USA Today caught up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and ended up getting a pretty interesting interview out of him, considering BlackBerry found its way into the conversation. When the big question popped up on why he hasn’t made a run for RIM, his answer was quick. Not only does he want to build around Microsoft, he believes that Windows Phone 7 has brought the ‘best looking phones on the market.’
There’s a lot of competition, but we’ve got the best-looking phones on the market. We’ve got the greatest range of alternatives, the phones, the software, the craftsmanship. It is as good or better than anything out there. We have a lot of work to do. But, we’re in the game. We sold 1.5 million into the carriers.
Q: What has stopped you from making really bold bets on technology? You’ve got more than $40 billion on the balance sheet. If you want to have substantial market share in smartphones, why not just acquire Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry?
A: We’ve made bold technology bets. We’ve bet on the Cloud and our Enterprise business; it’s going fantastic. We made the bet on Xbox; we made the bet on Kinect. We bet on Bing and are growing like a weed in that business. So I feel pretty good about the bets. When do acquisitions make sense? That’s a complicated subject.
You can read the entire interview here via USA Today