Balmer Vows to Kill Google

An anonymous reader writes "Probably due to the Microsoft suit against Google over human resources, some very heated exchanges have turned up in some court documents. Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer has apparently vowed to kill Internet search leader Google, according to documents filed in the increasingly bitter battle between the rivals." From the article: "At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google,'' Lucovosky said in his statement. Lucovosky replied that he was joining Google. 'At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office,' Lucovosky recounted, adding that Ballmer then launched into a tirade about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. 'I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google.' Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell."

It is nice to know.

[jellomizer (103300)]

That the CEO of Microsoft is a calm and collective guy. With good management come good software. I am glad that 90% of the worlds computers are running software by responsible and rational managers.

Re:It is nice to know.

[BlueLightning (442320)]

the CEO of Microsoft is a calm and collective guy

I know he works for the Borg and all, but I think you meant "collected".

Re:It is nice to know.

[Rogerborg (306625)]

Collective works as well. I'm minded of a Cerebus the Aardvark quote.

• Jaka: If you could be as rich as you wanted, how much money would you want?
• Cerebus: All of it.
• Jaka: No, I mean, imagine that you could have all the money in the world. How much of it would you want?
• Cerebus: All of it.

Typographical Obscensity

[minginqunt (225413)]

It comes as something of a surprise that Steve Ballmer doesn't know how to spell the word "fuck".

Or maybe "f***ing" is the poster's way of representing Ballmer's dribbling, shouting, flobbing, ranting, malsonorous splange of words laughingly called his voice.

Nice man.

Re:Typographical Obscensity

[Dr. Evil (3501)]

I worked for one of these guys, I'd rather the icy monster any day.

This kind of explosion reeks of a fellow who feels indestructable in his current position. Breaking out in a violent, destructive rage in the office is not normal, even for these guys.

Just think of his assistant who has to go in afterwards, brief him about his next meetings then contact facilities to send somebody to fix the wall and replace the chair.

I feel for them, not the multimilliondollar exec throwing a tantrum like a four year old.

Besides, a tantrum like that would really make me glad I'm leaving.

Re:Typographical Obscensity

[no-body (127863)]

Give the guy a break. He's got a high pressure job.

Nobody forces him to do this job. He sure got enough cash to live comfortably several life times on it.

But that's not what this is about. It is dominating others, succeeding with manipulation and violence - compulsively, for decades. Does he have a choice? Probably not - regrettably.

Throwing chairs and tantrums is abusive behavior. You seem to tolerate this kind of behavior as "human". I think, it's not yet quite human.

Re:Typographical Obscensity

[jcr (53032)]

Give the guy a break.

You know, I'd be a lot more sympathetic towards the Sweaty One, if he wasn't so... What's the word? Oh, yeah: culpable.

-jcr

Bury?

[Chemisor (97276)]

I see that he has remembered the "We will bury you" line without having remembered the fate of the utterer which he is likely to emulate in some near future.

For those that weren't born then...

[PetoskeyGuy (648788)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you [wikipedia.org]

Reminds me of that recent article about testing CEO's for being a sociopath. :)

/. readers begin to softly chant ..

[b3x (586838)]

two men enter, one man leaves
two men enter, one man leaves
TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES!

Steve Ballmer has Issues

[Altima(BoB) (602987)]

Steve Ballmer can kill anyone he wants! Steve Ballmer throws chairs ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. This guy is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that Steve Ballmer was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon Ballmer killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw Steve Ballmer totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Steve Ballmer has Issues

[RootsLINUX (854452)]

Hilarious. If only I had mod points to spare right now. For those of you who don't get the joke, I suggest you take a look at the following website and get a life before a ninja comes and chops your head off! http://www.realultimatepower.net/ [realultimatepower.net]

Quote taken completely out of context...

[Rahga (13479)]

The scene was more like this:

Balmer: 'I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google.'

BillG: YEAH!
Balmer: Then I'm going to take this frikkin chair, smash his face with it, and lick the blood off the ring.

BillG: Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Watcha gonna dooooo....

Balmer: BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'M REALLY PUMPED UP ABOUT!?!?!

BillG: Oooooh Yeah!

Balmer: I just saved a boatload of money by switching to Geico.

(Running on excercise machine)
BillG: You can dooo it!!!

the price of vengeance

[moviepig.com (745183)]

Assuming that the chair-throwing and the mindset it implies are true... whose stock do you buy or sell?

Google?... Microsoft?... (OfficeMax?)

Wow...

