CEO confessions: We’re Apple fanboys (and fangirls) too

The tech industry is a bit like a sitcom. It’s filled with absurd scenarios, wacky neighbors, and a prickly but ultimately lovable main character everyone secretly wants to be.

In our sitcom, that main character is Apple. The wacky next-door neighbor? Try Steve Ballmer. In a letter to shareholders released earlier this week, Ballmer described a plan for Microsoft that most tech watchers agree sounds a heckuva lot like the one drawn up by his pals in Cupertino.

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Microsoft is no longer a software giant, says The Mad Ballmer; it is now a “devices and services company.” He writes:

There will be times when we build specific devices for specific purposes, as we have chosen to do with Xbox and the recently announced Microsoft Surface. In all our work with partners and on our own devices, we will focus relentlessly on delivering delightful, seamless experiences across hardware, software, and services. This means as we, with our partners, develop new Windows devices we’ll build in services people want.

As The Telegraph’s Mic Wright puts it, “In the area of heaven with the most glass and brushed aluminium, Steve Jobs is laughing riotously.”

Ballmer isn’t the only prominent tech leader to star in this series. In the recurring role of the creepy uncle who comes to dinner, allow me to introduce Google’s Eric Schmidt.

In a public Q&A session with AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, Schmidt was asked whether, if he had to be CEO of another company, would he choose Apple, Amazon.com, or Facebook? After a little hemming and hawing he picked Apple because “it has the most cash.”

Or maybe it’s because Apple revoked his parking pass after Google introduced Android, and Eric misses being so close to all the cool toys. Could you stand a little further away, Eric? You’re starting to creep us all out.

Even HP — the crusty old neighbor who’s always shouting at the kids to get off his lawn — wants to be Apple. In a recent interview with Fox Business, CEO Meg Whitman said, “We have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries in the world, that is your computing device.” She was, however, conveniently vague about when that might happen. I predict that will be in 2015, shortly after HP introduces its first microwave ovens.

(Ever get the feeling HP is like a dinosaur who crawled into a cave to hibernate, slept through an entire ice age, then woke up and asked, “Where is everybody?”)

There is, however, one exception to the Everybody Wants to Be Apple rule, and that would be Twitter. In an interview with NPR, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo was asked if co-founder Jack Dorsey was stepping back from his duties at Twitter because he’s so “difficult to work with” (kind of like a certain former Apple CEO reputedly was).

Not surprisingly, Costolo denied that. He also added:

You know, people often ask me and they ask him, you know, “Is Jack the next Steve Jobs?” And my answer is always, “He’s the next Jack Dorsey.” He’s going to go down as one of the great visionary entrepreneurs in American history.

Yeah, well, maybe. But he’ll never get his own show.

Who would you cast in your high-tech sitcom? Submit their headshots below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “CEO confessions: We’re Apple fanboys (and fangirls) too,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.