Apparently, Steve Ballmer didn't just take time to respond to the latest iPhone announcements and give that whole Monkey Boy Dance another go during the Mix '08 event. Oh no, he most certainly took the opportunity to address Microsoft's stance on where it was headed now that the format war has concluded. Granted, it's not like it ever had much choice here but to pick up the pieces and support the Blu camp, but for those who put a great deal of stock in confirmation, Mr. Ballmer did say that it had "already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like." He also noted that "Toshiba had moved on" and that it too was moving forward, but unfortunately, he didn't make a peep about the recently rumored Xbox 360 BD add-on. Still, we're hoping that one thing will lead to another, if you catch our drift.

[Via Gamespot, thanks rooshma]

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is certainly no stranger to our CE-Oh no he didn't! series, but Mandriva's CEO François Bancilhon now looks to have turned the tables, with him targeting Ballmer in an open letter on his blog. Causing all his ire is a recent deal Mandriva made to install its Linux distribution onto 17,000 Classmate PCs sold to the Nigerian Government, which Nigeria says they will follow through on, only to replace the OS with Windows afterwards. Bancilhon, as you might have guessed, is laying the blame for the sudden change of heart squarely on Microsoft, and Ballmer specifically, saying "Wow! I'm impressed, Steve! What have you done for these guys to change their mind like this? It's pretty clear to me, and it will be clear to everyone." Bancilhon went on to ask, "How do you call what you just did Steve, in the place where you live?," adding that, "In my place, they give it various names, I'm sure you know them." Bancilhon then busted out the ever-reliable "how do you feel looking at yourself in the mirror in the morning?" line, before closing things off by saying, "You have the money, the power, and maybe we have a different sense of ethics you and I, but I believe that hard work, good technology and ethics can win too."

[Via Yahoo News/PC Magazine]

Steve Ballmer has been doing quite a lot of talking lately, and his most recent noteworthy conversation came when he addressed an analyst and mother who was noticeably displeased with Windows Vista. During Mr. Ballmer's appearance at the Gartner Inc. conference in Orlando, Florida, Yvonne Genovese took the liberty of kvetching to him about her early adopter struggles. She explained that she felt the need to revert back to XP merely two days after caving to her daughter's request to pick up Vista for those "neat little things called gadgets." Steve went on to exclaim that he "loved her daughter," but the mom carried on by asking "what should people be seeing that we're not seeing?" As the debate unfolded, Ballmer insinuated that while there was "a lot of value in Vista," it has been more difficult for customers to implement due to heightened system requirements and a less-than-stellar amount of available device drivers at launch. Of course, he also noted that Service Pack 1 would address "a lot of the customer feedback," but we don't get the feeling that was what Ms. Genovese was looking to hear.

If you'll recall, it was around this time last year when ole Steve Ballmer fessed up and stated that Linux users probably owed him a nickle or two, and apparently, he's yet to get over it. Reportedly, Mr. Ballmer was speaking out last week "at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK" when he proclaimed that "people who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us." Furthermore, he went on to "praise Novell for valuing intellectual property, and suggested that open source vendors will be forced to strike similar deals with other patent holders." Of course, we're sure he means well and all, given that all he "really" wants is "an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds." And a few dollars too, right?

[Via TheInquirer]

