Steve Ballmer is the last person you’d expect to big up Apple.
But the main man at Microsoft has been quoted as saying Apple isn’t that bad after.
In a speech given at The University of Washington, Ballmer is believed to have said, “Apple’s done a very nice job that allows people to monetise and commercialise their intellectual property."
Sounds vanilla, right? Well, no.
This follows a spate of rumours which suggest Apple is planning to jettison Google mobile search from the iPhone and replace it with Microsoft’s Bing instead.
In that context, Ballmer’s comments can be seen as a swipe at Google, a company both Microsoft and Apple have similar reasons to fear.
Google is growing at an unprecedented rate and surely a tie up between these most unlikely of allies would see Schmidt and pals put in their place.
Bing on iPhone isn’t as far fetched as it sounds.
