Asked about his outlook for the future of media by the Washington Post, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer answered this: “In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion. Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”
Well, this take is actually pretty reassuring considering the litany of things where Microsoft was dead wrong. Bill Gates was right in two instances (big ones for sure): Windows and Office. On all the rest, it essentially missed the boat: most of the Internet positions — both PC and mobile based — were left to other players. And today, what remains of Microsoft domination is seriously challenged by “cloud” hosted applications. Guess who has the biggest chances to be gone within ten years? By the way, hearing the cling-clung noise of forks and knifes, this semi-amateurish video of Ballmer was taken by a Washington Post staffer. Actually, 185 of them have been trained to use the medium, as explains Chet Rhodes, Assistant Managing Editor for News Video at the Post on Beet.tv.
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