Ballmer: iPhone won't get any significant market share

In an interview with USA Today, Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, had a thing or two to say about the iPhone:

"Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody.

Now we'll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."

Wow, generous Steve. Apple are only aiming for 1% in 2008, so you may have unintentionally complimented them.

As to a Zune phone? There won't be one:

"It's not a concept you'll ever get from us. We're in the Windows Mobile business. We wouldn't define our phone experience just by music. A phone is really a general purpose device. You want to make telephone calls, you want to get and receive messages, text, e-mail, whatever your preference is. The phone really is kind of a general purpose device that we need to have clean and easy to use."

Though based on iPhone versus Zune, it'd stand little chance of making it in the mobile world even if it did launch.

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