USA Today interviewed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about his thoughts on the iPhone. While Ballmer gives credit to Apple's early move into the music arena, he doubts the iPhone will gain any significant marketshare:
Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. 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.
(Note that Ballmer assumes that the $500 iPhone is subsidized, but there has been speculation and rumor that this is not the case.)
Top Rated Comments
Balmer's talking out of his hat! Typical of the sort of things "he would say".
Whether we like it or not (thinking delays to Leopard, etc.) it's going to be massive.
Hopefully Balmer will eat that hat.
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