In "?," I accused Microsoft's El Jefe of losing his marbles after declaring "early" to the smartphone market. Reader S. S. took umbrage at the epithet, accusing me of pandering to readers in a desperate effort to garner traffic. (Pandering? Moi?)

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The headline of this article seems like something that would be on Gizmodo but they would at least write about something crazy that Mr. Ballmer has said or done. ... [Microsoft's] death has been predicted for the past 10 years and they seem to be making more money every year. Maybe one day you'll be right but right now it looks like they are doing well with making money and FINALLY starting to release good and competitive products in the consumer space.

On the other hand, highly caffeinated correspondent R. G. calls Microsoft the new IBM and Steve Ballmer the Tom Cruise of high tech:

I am super happy that Microsoft did a reasonably nice job with Windows 7 and I think they have made some real progress in parts of Bing. But so long as Microsoft continues to keep its head in the sand just like IBM did when it clung to the main frame business then [it is] destined to become a foot note in computing history..... Under Ballmer, Microsoft is quickly becoming what it was that they exploited on a few years ago... the new lumbering behemoth with more money than vision.