Steve Ballmer Doesn’t Get Android

At Australian carrier Telstra’s annual investment day, Steve Ballmer did what he does best: talk crap about the competition. The target? Android. “I don’t really understand their strategy. Maybe somebody else does.” You see, it doesn’t make any money, and that’s why it baffles him. It actually kind of baffles me that it baffles him, since Google’s approach is not so dissimilar from how Windows took over the world, just adapted to the wild ‘n’ crazy mobile market.

Make it free for hardware makers (while Microsoft still charges) and get it on as many phones as possible to make it as ubiquitous as possible—a standard. That’s not to say Android is going to wipe Windows Mobile off the face of the map—Ballmer’s fairly correct in his assessment that “Google doesn’t exactly bubble to the top of the list of the top competitors we’ve got going in mobile. They might someday. But right now…” It’s first-gen, and it sucks for the corporate environment.

That said, the Windows Mobile picture ain’t so rosy. BlackBerry just passed them in marketshare, and with Windows Mobile 7 a year away, that’s a long time for 6.1 to get nice and antiquated as everyone else rolls out shiny new platforms. [CNet]