Microsoft chief slams Android as "financially unsound"

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Microsoft chief slams Android as "financially unsound"

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 7 November, 2008

READ MORE: Microsoft

In the wake of a torrent of bad news for Windows Mobile lately - delays to the next release, loss of market share, and even rumors of its demise - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer came out fighting, dismissing rival Google's Android mobile Linux platform as "financially unsound" for the search giant.

Speaking at the annual investment day for Australian operator Telstra, Ballmer said Google was way behind Microsoft and other OS makers. "They can hire smart guys, hire a lot of people, blah de blah de blah, but you know they start out way behind," he told the audience, where he took the stage with Telstra's CEO, Sol Trujillo, formerly head of Orange, which was Microsoft's number one supporter among the cellcos.

He questioned whether operators would be prepared to carry Google search without taking a fee, but said that, unless they put the internet company's services on their devices for free, the business model does not make sense. "I don't really understand their strategy. Maybe somebody else does," he continued. "If I went to my shareholder meeting, my analyst meeting, and said, 'hey, we've just launched a new product that has no revenue model!'...I'm not sure that my investors would take that very well."

He claimed he did not see Google at the top of the list of mobile competitors to Microsoft, a view backed up by Trujillo, who said he found Android "interesting, not compelling" and speculated on whether Google had the expertise to follow through and handle the inevitable problems with a first generation product (surely a double-edged comment, given Microsoft's reputation for getting software right only on the third release, which some would say stretched to five releases in mobile).