It’s the fashion in some circles these days to make fun of John McCain because he can barely use the Internet. While he hasn’t described it as a bunch of “tubes,” that honor belongs to Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, McCain is an analog kind of guy in a digital world. Still, no one really expects McCain to be a techno geek. On the other hand, we do expect Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, to at least have a clue about technology. Whoops. Turns out we were wrong.
Back in February, Ballmer was answering questions at Microsoft’s annual Minority Student Day in Redmond. One brave student, emboldened perhaps because he was asking his question remotely from Charlotte, NC, asked, “In the future, does Microsoft plan to do an open-source version of Windows?”
Well, we all know the answer to that one. Ballmer said, “No.”
But then, bless his little heart, he decided to expand on his answer. Fortunately, Todd Bishop, ace Microsoft reporter, was on the scene to report what the Ballmer said.