During his company’s latest quarterly earnings conference call, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke about the company’s plans for tablets in the near future, but remained very scant on the details.
The company posted its best quarter ever last week, but has been openly criticized for its lack of strategy in the tablet market, as well as in other consumer businesses.
When asked specifically about tablets, Ballmer said Windows has been available on tablets and slates for years, with constant sales. However, none of Microsoft’s devices have ever come close to the buzz created by Apple’s iPad.
“Apple has done an interesting job of putting together a product,” Ballmer said, admitting that “they’ve certainly sold more than I’d like them to sell.”
“For us, the job is to say we have a lot of [intellectual property] and software and we’ve done a lot of work on ink and touch,” he continued, via PCW. “We have got to make things happen. Just like we had to make things happen on netbooks, we have to with Windows 7 on slates. We’re in the process of doing that as we speak.”
Without giving more details, he concluded: “We’ve got to push right now with our hardware partners. People will say, ‘When?’ I’ll say, ‘As soon as they are ready, and it is job-one urgency.’ Nobody is sleeping at the switch.”
Any timetable for a new tablet release? They “will be out in not a heck of a long time.”
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Earlier this week we reported that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made comments that implied that the company would be bringing Blu-ray accessories to the Xbox 360.
At the time, the notoriously tongue-tied Ballmer had said: “Well I don’t know if we need to put Blu-ray in there — you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories.”
The company has since released a statement denying the rumor and adding that Ballmer was speaking instead of PC accessories.
“During an interview yesterday, Steve Ballmer was asked about Blu-Ray and the Xbox 360. I wanted to clear something up. Steve was referring to Blu-Ray accessories for the PC. As we have said in the past, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment starts very soon when Xbox 360 becomes the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies. With a library of thousands of TV shows and movies to choose from, Xbox 360 owners can instantly watch the movies they want, when they want, in the highest form of high definition,” says the post on MajorNelson.
That should put the Blu-ray on Xbox 360 argument to rest, at least for the time being.
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Microsoft has ended its hostile bid for Yahoo today, withdrawing its $46 billion USD offer and announcing it will no longer bid for the company.
A couple of days ago the software maker upped its bid $5 billion USD, a 70 percent premium compared to its inital offer in January.
“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
In an open letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Ballmer said that Yahoo wanted at least a $48 billion USD offer, and that the company should take the offer directly to the shareholders. Ballmer said that would not be “sensible.”
“This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer,” Ballmer added. “Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.”
Yahoo officials appear very happy with Microsoft’s latest decision.
“Our independent board and our management have been steadfast in our belief that Microsoft’s offer undervalued the company and we are pleased that so many of our shareholders joined us in expressing that view,” Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock said.
