Four reasons Steve Ballmer may be obsessed with killing the iPad

For reasons that aren’t immediately evident, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has declared that his “job-one urgency” is killing the iPad instead of building an even better operating system in Windows 8, nurturing Microsoft’s critical cloud computing efforts, or cranking out a smartphone platform that people will want to use. Nope — he says his top priority is coming up with a platform to rival one of the nichiest consumer-technology product on the market today. Yes, the iPad cool and flashy and popular, but it’s still an expensive luxury device with fairly limited use. Ballmer’s declaration is like Toyota CEO Akia Toyoda announcing that his company’s top priority is to build a Porsche 911 killer.

Of course, Microsoft isn’t alone in its iPad obsession. It seems every vendor out there — Dell, RIM, HP, LG, Samsung, and Lenovo — wants to make an iPad rival. Their desperation is particularly evident in the fact that they’ve hooked on to the giggle-inducing term “X-pad” formula, producing laughable names like “LePad,” “InterPad,” and even “BlackPad.”

But the aforementioned companies are hardware vendors. Microsoft is (primarily) a software vendor, which makes Ballmer’s obsession with crushing the iPad all the more curious. Here are some possible reasons he’s aiming his harpoon at this white whale:

1. Steve Ballmer might be letting Wall Street dictate his company’s priorities. Now that Apple is the most valuable tech company around, Ballmer and his crew are likely feeling all sorts of pressure from investors, analysts, and the board of directors to be more like Apple instead of emulating Microsoft of the Bill Gates era. History suggests that the company does better when it sticks to its broad niche of productivity software and operating systems instead of trying to be the king of all things, from search to video games.

2. Steve Ballmer might be feeling pressure from hardware vendors. HP, Dell, and other hardware makers are also feeling the pressure from Wall Street to crank out an iPad killer, but they lack a competitive platform. Android is certainly a strong contender in that regard and is enjoying greater name recognition and adoption every day — but it’s also meeting resistance in some circles. RIM may have something outstanding in the works as well that can challenge the iPad.

But only the Microsoft moniker has the juice to generate the type of buzz that can really drive tablet sales to take on the iPad. Every day vendors have to wait for a tablet platform from Microsoft, they see iPad sales increase and Apple stock prices rises — and they fire off more frenzied emails and phone calls to Ballmer, demanding something flashy and with a touchscreen, ASAP.

Maybe Michael Dell has been increasing the pressure with threats such as, “If you don’t give us a WindPad OS soon, we’ll move our praise of Ubuntu over Windows to our home page.”

3. Steve Ballmer might be a genius. The tablet PC is nothing new. Microsoft already took a crack at it, but it never gained wide adoption, just some play in niche fields. But perhaps the tablet’s time has indeed come, and Ballmer foresees PC users of the world abandoning their computers, monitors, keyboards, and mice for tablets with virtual keyboards and a touch screen. Ballmer knows it — and he knows that Microsoft can build the kind of tablet platform that can dominate that lucrative pie.

To me, the tablet form factor doesn’t scream “productivity and entertainment” so much as “entertainment with limited productivity potential.” I can’t imagine building a spreadsheet or cranking out a PowerPoint presentation sans mouse on a screen that’s partially cluttered by a virtual keyboard. But then, I’m not the tech genius.

4. Steve Ballmer might be a little insane. That’s not a clinical diagnosis, but a man who allegedly throws chairs at people and pretends to stomp his own employees’ devices in front of a group of onlookers can be all there. His lack of sleep might also be contributing to unclear thinking. Surely it’s not because symptomatic of ineptness or buffoonery. Mild insanity coupled with sleep deprivation could very well drive him to making the death of the iPad his empire’s top priority.

Really, though: Steve Ballmer just needs to relax. Microsoft is already king of the Unpad.

This article, “Four reasons Steve Ballmer may be obsessed with killing the iPad” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.