Ballmer is so out of touch with reality, that anything that he states has to taken with a large chunk of salt. I think of all the players, the most threatened is MS by Googles announcement. Open Source is coming after you Ballmer. Sure Linux is fragmented now, but maybe it needed one big uniting force, and Google might just be it.

eBay's a handset maker?

Ultimately, Android is a great thing for the mobile handset market and an even better thing for Apple's iPhone market. Why, you might ask?? Well, if there were only two real competitive mobile operating systems, then people would likely say hey, let's program everything for the dominant one--most likely Microsoft, right??

If there are three or four operating systems that are competent, and relatively popular, standards need to be built and followed for interoperability.

This is why, I believe, that Linux was one of the best things to happen for Apple. It gave the world pause to consider that there was an alternative. And given that, there might be yet another alternative--Mac OS X.

Ballmer is an idiot, but even an idiot can be right once in a while. Google announced that a committee of phone manufacturers is going to design this open cell phone platform. My thought is that too many cooks spoil the broth. If two or three companies were working together, maybe it would have a chance of being great. Have you ever sat at a meeting with a dozen or more people, and tried to get them to agree on anything? I think the idea of an open cell phone platform is fantastic, but I worry about it being designed by committee. One of the big reasons the iPhone is so damn goodis that Steve Jobs has the final say. He doesn't have to get 30 frigtards to agree before he gets anything done. I hope this open platform works out. It could change the cell phone industry but I am not betting on it. I'll wait and see.

To say such an idiotic thing, one KNOWS there is serious fear in his voice. Much as there can be some detriments to open source stuff, there's tons of good stuff happening there. The focus is on the end user, not the corporate coffers.

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Balmer's an idiot. But just like a broken clock is right twice a day, Balmer's right about this one. Google has a press release at the moment. Maybe they'll have more later.

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Well, he should know. He is, historically speaking, the king of press releases.