Touch and Squirt

To celebrate the release of Microsoft's latest attempt at an operating system, Vista, I've decided to dedicate a post to the Dick Cheney of Microsoft, CEO Steve Ballmer. Well known as a champion chair thrower, Steve also has a wonderful way with words. Here are a few choice quotes from an interview he gave to Business Week back in October last year:

Business Week: Who are Microsoft's top competitors?
Ballmer: Guys who can touch us in multiple places probably matter more than guys who can touch us in any one place. And actually we don't really have our big competition from any one company. Any one company, we know how to compete with... there are cases where software gets monetized through hardware. That's what an iPod is. iPod is a software thing. You just happen to collect the money on the hardware.

BW: Does Zune fit into the hardware piece of this?
Ballmer: Sure it does. Because the value of Zune, if we're successful, is all in the software. It's in community [the ability to share music and pictures with other Zune users]. I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation. That's a software experience. The truth is, though, if it makes money, it will be built into the gross margin on the hardware. We'll figure out how to make money on the community perhaps later though advertising or other means.

Here's squirting at you, Steve.