@SneakerFiend:

Let's be honest... who really cares? As long as they continue to fix the consoles at no cost, it doesn't matter.

The XBOX 360 and XBOX Live is the best console and gaming platform to date. PERIOD!

Sony or Nintendo DOESN'T COME CLOSE!

Admit it.... they DON'T COME CLOSE!

yoshi

@qrius:

I tend to disagree. Microsoft has become very successful at doing mediocre things. In fact, they been more successful than Apple. =0}

yoshi

Who cares? Where all going to die in the Man made Black-hole in [gizmodo.com] Hadron Collider. : )
i guess no 4th of july this year : (

DJJS

Jack of all trades = master of none.

In a capitalist economy, doing one thing well does mean you might be setting yourself up for heavy competition or a buyout, but keeping your success rolling with inventive ways of applying successful techniques in new areas means broader market reach. Go Google. Microsoft is starting to learn.

zanella

@SneakerFiend: arent perfect correction.

SneakerFiend

The fact that they can actually admit that they have too many products to perfect is actually sad.
Microsoft may be the biggest software company and one of the most well known but they sure need to learn how to strive for perfection instead of satisfactory.
I mean vista could be way better, way lighter, and way easier to get used to.
Google knows searching what does Microsoft know??? How to make a gaming system that is almost the most popular and one of the most played online, but on the flipside has the highest failure rate for a gaming console EVER.
I mean PS3 had a bunch of defective consoles but nowhere near the xbox 360's amount.
Maybe they should just narrow down their goals and hit it with a hammer.
I mean if they focus on Windows for one year and just focus on making it one kick ass system, another year compatibility, and the last year nd a couple of months focus on making it as light as possible it'd be able to compete with Mac.
Then Zune they dont need to put that much shxt into Zune what they need to do is put a better screen in it and make it somehow more attractive.
WM line make it light enough to run on a flip phone with a regular processor and be able to open 95% of the programs at once without having to reject you because there isnt enough memory.
ETC. i mean microsoft just has bad leaders because their team is quite exceptional. You cant lead a team to victory with a crappy leader unless its that leader's lucky day.

SneakerFiend

@qrius: i wouldn't say always. maybe as a company yes but as an individual?

Paradise

On the plus side, the shareholders from the sweat refining business are ecstatic at the discovery of vast, proven reserves of light sweat crude.

lpranal

I think you miss the point. They're not just persistent. They are also relentless.

If you are on the wrong track and you are just persistent about it, you will just keep plugging down that wrong track to nobody's benefit.

But if you are relentless in that persistence, then it's like a freight train barrelling down the wrong track at full speed with Casey Jones at the helm. It's a big gigantic bull in the wedding section at Bloomingdale's!

Sure things didn't turn out so well for Casey...and that bull is likely to be put down before it even makes it to the elevator.

But for the rest of us? We get songs and tales and some awesome local news footage that will last on youtube forever. Sometimes the biggest honkin' sweat-stained disaster ever is one's destiny. And we're just lucky enough to get to watch!

92BuickLeSabre

Ballmer is a good business guy but only if his next to Bill, His obsession with killing google has been hurting Msft shares for the past 3 to 4 years, every company has grown about 3x except microsoft. This guy can't see pass google & that a huge problem cause the google team is not the same as bitch ass Netscape, to who they did that they felt like to killed it

snitch29

It's kind of sad, actually... with Ballmer in charge, Microsoft is only going to go more and more downhill than it already is. With that type of philosophy, the company's just going to continue putting out mediocre operating systems, worthless gadgets and commonplace software til he's out of there.

cloudnine

+ Watch video

takashimiike 3G edition

@Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits, and...: Will he become like Professor Totemkompf, with an automated software factory collecting all of the world's code to start a better world?

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Well, speaking from experience, I believe it's better to do nothing. Zero failures so far.

itchytooth

Steve Ballmer will occupy the office of the CEO until 2017. He'll die from a stroke in 2010, but he will still occupy the office of the CEO until 2017.

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits, and sometimes Fart, Turd, Twat

Good job photoshopping the sweat stains out.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

always better to do fewer things and master them rather than be mediocre at many things.

qrius

@ttech10:

You must be smoking crack. HAHAHAAHAHHAHA!!

Gears of War, Call of Duty 4, GTA 4?

It's the best platform on the market, PERIOD!

None of the guys I know own a PS3. It's a joke.

yoshi

Someone should collect all that sweat and convert it to bio fuel. He has enough sweat to power the US for at least a hundred years.

Ken_Darrow

@yoshi: Best platform to date?

