I’m listening to Steve Ballmer on the link provided sounding like Emerald – “BAM!” (oh, how annoying to hear) talking about how innovative they are with Windows Azure and cloud computing. Oh wait, cloud computing already exist thru Google. Guess it’s not so innovative after all. Reminds me of the old adage “Apple innovates, Microsoft imitates”.

Just so that I don’t sound like I’m a Mac Fanboy, here’s my background. Microsoft has been keeping food in my belly and a roof over my head for over 12 years. That being said, I think my opinion is objective rather than subjective. How many things has Microsoft brought to market BEFORE anyone else? Microsoft’s the leader in spreadsheets, word processor. For those too young to remember, there were apps preceeding Microsoft including Lotus 1-2-3 (spreadsheat), WordPerfect (word processor – both of which blew MS out the water). MS came out with Zune – filled with such great new things. Oh wait, iPod was out first. How about SliverLight. Flash already does that? Bummer. Active Directory is a great feature, used in corporations around the world. Too bad Novell did the same thing with NDS 10 years earlier! What’s even better? It worked on Windows, Novell AND Unix.

What’s my point? Ballmer’s bashing of Android (and iPhone a year earlier) is par for the course. With all the resources Microsoft has why didn’t they come out with the iPhone? After getting the snot kicked out of them by Apple’s iPhone, why didn’t MS come out with Android? Windows Mobile is supposed to mimic the desktop (the Windows desktop no less). So why does while Android look more like a Windows desktop than Windows?

IBM said the exact same things about a small little software company when they approached IBM asking them to license their OS. IBM was too arrogant to see the vision of that small company. So instead of PC DOS being on every PC, Microsoft DOS became the standard. Microsoft has become IBM and will suffer the same fate. They’ll still be around, but other companies and alliances (Open Handset Alliance) are going to push them into the same place IBM is now. I so hope Android becomes a desktop OS down the road.

Ok – guess I’ll end my manifesto here.

P.S. I’d rather stand in the arctic w/o a coat than listen to Ballmer again for an hour.