Steve Ballmer

We?re live from the CES 2010 keynote, featurin? good ol? Steve Ballmer! We?ll keep the live blog flowing as long as Verizon doesn?t crumble under the weight of a thousand bloggers. Check out the live blog after the jump.

Microsoft has reportedly been mulling plans for its own smartphone for months, and a report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday drove the rumors back into high gear. According to the report , the tech giant is already testing its smartphone with suppliers in Asia. The move would continue the firm's push toward becoming hardware and software company in same vein as Apple. Microsoft and its chief executive, Steve Ballmer, have been fairly straightforward about the company's plans to produce more hardware in the...

Last week we showed the highlights and 10+ minutes of video footage of an exclusive hour-long TechCrunch interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer . Now for the rest of that interview. The video was just a teaser. I spoke with Ballmer for another 50 minutes on the record, doing a deeper dive into five key areas of Microsoft's product strategy: Big Opportunities, Operating Systems/Browsers, Mobile, Search and Developers. This post is about big opportunities at Microsoft beyond their dual cash cows of Windows...

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said Tuesday that the company has seen early success with its new operating system, Windows 8. Speaking at the company's BUILD developers conference, Ballmer said that there have been over 4 million upgrades to Windows 8 since the company unveiled the operating system on Friday. According to Ars Technica , that is faster than the upgrade rate for the company's previous operating system, Windows 7 — though the site noted that upgrading to the previous system was more costly.

I chuckled when I read the interview with Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft [Business, June 5], in which he stated that in 10 years all media would be Internet-based and no newspapers and magazines would be delivered in paper form. That reminds me of another prediction I heard back in the 1980s: that new electronic technology would bring about the "paperless office. " I'm still waiting for that. GINNY GOBLE Ellicott City

The pitched battle between billionaire investor Carl Icahn and Yahoo for control of its board could hinge on whether Icahn can convince the company's two largest institutional investors to vote for his alternate slate of directors. Those two investors are Gordon Crawford of Capital Research and Bill Miller of Legg Mason . As of May 7, they each controlled 16 percent and 6.7 percent of Yahoo stock , respectively. Icahn owns at least 4 percent. That's more than a quarter of the voting shares between the three of them.

Microsoft ( NSDQ: MSFT ) stock hit its lowest point in 10 years on Thursday? $18.74?when the tech sector took hits from Cisco ( NSDQ: CSCO ) and Intel ( NSDQ: INTC ), before coming back to close at $21.25. (via AP ) Meantime, Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ) enjoyed something of a rebound?relatively speaking?ending above $300 Thursday after hitting a three-year low the day before. Much of the focus since Microsoft's bid for Yahoo...

Once again, rumors have re-surfaced that Microsoft ( NSDQ: MSFT ) is going to launch a Zune phone?this time at CES in January. I've held off reporting on the rumor because I don't think it is true, but more importantly, if it were true, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. The rumor has been around for years?well, since the Zune first launched. But it seemed it was squashed for good in October, when Microsoft's own Steve Ballmer said the Zune software may...

Microsoft 's ( NSDQ: MSFT ) Steve Ballmer casually mentioned today that Zune may make its way on to new platforms, such as Windows Mobile. Don't get this confused with Microsoft's long-standing insistence that it will not build a Zune phone, which was reiterated as recently as last week by Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft's group product manager for Windows Mobile. He was quoted as saying : "Microsoft has 'no plans to build our own phone...Right now we're happy to share the...

After being passed up to succeed Kevin Johnson as Microsoft 's digital head, Brian McAndrews is turning to venture capital. The former aQuantive CEO, who joined Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) when it acquired the ad group in 2007, is joining Seattle's Madrona Venture Group as managing director. McAndrews led aQuantive for eight years before stepping up as SVP of Microsoft's Advertiser & Publisher Solutions as he integrated the group in to Microsoft. He was tipped to replace...

There's a new hardware player in town, but it has a familiar name: Microsoft. The software king has taken a hard look at itself and refocused its efforts on what it calls "devices and services" to kick off a new company chapter. The decision was announced in a letter to shareholders from Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. He called the move a "significant shift" that affects every part of the company. The letter codifies a strategy Microsoft has been headed toward for a while, pulling a page out of...

Microsoft took a big step Tuesday with its next version of Office, saying that it will base the lucrative software in the cloud first and then make the entire suite capable of touch navigation. The move not only brings Microsoft a new model for Office but also gives the company's tablets and phones a significant point of leverage for enterprise customers. Microsoft is facing pressure from other cloud-based office software suites — most notably from Google. But Microsoft's decision to...

Microsoft unveiled its newest version of Office and talked about the momentum that Microsoft has right now. But this time, it's also on your (Windows) phone and your (Windows) tablet. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said that Office is one of the "most exciting" products the company offers, though not one that get a lot of press coverage. But the company is radically remaking the Office suite — to be a service, not a product. To translate: Office is going cloud first.

Windows 8 PCs are officially coming in October, and Microsoft is holding nothing back when it comes to going after the competition. In an interview with the tech news organization CRN , Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer said that while the company has "ceded some of the boundary between hardware and software innovation" to Apple in the past, it is not going to do that anymore. "We are trying to make absolutely clear we are not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple," he told...

Responding to a news report that many interpreted to mean that LG is planning to end its development of Windows Phones, the Korean electronics company said Tuesday that it has no Windows device "in the pipeline" but isn't abandoning the platform. "At the moment, LG is primarily focusing on developing Android-equipped smartphones," the company said in a statement sent to The Washington Post. "Contrary to what some articles have said, LG is not giving up on Windows Phones. " The possibility that LG was pulling out of...

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer gave his final keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show today, promoting the "reimagined" Windows 8 operating system launching later this year. The software uses Microsoft's Metro user interface from the Windows Phone platform, and it brings Windows up to date for the era of apps, touchscreens, and pretty new user interfaces. In that sense, Ballmer believes it will fend off competition from rivals such as Google's Android and Apple's...

A couple of weeks ago, we ranked digital-media CEOs by the size of paychecks. But many of these titans derive most of their wealth not from salary, bonus or options, but from their holdings in the companies they run. In fact, Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs, among others, draw an annual salary of $1. So how have new media CEOs fared in this market? It's not pretty: Anybody who reads Forbes annual billionaire list probably knows that Ballmer, Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Barry...

You almost have to wonder: with Yahoo executives all rushing for the door at the same time , could shareholders force the company back into Microsoft 's ( NSDQ: MSFT ) arms? Mithras Capital, a holder of 1.7 million Yahoo shares (pretty tiny in the scheme of things) has sent an open letter to Steve Ballmer, asking him to revisit the partial offer for Yahoo ( NSDQ: YHOO ). Only this time, the firm wants Microsoft to bypass Yahoo's management and go directly to...

Often a bit more substantial than what one can pick up from the hustle and bustle of the showroom floor, the keynote speeches at the annual Consumer Electronics Show can set the tone for the year ahead. This year — apart from Microsoft's usual (but final) keynote speech — the speakers list draws heavily from mobile carriers and manufacturers as well as automakers, though stalwarts such as Xerox and General Electric are represented as well. Here's a breakdown of the keynote speakers by day. Monday: Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer...

The technology industry's biggest show-and-tell event — the Consumer Electronics Show — is losing its anchor company, Microsof t. Microsoft said it decided to pull out of CES after the January 2012 show because it no longer fits its needs and its timing does not always mesh with its product announcements. "We asked, ‘Are we doing something because it's the right thing to do, or because it's the way we've always done it?' " Frank Shaw, Microsoft's vice president of...