Nimble and willing to take risks with new business models and Web search results.

“Google does have to be all things to all people,” Ballmer said yesterday in an interview in New York. “Our search does not need to be all things to all people.”

Ballmer got his snark on in a keynote at the Media Summit 2009.

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