Ballmer: why Microsoft is like a 3-year old

From the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco

Steve Ballmer, the larger-than-life chief executive of Microsoft, is not known for subtelty or understatement. But his description today of how Microsoft is playing catch-up in the search advertising market - long dominated by Google, the company's arch rival - reached new heights of enthusiasm.

Asked by the conference moderator whether, in the search market, Microsoft had behaved "a bit like 'little Johnny' who got smacked over the head by his parents," Mr Ballmer's reply, which credscendoed to a thunderous climax, went: "Oh yeah, we're like the 3-year-old who's just started playing basketball with the 12-year-olds, but we're catchin' up real quick, and soon little Johnny's gonna be dunkin' like the best of them!"