Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Laughs At The iPhone In 2007 Interview (VIDEO)

*See video below*

Back in a 2007 interview with CNBC-TV, when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is asked about the iPhone, his first reaction is to burst out laughing.

Queried about his first reaction to the iPhone when Steve Jobs debuted it at MacWorld, Ballmer "explodes" with laughter and looks almost incredulous that the interviewer's brought up what Ballmer describes as "the most expensive phone in the world", one that "doesn't appeal to business customers."

See him crack up at the iPhone in the video below.

Think he's still chuckling? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

(Via Gizmodo)

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Comments

[Faxus]

12:34 PM on 03/10/2010

The problem is that the software engineers at Microsoft are, like all engineers, obsessed with making their unique impact on the project. What came before is automatically discarded because someone else designed it. I have used every MS OS since MS DOS and it just keeps changing and evolving into a kind of comic book OS and now that I am up to Win7 I can see the goal. Microsoft IS copying Apple's OS, feature for feature. Apple IS their idol. It's obvious. They should all just get together and kiss or something, it's sickening.

[kyosaku]

06:54 PM on 12/05/2009

By the way...I cut my teeth on a DEC PDP-1173 back in the early 80's, using an operating system so unique, I can't even remember its name. Next MSDOS. I got my first Mac in 1987 and this is being written on my MacBook Pro. I have used windows because the clunker is in every place I have worked. I do like Windows 7...MS has almost got it right on design...now if they can just make it more reliable and keep the machine running, like my Mac.

[kyosaku]

06:46 PM on 12/05/2009

Graphic User Interface, xeroxed and sold by Apple. The game is a foot. Apple started innovating and the rest of the computer world has been emulating. Apple GUI? Microsoft laughed at the Mac Plus and called it a toy, until they created Windows to hang on to that market share. Apple was spending as much as 30% more of its budget on R&D than Microsoft in the 80's and 90's. Microsoft was the only other system accessible to the less sophisticated "wire-heads" among us.

Then Apple and Adobe ramped up scalable text, rasterized graphics, and laser printing for home use, and called it desktop publishing. By that time Microsoft word and Exel were running on the platform they were written for, Mac, and ready to be ramped up to a new Windows OS. Quicktime and multimedia and Microsoft comes up late with Windows Media Player. An how about Apple movie tools and music production. I could do both on my Mac LCIII.

I am boring myself. I just keep on wondering what Apple will come up with next that Microsoft will laugh at, and have to gag back the laugh to concentrate on cloning the into a new MS innovation.

[bernusdellus]

05:49 AM on 12/05/2009

Microsoft aren't used to competing with Apple in the here and now. Their strategy has always been to build Apple's new ideas into windows around about 4 years after they're introduced [by Apple]. That way, Apple is too busy introducing the next generation's technology to care and windows users still think they're living in the future.

If bill gates wasn't such a crook, and so rich... I'd pity him. Ballmer, of course, is beyond pity [although rich - which doesn't count if you look, act and exist like Gollum].

[Eris23]

09:11 AM on 12/05/2009

Who cares? If Apple hadn't tried marketing themselves as a special status symbol monopoly, more people would buy their tech, myself included. Someone implemented an idea which they can't technically own or control? Tough. Welcome to the real world.

[Maney]

04:02 PM on 12/04/2009

Oh well. Live and learn.

[WSAY]

10:25 AM on 12/04/2009

Innovation? Did he say innovation? Microsoft is a copy cat. They follow others - especially Apple.

[SoCalNick]

01:21 PM on 12/04/2009

WOW you people are delusional as that weird birther lawyer.

You know NOTHING about apples History NOR can you do a simple FACTUAL NEUTRAL web look-up and see how wrong you are. it is getting kind of...weird.

here I will make it easy for you. Go watch the MILLIONS of dollars of commercials that Iphone has out now about all of the " NEW" things they make possible , then go look up the OLD Samsung Omnia ( don't look up the new one you will flush that iphone if you do.)

