Software Piracy Due to Expensive Hardware, Says Ballmer

It really amazes me how many stupid statements come out of Microsoft these days. Now, from the Microsoft employees that have participated on my blog on multiple occasions, I know they have some smart and clued in people. Why they continue to let the PHB's say things like this, however, I just don't understand. Ballmer wants a $100 PC so people can run a crappy OS that costs $200? The first time he said that out loud, a bell should have went off when he realized it made no sense. In the same article, Ballmer also defended a comment made earlier this year by Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, who said security will not be an issue in three years. I could have sworn we heard something similar years ago, when their new “focus” was security. In three years, security will be an issues for *EVERY* OS. There is just no such thing as a networked computer that is 100% secure. People write applications, and people just make mistakes sometimes. Way to set a realistic expectation there. The real question is, will the next version of Windows even be available in three years, and if it is will anyone even care! (While the answer to that last one is clearly a yes, my guess is, by the time Longhorn does finally come out, Windows will have lost a significant share of the desktop market. If it hasn't, we've lost).
–jeremy