It's hard to read this as anything but "Touch my money and the workers get it in the neck."
Ballmer never was the subtle one. Getting into a public pissing match with a president who has shown a certain willingness to take decisive action in matters relating to ensuring that the money keeps moving, may not be the wisest move.
What will Obama do? Kill Microsoft in response? Ballmer has to serve the Microsoft shareholders, not the American people. Obama has to serve the American people, not the shareholders.
Let us face it, the president and other members of government are, in many ways, a bunch of puppets. They shape the policies and create the incentives, but they can't force business to do what they want. Unless we turn into a totalitarian state.
How much money does the federal government drive to Microsoft?
If they really got into it Obama could make a very public push for "Greater Opennness and transparency in government through the use of Open Source Software", it wouldn't have to be aimed at Microsoft, but it would kind of suck to be concerned about Microsoft's share price that week.
And if Microsoft whined about it he could just point to the fact that they've decided not to be an American company anymore.
Not that it's going to get that far, Ballmer is just bluffing.
"How much money does the federal government drive to Microsoft?" If they really got into it Obama could make a very public push for "Greater Opennness and transparency in government through the use of Open Source Software".
Good point. The government does have a lot of leverage on that. But, seriously, why doesn't the government go open-source, thus saving billions to the taxpayers, and why doesn't MS move a lot of its developers overseas? Taxpayers would win, MS would probably save tons of money and partially compensate for the lost revenue.
I have never worked at Microsoft, but I have a bunch of friends working there. None of them are U.S. citizens. Many of them are Indian, and half of what they make at MS in the U.S. would buy them an upper middle class lifestyle in Bangalore, allow them to be closer to family, to enjoy a high social status (developers have no status in the U.S.), and they could even hire maids to take care of their children and cook for them.
From an economic point of view, it would make sense to move towards greater efficiency, wouldn't it?
Ballmer never was the subtle one. Getting into a public pissing match with a president who has shown a certain willingness to take decisive action in matters relating to ensuring that the money keeps moving, may not be the wisest move.