Tech execs just love mixing it up with their rivals. Maybe it has something to do with the lack of sleep they get, or the drudgery of spending large portions of their lives making and giving PowerPoint presentations.
Whatever the reason, when tech execs trash-talk other companies' products, sometimes it backfires. Some products that are belittled end up being hugely successful. Other times, the exec who's doing the trash-talking ends up getting fired, or his or her company falls on rough times. In some cases, executive trash-talk ends up being factually inaccurate.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laughed at the iPhone when Apple introduced it. He also predicted the iPad would not have much success. Obviously, neither prediction panned out.
We're not going to include Ballmer's trash-talking about Apple, since it's pretty much common knowledge at this point. But others have done the same or worse ...
Ex-HP CEO Leo Apotheker Questions Wisdom Of iPad Usage
Leo Apotheker, whose 9-month reign as HP CEO was full of turmoil, was convinced that Apple's iPad was just a passing fad that wouldn't have a lasting impact in businesses.
"I saw someone using an iPad with a keyboard. Why would you want to carry that when you could carry a laptop?" Apotheker said in an interview with AllThingsD's Walt Mossberg at its D9 conference in June 2011.
Millions of people who've been lugging around iPads instead of notebooks since then would disagree. Apple sold 19.5 million iPads last quarter and sold 22.9 million the quarter before that. Almost every Fortune 500 company is using iPads in some capacity.
Meanwhile, HP's TouchPad had a brief six-week run in the market, and Apotheker was shown the door in September 2011.
Apple’s Phil Schiller Says Android Devices Don't Measure Up To iPhone
Apple execs don't trash-talk much. But Phil Schiller, Apple's VP of marketing, departed from the norm in March when he told The Wall Street Journal that the Android user experience just doesn't measure up to the iPhone.
He also said Apple's iPhone 5 is "still the best display of any smartphone."
Schiller then headed to Twitter, warning Android users to "Be safe out there..." and linking to a report from security vendor F-Secure about growing threats to Android devices.
Problem is, iPhone 5 sales haven't been as stellar as previous iPhones. Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, in a February research note, said iPhone 5 sales were "decelerating faster than expected" and that Apple had cut orders from 40 million to 30 million.
Meanwhile, Android sales are chugging along. According to Gartner's data for the first quarter of 2013, Android smartphones accounted for nearly 75 percent of the market, compared to 18 percent for runner-up Apple.
Oracle CEO Ellison Says SAP Is Delusional Over HANA
SAP is one of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's favorite punching bags. In March 2012, Ellison kicked some sand in the direction of SAP's HANA in-memory database, one of its hottest selling products.
"When SAP, and, specifically [SAP co-founder] Hasso Plattner, said they're going to build this in-memory database and compete with Oracle, I said. God, get me the name of that pharmacist, they must be on drugs," Ellison said in a conference with analysts.
SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott told AllThingsD in January that SAP had over 1,000 HANA customers and that the product was on track to become the "fastest growing software product in the history of the world."
SAP says HANA revenue grew from around $205 million in 2011 to more than $504 million in 2012.
While one analyst has quibbled with SAP's HANA calculations, there is no denying that this is a product that could make Ellison eat his words.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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