Quite entertaining.

Some hightlights.

[Balmer] said Apple is doing an "interesting" job with the iPad and has "sold certainly more than I'd like them to sell."

The harshest criticism was reserved for Google's Web Apps, which compete with Microsoft Office. Turner said Office's Web Apps are far more powerful than Google's, calling to attention to small things like Google's lack of a ruler function on its Docs app -- "things that we put in market almost 13, 14 years ago."

Pagemaker had it on Mac 25 years ago, so MS was only 10 years or so behind on that.

After demonstrating Windows Phone 7, which is set to go on sale in the fall, Ballmer said the company still had a lot of work to do to compete with Apple and Google. Microsoft intends to throw enormous marketing muscle behind the new smartphone operating system, riding the success of its "I'm a PC" campaign with an "I'm a phone too!" campaign.

In other words don't spend the money making something that really works so that it sells itself, spend it on marketing some POS.

Yep thats about right - LOL

I mean gheee - what was MS working on (project that ends all) and betting their future on? ?

Simply;
Apple and Google has been chasing a dream that is sorta wide open to everyone <-- Does MS even care to compete with a half heart maybe ?

You know the M$ fanboys will snap it up and proclaim it to be the greatest evah only because it sucks less than before.

What he and M$ is missing is that you can't successfully use a desktop OS on a tablet. That's why Apple and Google have discovered/determined and moved ahead with separate OSs tailored for mobile devices rather than trying to force a desktop OS onto those devices.

riding the success of its "I'm a PC" campaign with an "I'm a phone too!" campaign.

Which was riding the success of the "I'm a Mac" campaign.

They can't come up with anything original.....

Nope, like it shows in the article, they rely on marketing rather than real functionality.

The biggest thing that separates Apple and Google from MicroShift is that the former 2 focus on innovation and quality, whereas the latter only is concerned about profits (and possibly its role in the marketplace). Thus they had the Zune, the Kin, and VISTA debacles. I expect their iPad "zombie" will be as about as successful.

Ballmer is bat-sht crazy !

and Nuc4- you're so right - as you well know MS hasn't come up with anything "original" since they opened the doors in the early 80's - it's always been a rip-off of someone else's innovation. DOS they bought outright, Windows a rip-off of Apple, many other innovations they stole from small start up companies during their first 10-12 years in their rush to dominate the market... WTF have they ever produced that was original? . . maybe their only originality was their ruthlessness and thievery they used to get where they are.
Wow, some history.

Lets see if I remember correctly, what MS was working on as an MS innovation.

1 - Vista - ahh nope just needed a OSX copy
2 - Win7 - ahh nope just a fixed Vista OSX copy
3 - Zune - Ahh nope just needed a iPod copy
4 - X-Box - ahh just needed a game box copy
5 - Kin - ahh just needed a iPhone copy

Ahhhh - Ha

That Win Table for 25,000 bucks, which a few strip bars bought - LOL.
The best example of this innovation is what CNN uses on what they call the (wall) touch screen and does look sweet --> However CNN built their own system and all. But thats similar to what MS was innovating.

ROFL

I think you nailed it, Steve !!