Ballmer on Vista blow

Mr Ballmer said: “We got some uneven reception when [Vista] first launched in large part because we made some design decisions to improve security at the expense of compatibility. I don’t think from a word-of-mouth perspective we ever recovered from that.”

Turning bad news into good though, Ballmer now believes that there’s “pent up demand” for new gear:

“I’d be hopeful that we see a bit more rapid pick-up - particularly people who are upgrading the software without touching the hardware - than maybe we have in years past.”