Sony has the PS3 with the most highest rated games so far this gen.

The Wii is selling much better than both consoles so it's doing the best.

They DO come close (and even do better than it)... and also, you don't have good grammar. "[they] doesn't come close" sounds horrible and shows your intelligence, which, well is also shown in thinking that Xbox is by far the best platform/console.

Have a good day and try again later.

ttech10

Steve Ballmer is good at one thing but he's really good at it.
SWEAT

Mayor McRib

@takashimiike 3G edition: lol! +1!

Evangelion

@yoshi:

Hate to burst your bubble, but CoD 4 and GTA 4 came on both systems.

Suttin

YES, those tampons under my armpits really DO help.

BiZarRroBALlmeR

@Suttin:

No bubble burst here. In fact, the game experience is much better on XBOX Live.

HAHAHAHA

yoshi

@Holyelephant:

People tend to forget that Apple failed on a few products. Here are just a few:

10. Apple Cyberdog
9. Taligent
8. Apple eWorld
7. Apple Pippin
6. 20th Anniversary Macintosh
5. Motorola ROKR
4. Macintosh TV
3. Macintosh Portable
2. Apple Lisa
1. Apple Newton

BOOYAH, Fanboys!!

yoshi

Persistent is more of a description of an approach to problem solving. As in, I didn't give up, I persistently tried different approaches. It sounds goofy to me to say "But, hypothetically, what if you're persistently getting it wrong?" I think "consistent" fits the meaning of that sentence better. Persistence is a good thing if you are describing a business trait. It means they learn from mistakes, like say, Vista.

Holyelephant

@ttech10:

Is that all you have? Are you serious?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

yoshi

@yoshi: Oh, and regarding #4, I completely forgot about that. I'm surprised that this was tried again, but the ATV is doing better than that thing did.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

@yoshi: Um, regarding #5, Apple didn't design or build the ROKR. It was just a Moto phone collaborating with iTunes. The iTunes Music Store is even more successful now than it was when that phone was released.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

@yoshi: Fixing the consoles at no cost is good, but not having to fix them is better.

As for gaming consoles, the Wii is currently the best seller out there. Want a 360 or a PS3? Go to the store. Want a Wii? Keep checking the store. Want GoW, COD4 or GTA4? Go to the store. Want Wii Fit? Keep checking the stores. Nintendo has more systems than MS's 360s, and the 360 had a year head start. Anyway, the point is that although the Wii isn't the most powerful system, it's the best selling system so I would say that it makes it the best for right now.

Most big companies will have a bunch of failures. What this article seems to be about is whether it's better to be okay at many things or awesome in a few things. Being okay at a bunch of things may offer better financial stability, but it can also cause a serious overall decline of revenue over time. Being awesome at a few things is more risky, but it usually means a better end product for the consumer and the ability to expand into new areas and do them as, as needed.

geowrian

@yoshi:

1) Newton defined the PDA market, and paved the way for Palm, WM, and eventually iPhone - not a failure, just ahead of it's time.

2) Lisa introduced the GUI to personal computing, and was the first personal computer to use a mouse. It defined the future.

8) eWorld leads to .Mac leads to MobileMe and the adoption of Web2 and the 'cloud' - ahead of it's time.

9) IBM licensed various Taligent technologies to Sun which are today part of Java

FWIW

MINI Driver

@geowrian: i've tried the wii, i don't know what the hype is, but to each there own. as for games in general i don't play, mainly because the few that i've gotten into has had me up all night. so like an alcoholic i just stay away. now only if i could quite drinking...

dontforget

to be really good at a few things or be kinda ok, or not at all ok, at a lot of things? good question. i think the Government is a good example of why trying to take on a zillion different tasks doesn't work too well for anybody. broaden the scope, divide the company, increase the number of managers and you decrease the central vision because of the increased number of opinions. the central figure in the company cannot focus as intently on any individual portion because of this.

it seems to me that if Microsoft really cracked down they could put out Windows OS that could crush the competition, bring windows users back from Apple and Linux and bring balance to the force. it seems like they can't see what we can see. when we sit down at a Linux based computer or a Mac we see all of these integrated features that make computing more interesting, more fun, and more efficient and then we look back at windows and we don't see anything like that at all. in fact, aside from cosmetic changes and a few little interface modifications (control panel dialogs and such) USING windows still feels the same as it did in 1995. that makes sense to some degree but it also makes a lot of today's more savvy computer users want to find something else - something more interesting. no matter how determined and relentless Balls is, he can't change the direction that computer users WANT to go.

milliardo_76