Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was among those interviewed during the final day of The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital D8 conference in Rancho Palos Verde, Calif.
When asked about why Microsoft’s mobile team was now reporting directly to him, Ballmer cited logistics, according to a video posted on the All Things Digital blog. He said that in the wake of Robbie Bach’s resignation, Microsoft’s longtime president of the entertainment and devices division, which also included mobile devices, it just didn’t make sense to recreate that division of separation between Ballmer and the mobile team.
On a different note, Ballmer also admitted to having learned from recent high-profile mistakes with Windows Mobile, as the platform continues to lose market share.
“On the phone side of the business, we learned the value of excellent execution. We were ahead of this game, in terms of software for phones … We haven’t fallen off the face of the planet, but we are not ahead of this game,” Ballmer said, noting that Microsoft has just fallen to the fifth spot behind Android in mobile platform market share.
When pressed on what he means by “excellent execution,” Ballmer was up front about his company’s failings in the mobile game. “We missed a whole cycle. And I think I’ve been quite public about the fact that I chose to make a set of leadership changes in the team of people building and executing on our mobile phone software … We had to do a little cleanup.”
Ballmer was also asked about some of Microsoft’s competitors, including Research In Motion (RIM), of which he was complimentary. “They’re obviously a good competitor. I think the thing a lot of people miss about them is how good a job they’ve done on the consumer side of the business,” Ballmer said, citing approximate consumer numbers for RIM of 60 percent to 70 percent.
Ballmer also talked candidly about how he sees the PC market evolving and even admitted to having attempted to take notes in a meeting with an iPad.
When asked about comments Apple CEO Steve Jobs had made during a Day One interview at the conference, concerning the decreasing popularity of PCs, Ballmer was dismissive.
“I think people are going to be using PCs in greater and greater numbers for many years to come. I think PCs are going to continue to shift in form factor. PCs will look different next year, year after, year after that … The real question is what’s a PC?” Ballmer said.
But Ballmer simultaneously championed the all-purpose device while also predicting a breadth of devices going forward, from pocket-sized mobile devices to more stationary desktops to the mid-range tablets such as the iPad.
“I think there will exist a general purpose device that will do everything you want, because I don’t think the world’s going to be able to afford five devices per person,” Ballmer said.
When pushed on whether Ballmer considered the iPad a PC, he scoffed. “Of course it is. It’s a different form factor of PC. Look, if you go to the average person, and you say, ‘What is this?’ It’s a device, I can process the Internet, I can type,” Ballmer said and went on to describe the frustrating process of trying to take notes on an iPad in a meeting. He said the meeting “didn’t go real fast.”