[Jugalator (259273)]

I was shocked to see this was actually not a The Onion article like last time.

That monkey dancer never cease to amaze me.

Why kill?

[miffo.swe (547642)]

I dont understand why its so important for Microsoft to kill any competition. If they succeed in creating a bigger market they still earn more money even with lots of competitors. Is Microsoft really nothing more than a wanking session for two really pathetic men? One would have thought they would have matured by now and start to think about what they leave after they die. Why not start doing good things for computing for a change? MS has been the biggest roadblock in software evolution to date and nothing can change that if Microsoft doesnt start to behaive like grownups.

Re:Why kill?

[jcr (53032)]

I dont understand why its so important for Microsoft to kill any competition.

It's probably because they're intensely aware of the mediocrity of their products. The only validation they can get is market share, so they fight tooth an nail against any potential threat to that market share. Witness in particular the way they torpedoed Netscape, and made damn sure that BeOS couldn't make any OEM deals.

-jcr

And this is the problem, isn't it?

[mcc (14761)]

Microsoft can't coexist with anyone. To them, "the competition" is anyone in the computer industry who is making money or gaining power who is not them. You cannot possibly say MSN search or, say, microsoft netmeeting were serious products Microsoft cared about or which were serious competitors to google or skype when they started up; you cannot possibly say the appearance of skype or google threatened any product that Microsoft was even meaningfully supporting. Yet skype and google gain mindshare, and suddenly making the "google killer" or the "skype killer" become huge priorities. Or at the other end of things, Microsoft ignored Adobe for years as long as they were powerless, profitable but consigned to a "niche", predictable; but suddenly Adobe starts having influence on popular file formats in the form of PDF (invented) or Flash (bought), starts showing signs of growth, and suddenly it becomes absolutely essential for some reason that Microsoft create a PDF Killer.

Microsoft keeps demonstrating, again and again, that they believe no one may have power but them, and keep killing companies to attain that goal. And people just keep pretending this is somehow good for the market, because the idea that market forces could lead to something other than the perfect outcome is just something some people just don't want to admit could happen.

But this is hurting the market, in the most direct way possible: Microsoft's expansion strategy is based not on finding the next big thing, but on stopping it before it starts.

Supposedly the computer industry lives and thrives on small discoveries that grow to the "next big thing". You know, the proverbial cliche of the startup in somebody's garage, a new way of looking at things, an idea that could change the world, yadda yadda yadda. But more and more the fact is-- and most people see this-- if you find that brilliant idea, if you sweat and pour your life and blood and tears into making the new next greatest thing, ... then the first thing that happens is the most powerful company in all of software suddenly has it as priority number one to take you out, duplicate your product and give it away for free, subsume your functionality into the OS, etc. They won't always succeed at this, but they have at least the ability to make your life and job very difficult without even breaking a sweat. And it has been demonstrated that even in the most flagrant case of destructive behavior, even if they are tried and convicted of illegal acts, there will be no consequences for them.

What is the point of trying to build, or finance something revolutionary like Skype, if you know that whatever it is (even if it isn't something Microsoft does yet) Success will just result in Microsoft signing a corporate death warrant? The answer is obviously "because you love what you are doing", but what about the people who don't love what they're doing enough to take the risk of so much wasted effort? Are there people who would be going out and doing new and interesting things they aren't doing now in a world where trying to change the face of computing is rewarded rather than punished? What kind of chilling effect is this having?

Re:And this is the problem, isn't it?

[salesgeek (263995)]

What kind of chilling effect is this having?

Go ask Google, Skype, Symantec, Apple, the local Linux guy, all of which benefit immensely from Microsoft not getting it until it's too late.

I used to work for a company that had a mini MS complex: we thought everyone in IT industry services sector or reseller channel was a competition. The result: we fought a war on 900 fronts and could not bring critical resources to bear on our real competitors (other national mega resellers). Eventually, we were spending more money on trying to out-market and out business develop inconsequential competitors and our sales guys were losing sales because we were not able to deliver hardware on time to customers.

Right now, MS is showing signs of what I saw at Inacom:

* Changes and delays with their OS product.
* Development of huge initiatives that business partners want and customers don't want like DRM and trusted computing
* Not adapting to changing business models - open source for example.
* Ability to market, but not deliver - like the MSN search that was going to be more accurate, etc...
* Competing against yourself - AXAPTA, NAVISION, GreatPlains... how many competing and overlapping ERP/CRM packages do you need?
* When was the last time there was a major real change in office, anyway?
* Oh, and ceeding the entire low end of the computer industry to Linspire and linux (when was the last time you saw a new windowsXP computer for $250)?

