01/09/2009, 4:05pm, EST
Friday, January 9thBallmer: iPhone has "momentum," Zune not the future
Relatively new competitors now have the advantage in the smartphone business, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer said late yesterday to the Financial Times (registration required). Although the executive was well-known for believing in early 2007 that the iPhone wouldn't get market share, he now says that both Apple and BlackBerry creator RIM have "clear market momentum" and that the two are part of an industry likely to survive the poor world economy.
During Microsoft's CES keynote speech, Ballmer was nonetheless confident of Windows Mobile and observed that about 20 million devices using the operating system have sold in the past 12 months, 11 of which sold over a million each. The HTC Touch Diamond is one of these and is known to have managed at least 3 million units in the second half of the year.
The early Microsoft official is nonetheless less confident about the Zune and deemphasizes the importance of the music player hardware and insisting that the industry push is now towards software. Ballmer sees media-only devices like the Zune gradually being phased out and that more generalized hardware like smartphones will dominate the field.
He also supports the formal Microsoft position that there will be no Zune phone and that the brand is most likely to survive as a feature of Windows Mobile rather than in Microsoft-desgned hardware.
Filed under: iPhone, industry, mobile phones
Other story tags: Microsoft, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, htc, Research in Motion, Zune
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Thank you Captain Obvious
The best way to predict the future is to wait until it happens.
Does this now support everyone else's perspective that the Zune is pointless?
Always Off?
Has Balmer always been off the mark with his predictions or this a recent phenomenon? If he's just the worst seer ever, then how do you shift through all the BS that comes out of his mouth?
Enderle
He gets his info from Rob Enderle
NO MORE ZUNE?
Oh my! I did NOT see that coming!
IDI0T
Way to go out on a limb there Ballmer: "devices like the Zune gradually being phased out and that more generalized hardware like smartphones will dominate the field."
I could be blind and see this one coming.
!!!?!!
Ballmer should be captured and returned to his natural habitat so he can live among his own species.
FOS, as usual
"devices like the Zune gradually being phased out and that more generalized hardware like smartphones will dominate the field."
I don't know; iPods are still selling like hot-cakes. Maybe MS should make a good product that doesn't reek of "me too!"
Wasn't he right?
"But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get." - was the original quote.
On October 21, 2008 Apple announced sales of 6.89 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2008, totaling 13 million iPhones to date. - from Wikipedia. 13 million is 1% of 1.3 billion.
Plays for Sure?
Are they going to pull another 180 on whether "Plays for Sure" will play for sure, for sure?
ipods
The problem was that MS got into the market too late to differentiate itself. The ipod/mp3 market is mature. The areas for innovation are really in the ipod touch/iphone space. There really isn't much more to do with the mp3 player space other than increase capacity or decrease price.
Once again, MS doesn't know how to be the leader in an area that doesn't exploit it's near monopoly with Windows. As a mac fan, I'd love to see Ballmer stay so MS will continue to flounder.