Great quote from Steve Ballmer on Apple’s “Cult Following”

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

I attended a TechNet event today called “Technologies to Change Your Business: How Customers Are Implementing Tomorrow’s Strategies Today”. It was primarily geared around Microsoft’s virtualization stories and SQL Server 2008, but I attended to see if Steve Ballmer was going to drop any news about Microsoft’s Cloud Services. After his keynote, there was a question and answer session where a question was asked that led to the presenter talking about Apple’s “cult like following” for its products such as iPhone. This was Steve Ballmer’s reply:

Currently 97% of people run our software. I don’t know if that qualifies as a cult but we’re pretty happy with our numbers.

Well said sir, well said.

First published on my new blog at www.sleepdeprivedmind.com.

Well said? It's a totally nebulous statement. I love Ballmer, but the guy has to stop burying his head in the sand. Selling 4 million phones last quarter hardly seems like a cult to me.

Jeff - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 6:24:53 PM

Perhaps you didn't understand the context. It wasn't Steve Ballmer who said that Apple had a cult-like following, it was the moderator. His response however was very rather on point.

PaulBallard - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 8:01:58 PM

You're right, I don't understand the context, or the point. Was it just a dumb question, and if so, why repeat it?

Jeff - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 9:16:10 PM

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