It Goes Both Ways

[Comatose51 (687974)]

'I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google.' Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell."

You know Schmidy is just harboring some serious grudge against MS right now. If Balmer thinks he's the only one with the motivation to compete, he doesn't know what it's like to be driven vengenance. Schmidt is like the underdog who've been kicked around and have finally made his break. We all know how those stories end.

Da da da da dum Inspector Google da da da dum dum

[nurhussein (864532)]

Imagine, if you will, Dr. Claw, banging on his desk, alarming his cat:

I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME GOOGLE! NEXT TIME!!!

Its shows they KEEP THE EMAILS

[NigelJohnstone (242811)]

Next time Microsoft gets sued and pretends it has destroyed the emails, they should point to this incident as an example of how they find emails when they want to - even deleted emails on a local PC.

Time to rethink owning MSFT stock?

[amichalo (132545)]

Investors should take note of these types of situations.

While we all think it funny, it offers insight into the emotional response of the CEO of the world's largest software company. It shows his a weakness, that he is personally threatened by Google, and a despiration, that he feels Google just one upped him. There is a difference between being passionate about your products and being threatened by your market mates.

Is this the type of personality you would want running the company your 401(k) was invested in? Your retirement future, child's education, or second house at the lake, all riding on the ability of a short tempered reactionist who would scream and shout and create a personal vendetta not only aginst a competitor, but CEO-to-CEO?

In many cases the CEO is a significant reason to invest in a company - that's why there are such massive stock sell offs or buy ins when leadership changes (look at HP recently as an example or further back to Chrysler, GM, etc).

I'd rather invest in a company who's CEO is headstrong and confident enough to try to innovate their competition our of existance, not temper tantrem their CEO to death.

Patent Infringement

[RavenChild (854835)]

I think Balmer is violating Nintendo's Insanity Patent.

In the year 2010

[nastro (32421)]

Overheard in the Google boardroom --

Balmer: I've done far worse than kill you, Google. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Buried alive.
Google: BAAAAALLLLLMER!!!!!!

Antitrust issues

[acordes (69618)]

I find this story very interesting, because back when I was in college I interned at Intel. Very first day we went through antitrust training because Intel had been burned a couple of times on antitrust issues. One of the big points they made was don't ever claim that some technology is an "AMD-killer" or that we're going to "kill" a certain company. Statements like that can be used in antitrust proceedings as proof that you were actively trying to force a competitor out of the marketplace. Not sure if it applies here, but there are definitely some similarities.

"From the Article"

[jimbolaya (526861)]

"At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google'".

I do not see that line anywhere in the article.

Balmer talks about Eric Schmidt

[doormat (63648)]

An original blog entry...
http://battellemedia.com/archives/001835.php [battellemedia.com]

At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google." ....

I have met Mark Lucovosky....

[notaprguy (906128)]

Lucovosky is a smart guy but is also a prima donna quite capable of embellishment. Let's just say there are undoubtedly two sides to this story. I read the story linked to from the original post and note that Ballmer said that Lucovosky exaggerated the meeting. Based on my interactions with Lucovosky I would tend to believe Ballmer. That said, I have no doubt that Ballmer was passionaet and noisy. Anyone with an Internet connection knows that (Developers! Developer! Developers!).

Re:Are you allowed to post that

[David Horn (772985)]

No, if anything, it's libel. Very roughly, slander is spoken, libel is written.

Re:Are you allowed to post that

[Lifewish (724999)]

It's a quote, hence (if I understand correctly) it's not required of Slashdot that it be true, only that it be an accurate representation of what that person said.

Re:Are you allowed to post that

[Rogerborg (306625)]

Court filings are protected. You can't be sued for libel in a civil action over what you tell a court; you can, however, be jailed for perjury if you're caught lying.

Clarification

[Rogerborg (306625)]

You can't be sued over what you only say in court. If you repeate the same slander or libel outside of court, you can be sued for that after the case has ended (regardless of whether you're found guilty of perjury), as SCO's executives might find out soon.

Re:Are you allowed to post that

[by Anonymous Coward]

listen, jerk, this clearly unstable guy has armies of "developers, developers, developers!" standing by ready to crush anything he doesn't like. intead of attempting to help prop up this man's onviously twisted tyranny infomred by his unhinged world view, you should be using your lofty powers as a slashdotter to bring him down.

we have hundreds of thousands of socially mal-adjusted virgins at our fingertips i say we pool respources and attack microsft this weekend unless they have a whole bunch of females stockpiled at the microsft campus nothing can stop us!
 