Look up that OLD phone and try not to choke when you see that the NEW Iphone STILL has HALF of the capabilities of the OLD version of this Globally successful phone and explain that.. I mean in LOGICAL terms not the childish " Well it is cool and apple says it is the best and most popular" lame argument.

Do ANY of you ever TRAVEL??

[FrictionSoul]

01:43 PM on 12/04/2009

Yeah, we travel Nick. And you didn't make it easy as you claimed.

http://omnia.samsungmobile.com/omnia2/

Not available in the US. The sound you hear is me flushing your concern trolling.

[ObamaFarmer]

04:41 PM on 12/04/2009

You talk pretty tough for someone who has the basic facts wrong.

iPhone came out in June 2007, a full year before Omnia I.

[bluguy8]

09:00 AM on 12/04/2009

Microsoft needs managment like Apple has. Ballmer is a joke

[LatteLibertine]

08:53 AM on 12/04/2009

That goofy expression reminds me of McSame post debate with President Obama.

[hottingers]

08:23 AM on 12/04/2009

He's no Gene Simmons.

[Eris23]

08:15 AM on 12/04/2009

Best Gates video ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiH-iA9EO_Q

[Brautigan]

11:58 PM on 12/04/2009

Wow, you weren't kidding - thats a GEM. Lol, I love how Bill has absolutely zero sense of humor about it.

Just hilarious.

[Eris23]

08:56 AM on 12/05/2009

After Windows 98, would you? ;)

[sofla954]

08:04 AM on 12/04/2009

Why is the iphone winning? Developers! Developers! Developers! LOL

[Eris23]

08:04 AM on 12/04/2009

Haha. :)

[LeaderofMen]

08:56 AM on 12/04/2009

Thank you.

[UncleRon]

08:01 AM on 12/04/2009

These guys make -me- laugh. IBM gave MS a license to print money in 1982. They haven't done anything innovative or leading edge at all, ever, since that stroke of good luck. Except to preserve and extend that monopoly and to make absolutely the most money possible off it. They have actually been experts at MISSING every innovation and new trend in the technology market ever since they were born.

They haven't written a line of code or developed a single product that wasn't a complete hilarious joke ever since. But they are experts at monopoly marketing and at making Kool Aid.

The best way to describe MS is like the comedian who calls his wife the worst combination of traits possible: Mean and dumb.

Uncle Ron

[bernusdellus]

05:57 AM on 12/05/2009

I second that.

[FalstaffsMind]

07:58 AM on 12/04/2009

The Windows phone software still can't natively handle a touch screen. Business folks love that. The problem I have with Balmer is he seems to drip arrogance and dismisses things like the iPhone or a blu ray player for xbox like it's inconsequential. If he keeps it up, he's going to have to start his own sailing syndicate.

[SoCalNick]

01:23 PM on 12/04/2009

I HAVE the windows touch screen phone and your post is either a Lie or deliberate falsehood. That Omnia is and always has been Flawless.

Spreading lie like that is low.

[ObamaFarmer]

05:00 PM on 12/04/2009

Omnia copied iPhone. Omnia came out in summer of 2008.

[connecticutyankee]

07:07 AM on 12/04/2009

I'm sure Steve B is not as stupid as he comes across in virtually every clip you ever see of him, but it sure seems that way. Not to just continue the bashing of MS, but their products really do suck, when you consider how much they have to spend. The one good thing about MS is that because they have so much money to waste, they are single-handedly keeping the advertising work alive with all their goofy Windows 7 ads.

[Gaurang Tanna]

06:39 AM on 12/04/2009

How do these nincompoops reach the highest level at one of the largest companies in the world?

[ragtag]

07:56 AM on 12/04/2009

Right place, right time, ruthless.

[bernusdellus]

05:59 AM on 12/05/2009

I don't know, but I'm available if they need a new nincompoop. One thing tho... I have to use an Apple Mac with which to poop my nincoms. Larf, larf, larf.