If you thought that Microsoft's deal with Novell was the end of Redmond v. Linux litigation, think again. In an unsettling story carried by Fortune over the weekend, Microsoft's General Counsel claims that free and open-source software (FOSS) violates exactly 235 Microsoft patents: Linux kernel (42), Linux GUI (65), Open Office suite (45), email (15), and then another 68 patents violated across a variety of FOSS wares -- the first time Microsoft has provided such specificity. Microsoft goes so far as to claim that that is the reason for open-source software's high-quality. However, Eben Moglen, legal counsel to the Free Software Foundation and head of the Software Freedom Law Center, says that software is a mathematical algorithm which can not be patented and easily "invented around" -- a case made even stronger last month by the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling undermining patent trolls. Still, FOSS allies such as Sony, Philips, Novell, Red Hat and NEC were already banded together under the Open Invention Network with their own collection of patents meant to protect themselves from the kind of litigious quagmire Microsoft seems poised to launch. Ironically, that very pact between Microsoft, Novell, and more recently Dell makes Microsoft an uneasy Linux distributor (depending upon your legal interpretation of the deal) which could leave them powerless to bring patent suits against Linux customers and distributors. With Microsoft facing the Google goliath and a general consumer malaise, it's really no surprise to find them prepped for a patent offensive in search of additional revenue. However, our biggest fear is for this sudden increase in posturing by Ballmer and Co. to turn into a full blown series of lawsuits and countersuits sure to stifle innovation into the next decade.

[Via Scobleizer]

We'll be the first to give props to Steve Ballmer for accomplishing what he has at Microsoft, and we will agree that the iPhone is one expensive (and probably overpriced) little machine, but during a recent interview where he was questioned about the iPhone, he proceeded to not only compare Apple's forthcoming handset with the "$99 Motorola Q," but insisted that the iPhone was "by far the most expensive phone in the marketplace," which couldn't be further from the truth. Sure, most of the long, long list of mobile phones priced above (sometimes well above) the $500 price point aren't exactly mainstream handsets, but as the luxury phone market continues to bloom, Apple is looking to take advantage of those willing to shell out half a grand to have the hottest gizmo out. Additionally, Steve did mention that the iPhone was absolutely "not suitable for business purposes" due to its complete lack of a keyboard, but considering its half-hearted attempt at Push mail and lack of 3G, we doubt Mr. Jobs is out fighting for the corporate market just yet anyway. Nevertheless, it's always entertaining to see one head honcho completely mock another company's product, so click on through for the YouTube'd interview.

[Via Digg]

While Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was taking a break from dealing with cranky users still waiting for Vista, he went ahead and told the entire Linux community that they owe him a big thank-you. Yes, yes he did. In a Q&A session at the Professional Association for SQL Server conference, Ballmer (sans sweat) said that Microsoft signed a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell in order to get some money back for its "intellectual property." Among other transactions, the one in question sends $40 million to Microsoft in exchange for Microsoft's promise not to sue Novell over possible patent violations. As to whether or not the SUSE Linux distribution actually infringes upon any patents, Novell's payment appears to be some sort of admission fee, and, according to Ballmer, Linux users owe him a big "thanks." After all, he was just assuring that Microsoft gets the "appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation." Meanwhile, Red Hat called the whole thing an "innovation tax" and plans to protect its customers against any infringement claims by Microsoft, asking Ballmer to go ahead and show us all what part of the Linux kernel infringes upon Redmond's patents. So while Ballmer pens his report, get to it, open-source community -- start writing your thank-you notes.

[Thanks, Neonez]

We have to admit to occasionally sharing in some of the schadenfreude that surfaces on the internets every time Microsoft announces yet another Windows Vista delay. However, this time we're willing to cut them a little slack. While headlines have been screaming about a new delay all day today, most of them seem to be based on some fairly ambiguous comments by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Speaking with NEC execs in Japan, Ballmer commented that "We think we are on track for shipping early in [2007]. We've talked about the month, but we get a chance to critically assess all of the feedback we'll get from this beta release then confirm or move [the launch date] a few weeks." Ballmer also commented that he was looking forward to feedback from "hardware partners" about "when would they really like it." Now, a cynical take on Ballmer's comments would be that he's using the recently announced second beta of Vista, along with possible requests from hardware vendors, as an excuse to set the stage for a forthcoming announcement that Vista will indeed be delayed beyond January 2007. However, we'll look at the glass as half-full this time: Ballmer is truly interested in hearing from the beta testers and computer manufacturers, and really wants to factor their findings and needs into Vista's launch date. Besides, the thing is so late already; what's a few more weeks between friends, right?