Re:Are you allowed to post that

[Aim Here (765712)]

Sworn testimony in a court case is usually considered 'evidence'.

Hope this helps.

Re:Steve Ballmer Soprano

[BWJones (18351)]

He looks a bit like Tony Soprano on that article's picture, this is truly scary.I kind of half imagine him like Scarface at the end of the Pacino movie.

Hardly. This is the sort of crap that you expect from the overly indulged geek who becomes CEO or from the jock CEO. Look, anytime somebody exhibits this sort of behavior, there is something fundamentally wrong with their character. I've had a boss in the past that pulled this kind of crap on me and I simply told him that it would not be acceptable behavior and I would not tolerate it. I then walked out of the room treating him like the child he was. The guy leaving for Google made the right decision.

Re:Steve Ballmer Soprano

[dabigpaybackski (772131)]

I kind of half imagine him like Scarface at the end of the Pacino movie.

"Say hello to muh lil' chair!"

Re:Steve Ballmer Soprano

[TGK (262438)]

Quite frankly, I keep waiting for him to address the UN. Maybe use some footwear to make his point.

Look at these two guys

Balmer [suzansworld.com]
Khrushchev [jfk.org]

He's always kind of reminded me of Khrushchev, but threatening to bury Google.... it's just a little to Warsaw pact, even for my tastes.

Re:Steve Jobs was right

[ScentCone (795499)]

Steve Jobs was right ... Steve Jobs was right

Oh, please. Check with people at Apple or Pixar and ask if Jobs has ever had a maximum-flake-factor freaky tirade in their own personal cubicle before. Don't let the sandals fool you. He's no paragon of zen-like level headedness when confronted with contrary news, uppity employees, or a marketplace that doesn't always see things his way.

I take it you didn't see the video then?

[reality-bytes (119275)]

I'll take it you've never watched the Steve Balmer "Developers, developers, developers" video then? (aka Monkey Dance)

Well if you missed it: have a look here [tarmo.fi]

Re:monkeyboy needs thorazine

[by Anonymous Coward]

>At least he's passionate about his job.
> That's more than you can say about a lot of
>executives. What's wrong with wanting to crush
>the competition?

Uhh, being passionate is a relative thing.
Being passionate about creating new art is
a good thing. Being passionate about being
a serial killer is a bad thing.

Being passionate as a thug I would argue
is not a good thing. Please keep in mind
that the goal of a businessman is to do
business, not to throw chairs around
a room, nor to threaten an individual
with bodily harm. That kind of behavior
is simply childish and unprofessional.

A professional would have looked at the
situation and thought how to improve his
business. Ballmer did neither.

--Johnny
P.s. Tell Monkeyboy keep up the good
work and show us what good leadership
is all about.

Re:monkeyboy needs thorazine

[Hope Thelps (322083)]

At least he's passionate about his job. That's more than you can say about a lot of executives. What's wrong with wanting to crush the competition? That's what capitalism's all about.

True. I believe a whole chapter of The Wealth of Nations was devoted to the importance of chair throwing.

Re:monkeyboy needs thorazine

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

And, actually, wanting to crush competition is not what capitalism is all about. The idea that competitors need to be crushed instead of, well, competed with is largely what is wrong with capitalism today. It is also precisely what is wrong with Microsoft.

Re:monkeyboy needs thorazine

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Crushing competition, in the Microsoft sense, means using virtually any means to eliminate said competition. According to the Federal court that deemed Microsoft an illegal monopolist, that includes illegal tactics, and lots of them. That is not capitalism, that is not a free market, and in the long run we lose. If you'd been in the personal computer business since its inception (like I have) you'd have some awareness of the staggering number of ideas, technologies and products that Microsoft either suppressed or stole outright. And I have no doubt that there are thousands more that we'll never know about. If that's capitalism in action I'll take vanilla, thank you very much.

And no, I don't think you understand what capitalism is truly about. In pretty much all marketplaces there is room for more than one supplier of goods and services. Certainly that is the case with operating systems and office suites. And no reasonable person would have a problem with a corporation "crushing" its competition by providing a quality product, since it would be the consumer's choice to, in effect, grant a near-monopoly to that company. And when the value of that monopoly's product falls off and someone else becomes top dog for a while ... hey, now that's capitalism, market-driven all the way. But that's a far cry from what Microsoft has been doing.

