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You have to remember that Balmer's spotlight was him calling for developers.

And failing to respond to the articles reasoning for saying he's unimportant but simply responding with an obvious argument ruins yours.

What's your point?

Ballmer is a loudmouth idiot. It is pleasing to see his ugly face pop up first in the list that is in no particular order.

I think the claim that all these important people 'do not matter' must be a tongue-in-cheek sort of idea. These people chosen are obviously a lot more important in the IT world than you or I are. But I think the point of the article is to use a clever, attention-catching device, however flawed it is, to make nonetheless significant points about these people's changing roles.

Good point.

You have looked the who matters list, haven't you?

The people they think matter is mostly a list of some people who are in right now. Nobody will remember half of the most important list in few years. The reasons why they picked these people is that their ventures are pop right now. But those are the same services and companies that will eventually fail because they have no commercial viability.

And the list of people who don't matter. It's a list of people who really matter but who aren't currently as hip as they used to be.

When did the tech industry become like Hollywood?

When technology fuels Hollywood productions and newspapers/tabloids run stories about scandals and controversy just like any other industry.

So, when does Ballmer hit the best/worst dressed list?

The article is about the future, not right now. In the future this author seems to think it unlikely that people will get media in the mail, but more likely they'll get it via the net.

I'd say you're right though. Considering that broadband penetration in the US is not anywhere near 90% I'd say netflix is going to have a large market of non-broadband users for a long time. However, this doesn't give netflix any real room to expand. All they can do is put blockbuster out of business, woopedy doo. And that does make them fairly unimportant in the tech industry, not that they ever really were.

If he picked 10 people who trivially didn't matter it wouldn't be worth reading, but he's trying to pick famous people who we all believe matter and say why they really don't. And he made pretty good points about all of them.

"Balmer? Still matters because he'll probably be making policy decisions regarding Windows Vista. Yeah, that's pretty big. "

The only valuable decision Ballmer could make would be to shoot Vista in the head and admit it's time to bring Windows into the 21st century with a UNIX foundation.

I have to agree with you on this. The fact of the matter is that DVDs are going to be with us for at least the next decade. HD quality DVDs will eventually supplant DVDs; however, that will take time and substantial investment on the part of consumers. Similarly, until the cost of magnetic media falls below the cost of plastic media (ie. DVDs), plastic media will remain popular.

You, dear sir or madam, are a man or woman after my own heart. I chortled uncontrollably after reading your witty, yet undeniably veracious, statememt.

(Although you are an OSNews staff member. That has to count for something?)

Back dated, slow, messy, addridden sloppy, baggy pants, old money, faded glory, wahed out colors....etc :-)

You make it sound as if he got the Linux kernel to where it is today single handed.

Correction: Windows is the most powerful OS. Where Windows goes, the industry goes. If Microsoft wants DX9, shader-compliant GPUs in all Vista machines shipped, Microsoft will get DX9, shader-compliant GPUs.

What kind of leverage does Linux have among the manufacturers? Almost none.

nah the industry goes where the people go, but since windows is preinstalled and nobody had a choice it has always been assumed that since everyone was using windows that windows was going where everyone wanted things to go... (i think i confused myself, where was I going with this)

No, Windows is where it is because Microsoft offers backwards-compatibility that dates to the late 80's/early 90's, as well as guaranteed support for most operating system products for 10 years.

They are a serious business, and they stand behind their product, even if it's not top-notch in all cases. Microsoft was there from the start, and they have had a big hand in shaping the industry.

Linux is not "the most powerful OS". There is no such thing as "the most powerful OS", different ones fill different rolls. Linux is great on servers, but put it in a role that needs a realtime OS and you won't get very far. QNX works wonders on embedded systems, but it would choke on a server. The simple fact is that no matter how fervently one worships a given operating system, it will never be able to fill every single role perfectly.

I think that's sort of the opposite, though. The fluff pieces create clicks. News organizations are primarily interested in securing ad revenue regardless of delivery method. Informing people is the pretense but not really the goal and sometimes not even the method chosen to obtain such revenue. During the dot com period such organizations were spewing stupid by the truckload. Some people still ate it up. I think that's what they enjoy.

The fact that you're so bitter that it exists is proof enough that Linux and its creator still do matter.

Grow up. It's an OS, not a religion.

Actually linus needed/wanted/wished for some help. You make it sound as if the gnu community was the predator and the linux kernel the prey...

The various Linux companies make meaningful contributions through employing developers to work on them. However you should be more surprised if a journalist discusses a specialized subject that you're familiar with and doesn't sound stupid.

LMAO

Alright, I have to admit it: He does look pretty bad in that photo. But geeks aren't exactly known for their looks, eh?

Are you kidding me, when I saw that picture, I swear I was looking at the emporer from starwars. Evil looking guy.

he AND a whole bunch of others...

It's easier said than done to RTFA. I had to unblock javascript from two domains to read past the first list item. The page was not well designed.

I couldn't read the list at all. The page came up blank for me except for the banners on top.