Microsoft News Tracker

Last night was the night for the Bill Gates-Steve Jobs joint interview at the D5 conference and not unexpectedly it turned out to be a love-in between the two industry pioneers: (more…)

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer got his turn on the D5 conference hot seat today, but his performance mostly seems to have been soporific:

In a genial interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg Wednesday morning, Ballmer presented a picture of a plodding, predictable, unexciting company. He couldn’t quite say when Microsoft will make some progress against Google (GOOG) in its weak share in Internet search. He couldn’t say why exactly the new Vista operating system was overly complex when it was released. He didn’t particularly enlighten the audience on just why Microsoft is paying $6 billion to buy online ad agency aQuantive (AQNT). By the way, Ballmer won’t mention Google’s name, referring to it merely as “the market leader;”

Nice touch.

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I hate to play Ebenezer Scrooge as Santa Bill Gates opens Microsoft’s sack of lab goodies and comes up with something to announce for the Wall Street Journal’s D5 Conference, but the announcement of Microsoft Surface today is just rife with causes for “Bah, humbug!”

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Next week at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference hosted by Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher there will be a special joint appearance by Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs. While hardly a steel cage match, the conference format is completely interview based with Mossberg and Swisher doing the questioning. To that end, Swisher is requesting input on questions for the dynamic duo and baiting the crowd with some candid snaps of Bill and Steve from the past. In separate sessions, Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer will also get the third degree.