September 11, 2009: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reportedly snatches an iPhone from a Microsoft employee during a meeting and pretends to destroy it.
This isn’t the first time Ballmer behaves in a wacky way and incurs negative publicity as a result. However, it’s an embarrassing moment for a man who ranks among the tech world’s most powerful people.
February 4, 2008: Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly considers buying the search engine Yahoo. Apple is one of several interested companies, following reports that Microsoft offered $44.6 billion for the web portal the previous week.
Nothing ultimately comes of it, but Apple’s interest is later confirmed in an authorized biography of Jobs.
December 30, 1999: Microsoft hits the height of its 1990s dominance and begins its early-2000s decline, clearing a gap at the top for Apple.
After hitting an all-time high of $53.60, Microsoft stock starts to fall. Less than a year later, MSFT shares fall more than 60% in value to $20.
Predicting the future is tough, even for the experts. That’s the only lesson we can learn from looking back at these horribly misguided iPhone predictions that greeted the device at its launch 10 years ago.
Before most people had even wrapped their fingers around Apple’s first-gen smartphone, tech pundits, analysts and competing CEOs were already writing off the iPhone as a disaster similar to Apple’s previous excursions into video game consoles and the like.
Here are just a few of the laughable reactions that greeted the iPhone in 2007.
Laurene Powell Jobs may be best known to Apple fans as Steve Jobs’ widow but, as a longtime philanthropist with decades of experience, she’s carved out an impressive solo career.
Having kept a fairly low profile since her husband’s death in 2011, next month Powell Jobs will speak at the Code Conference about her approach to philanthropy. Her appearance will take the form of an unscripted onstage conversation.
Apple fans who weren’t old enough to surf the web 10 years ago when Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone can relive the glorious event, thanks to an archive of Apple’s website that will take them back in time.
Microsoft infamously invested $150 million in archenemy Apple in 1997 as the company was facing bankruptcy right after the return of Steve Jobs, and according to former CEO Steve Ballmer, it was the craziest thing the Windows-maker ever did.
Ballmer spends more of his time on the basketball court now than working on the next big tech ideas, but in an interview with Bloomberg this morning, Ballmer was brought on to talk about the Microsoft’s battle with Amazon. After saying Amazon is not a great place to work, the conversation drifted to Apple and Ballmer actually admitted that “they’ve done a great job.”
Coming from the guy who laughed off the iPhone because he thought the Zune was killer, that’s a hell of a compliment. Watch what Ballmer had to say about Microsoft’s rivalry with Apple below:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was spotted using an iPhone at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference this week, and while Nadella insisted the device wasn’t actually his, he was all too proud to show off the amazing apps his company is making for it.
Nadella even gave his device a new name, dubbing it the ‘iPhone Pro’ (a little knock on the iPad Pro that was recently announced) because it was running all of Microsoft’s apps.
Check out Nadella’s demo below:
If the iPad Pro portion of today’s keynote felt a little bit familiar to you, it might have been because Apple’s new gigantic tablet is in many way a direct copying answer to the Microsoft Surface Pro tablet that was introduced three years ago.
Our ever-popular podcast – The CultCast, hosted by Erfon Elijah – is now on the Cult of Mac TV YouTube channel. It’s a whole new way to digest your favorite 30-minute (-ish!) Apple conversation.
Click the video above to check out the latest podcast, which covers topics like NFC on the iPhone 6, Steve Ballmer landing the perfect job and a mobile payment system for iPhone that will make credit cards obsolete.
Watch the latest episode above and don’t forget to subscribe to Cult of Mac TV to stay up-to-date on all the latest happenings from the world of Apple.
