Steve Ballmer is back in the public eye for the first time in a while, appearing on Bloomberg this morning to talk about the technology industry and he had a lot to say about other companies.
Ballmer, Microsoft’s ex-CEO, was asked about Apple’s current position and said that “Microsoft will give them a good run for their money” and that “nobody else has really tried to compete with them anymore really seriously in hardware.”
According to Ballmer, Microsoft is the only one that can take on the company; “if there’s going to be any competition at all for Apple it will come from Microsoft.” He acknowledged, however, that “they’ve done a good job.”
He also couldn’t help but take a few jabs at other companies, like Amazon, which was recently in the spotlight thanks to a New York Times investigation on working conditions at the company.
Ballmer said that “I think they are a place that people don’t want to work” and that “anybody who ever left Microsoft [to work at Amazon], we could count on them coming back within a year or two because it’s not a great place to work.” He claims that “many, many people” made a round trip between the companies.
When asked about Twitter, Ballmer, who is one of Twitter’s biggest investors said that “there’s all kinds of opportunity” at the company and believes “Jack’s on top of it.”
Before today, Ballmer has stayed mostly out of the spotlight, other than being spotted at a few Clippers games in Los Angeles.
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