Really, that view of the business world is fundamentally incompatible with Gates & Ballmer's. Their idea of successful competition is the wholly-unenlightened approach of ruthlessly suppressing or eliminating anything that is or might become a threat to Microsoft's hegemony. That's the history of that company, much of which was brought out during the antitrust trial (read up on the "Microsoft tax" and some of the interesting contracts Microsoft forced on the big hardware makers to keep competing OSes out of the picture.)

Actually, I would have to say that Microsoft's way of doing "business" is really more in line with Chinese or even Japanese methodologies than those of traditional American or European businesses. I was watching a TLC program (I think it was TLC) that showed a business strategy meeting from some unnamed large Japanese manufacturer. It was run along near-military lines, and was full of terms like "englobement", "encirclement", "cutting supply lines" and "choking off their air." I found it very interesting, since it was all aimed at removing some competitor from existence (they didn't say who.) I'd like to be a fly on the wall at some of Gates' strategy meetings. I suspect he learned a thing or two from the Japanese.

Re:monkeyboy needs thorazine

[miffo.swe (547642)]

You cant really mix passionate with completely mad. Wanting to crush the competition is not sane since the goal is to make money, not kill everybody else. If your goal is to crush your competition regardless if you make more money on it you are way off.

Capitalism is about healthy competition that follows rules. When coorporations compete on common ground it drives prices down and quality up and fosters innovation. I have never ever read about how capitalism is supposed to foster killing competitors with legal tactics, bribes and by using illegal or shoddy business deals. You probably mistake capitalism for anarchy.

Re:monkeyboy needs thorazine

[gallondr00nk (868673)]

I think you're describing the ideology of capitalism, rather than capitalism in practice. Innovation is no longer fostered by capitalism, it is capped. With the rise of DRM, propriatory solutions, closed standards, cheap 3rd world labour and large scale downsizing the idea of capitalism has changed to *maintaining* an advantage, rather then innovating it. Development hasn't given momentum to corporate profit in 10 years. It's control of a current market, pure and simple. Give any corporation the chance to monopolise the industry and they will. Consumers gain nothing out of the current situation.

That's why Capitalism must be controlled.

[khasim (1285)]

Our current government is "pro-Business" rather than "pro-Market".

Being pro-Business means that you pass laws designed to protect the revenue streams of businesses (copyright extensions, DMCA, patents on "business methods", etc).

Being pro-Market means that you pass laws designed to facilitate competition in a market and curb the excesses of existing companies.

Chomsky's wrong...

[Svartalf (2997)]

Sure, it's the system. The problem with that argument is that it takes the people who put the system into place out of the whole discussion. Doing so, you neglect that it's the people who institute the system and the ones that execute it that make it even exist. Doing so, it makes it seem that the system is the problem, not the people- but then, look at what happened in WWII... The system's the one that set up the scenerio for the horrific acts performed- why didn't we blame the system? Oh, that's right, following orders doesn't count in that- just as the people who instituted the system was guilty of the acts.

Re:Put aside the Microsoft bashing for a second...

[yagu (721525)]

Kai Fu-Lee was an important executive at Microsoft and was a key resource on their expansion into China.

So? Important executives leave companies all the time.

Even before quitting at Microsoft, Kai Fu-Lee was working secretly for Google by sending them Microsoft documents. Google admits this, but their defense is that it was public information anyway.

The article doesn't say that. It says Microsoft alleges Fu-Lee sent Microsoft documents. Regardless, there is no statement in the article and no evidence I've seen in any articles about this squabble the Fu-Lee "worked" for Google secretly or otherwise while still at Microsoft. How crazy would that be aside from the already present risk of a non-compete clause in his existing Microsoft agreement?

Kai Fu-Lee had an employment contract with Microsoft that Google conspired with Lee to violate. At least two violations occurred including his non-compete agreement and working against the company you're working for while you're working for it.

Again, two alleged violations occurred. As for non-compete clauses, there is high suspicion in the industry and in the courts these types of agreements are even legal.

A judge already ruled preliminarily in Microsoft's favor, stating that Lee could not do the duties at Google he was hired to do.

Getting the preliminary injunction in cases like this is pretty standard procedure. No judge is going to allow a potential violation of a contract (or crime) be committed is it can be checked first. This is not unusual. I don't know what the final result will be here, but I'm guessing Fu-Lee will prevail.

Re:Call the FBI

[Tango42 (662363)]

No, he said he'd kill Google, not the people at Google. Big difference. A company is an entity independent of its employees.