Steve Ballmer declares “We are not interested in e-readers”

Steve Ballmer sounds like he’s made up his mind on the e-Reader business according to a Reuters article:

“We are not interested in e-readers ourselves.”

Why?

Because “We have a device for reading. It’s the most popular device in the world. It’s the PC.”

No Apple tablet rumors are going to convince Ballmer and his creative crew to get side-tracked by e-readers. And that goes for Amazon’s Kindle and the forthcoming Barnes & Noble reader and the NYTimes reader and, and, ….and.

If I had 15 minutes with Steve Ballmer remind him of the dangers of discounting devices because they are “subpar.” The point to keep in mind is that sometimes 80% devices can grow into 100% use cases. That’s what happened with the PC itself, with DOS, with Windows, with the web, and so on.

I’d ask him one question: Exactly what’s so different between a well-designed slate Tablet PC and a well-designed e-Reader in terms of how people want to use them? I don’t see it. Maybe he’ll get me to see the light.