Ballmer is winning...and nuts.

Straight outta Ballmer's mouth, "We’re winning, winning, winning, winning!"  Which leads to the question, is Ballmer nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts?

NUTS#1: Okay, so Ballmer believes Microsoft is beating Google in the cloud. At the very least, this is an admission that Microsoft was LATE to the cloud and coming from the rear position. But I'm not convinced they're winning -- I've seen younger and smaller businesses adopting Google Apps, tossing Microsoft's costly solution to the bins of yesteryear.  The only companies that are not doing this, are those stodgy old firms that have old men in control, and like their Office 2003 running on XP.  And Google updates its Apps and other cloud-based services regularly, while Microsoft waits for annual milestones (case in point: Android vs WP7, see NUTS#2).

NUTS#2: Then Ballmer goes off on more crazy talk, saying "You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone. I think you do to use an Android phone."  Apparently the US (and the world) is filled with really smart people, considering the growing market share of Android, and shrinking market of WP7.  And anyway, selling down to idiots is never going to win, considering most people want to believe they're smarter than they actually are.  In other words, buying a WP7 phone is an admission that you're an idiot, and no one wants to make that admission.  He could have sold WP7 on the basis of making your already complex life easier, but that's not what he said, right?

NUTS#3: But here's where Ballmer gets downright weird.  According to Search Engine Land, Ballmer suggested that between Bing and Google, "70% of the time, there won’t be any difference in the results, that 15% of the time, Bing will be better and 15% of the time, Google will be better."  So, exactly WHY would a Google user want to use Bing, if you're getting the same results with Google AND a lot of freebies to boot?

NUTS#4: And to top it all off, Ballmer has decided to leave no friend unscathed. Given the opportunity (an audience question) he trashed Yahoo.  On the issue of the failed buyout of Yahoo, Ballmer said, "Hallelujah...You know times change...sometimes you're lucky."  Yahoo's so lucky to have a friend like Microsoft, serving up its search results that has only ended up eroding its own market share in the US, then to have Microsoft trash-talk about them.

I rest my case nuts.