How important is Live to the Mobile strategy and Mobile to the Live strategy?
Ballmer: The Mobile strategy better work independent of Live, and the Live strategy better work independent of Mobile, and Live and Mobile better be better together. You could say that's a tall order, but that's what we get paid to do.
You guys have seemed to strike partnerships along those lines, bringing competitive Web services on to Windows Mobile, and bringing Live on to competing devices.
Ballmer: We've been through this before in some senses with Windows. Office was important for Windows, and Windows was important for Office, and they had to be better together. But, particularly, Office has to be better than anything else running on Windows and, you know, we took Office to the Mac. So there was a lot of familial love, and yet people have to be able to stand for themselves.
In terms of mobile devices, I mean, most of the attention is around Windows Mobile, but you have launched this Zune effort to go after the music player market. It seems like Apple with the iPod Touch and some of the things they've done since the Zune came out, has delivered more innovation in that 12 months than the Zune team. Is there a concern with that, since Zune was already coming a little bit late to the market?
Ballmer: I probably wouldn't agree with you that they've done more in the last 12 months than we've done in the last 12 months. And I think we'll continue to pick up share. I mean, we launched Zune a year ago. In the first year, at the price points where we compete, we've taken 10 to 15 percent share. We've got new models at other price points. I think we'll continue to take share. I think it's a long-term deal. We could have left it alone and let Apple have free run of the market. We think we've got some innovative ideas and we'll see whether the market agrees with us.
Why is it important to compete in dedicated music player market?
Ballmer: There's really no such thing as a dedicated music player. There's music services that may run on dedicated players. There's music services and an entertainment service. I mean, clearly, one of the keys for the iPhone is that it runs the Apple music services. And I think that will be an important direction.
[...]
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, talked on C|Net about the future of mobile platforms. He mentioned iPhone and what he likes or thinks it can get done better but also Zune saying he is pleased with what Zune has accomplished in terms of marketshare, these last 12 months. He was also asked about Zune Phone to give the usual answer that Microsoft is currently focused on Windows CE & Mobile...
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