Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, has been unusually forthright about the company’s position in the mobile market at the ongoing All Things Digital D8 conference, saying that Microsoft is very much “number ice” in the mobile standings.

Ballmer is now in direct control of Windows Phone 7

Computerworld is reporting that Ballmer made the statement in response to questions asked about Microsoft’s plan for the mobile market and its upcoming release of its mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. When asked about the recent announcement that Microsoft’s president of entertainment and devices division, Robbie Bach, would be retiring, Ballmer explained that,

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Apple has overtaken Microsoft to become the world’s biggest tech company in terms of market value. Apple is now valued at $222 billion ahead of Microsoft’s market value of a paltry $219 billion. Losers.

It feels a little like his birthday today anyway.

To put these figures in perspective, the last time Apple was valued ahead of Microsoft, the Berlin Wall was still standing, if only just. That was 1989, and for over 20 years Microsoft has ruled the tech business world.

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The man who is often seen as the ‘father of the Xbox,’ Microsoft’s erstwhile chief experience officer, J Allard, has confirmed the rumours that surfaced earlier in the week, indicating he would be leaving Microsoft.

Allard still looks a bit like Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor

Allard’s departure, alongside that of Microsoft’s president of entertainment and devices, Robbie Bach, was made official by Microsoft yesterday evening. Allard’s departure follows the cancellation of Microsoft’s tablet device project, known to those who’d taken an interest as the Courier. While he doesn’t expressly mention the device in his goodbye note, ZDNet has it from sources within Microsoft that the cancellation of the project was a contributing factor to his eventual resignation.

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It seems that long-time Microsoft designer J Allard has left the company after having differences of opinion with the company’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, over the dual-screened Courier tablet project.

These leaked shots may be all we ever see of the Courier

For those unfamiliar with Allard’s work, he was head of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, and often seen as the father of the first Xbox, a device that Microsoft has capitalised on very well, moving from an outsider to a significant portion of the market within two console generations. Now though, word comes from ZDNet that Allard has left the company, ostensibly on a sabbatical, but noting that the rumblings from within Microsoft indicate that he may not return to the company.

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It seems that Mozilla platform engineer Rob Sayre has an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer concerning some interesting decisions that have been made concerning Redmond’s approach to its latest mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7.

Windows Phone 7 certainly looks intriguing

The issues seem to arise from the lack of a native developer kit [NDK] to accompany the Windows Phone 7 software developer kit [SDK] with which it’s likely the folks from Mozilla have been looking to put together a browser. An NDK, simply put, would allow developers to write portions of their own apps for a mobile OS in native code… something it seems Microsoft isn’t up for with Windows Phone 7. If nothing else, that much is in line with Microsoft’s wish to keep Windows Phone 7 a little more closed, especially given the recent news that it wouldn’t support apps not downloaded from its own online marketplace.

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If you’re tuning in to any British TV channels this week, and let’s face it most of us will, you might catch a glimpse of a major marketing push from Microsoft that’s attempting to give Google something of a dressing down.  Coming on the back of the company’s CEO, Steve Ballmer saying (in a roundabout way) last week that Bing could topple Google in the search wars, the new TV campaign – coming complete with a strapline of ‘Bing and decide’ – will concentrate on what Microsoft dub the ‘information overload’ of its rival.

Unsurprisingly pics of Bing weren’t plentiful on Google Images.

The multimillion-pound campaign, reports The Guardian, is part of a major marketing push designed to challenge Google’s dominance of the UK search market. “The campaign to promote Bing, the so-called ‘decision engine’ that Microsoft is backing with $2bn, begins with a series of TV ads this week,” it reports.

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In a genuinely bizarre turn of events, Polaroid has announced that it’s naming the strangely styled pop star Lady Gaga as its new creative director.

I'm baffled...

The vast majority of the news that comes out of CES does tend to be business and industry related, with relatively little to interest the more casual viewers… now though, it seems that Polaroid has decided to shake things up a bit by naming Lady Gaga as its new “creative director and inventor of specialty products.” Moreover, it seems as though it might not just be a bit of a grab for attention, with TomsHardware reporting that the announcement prompted a response from the woman herself that read,

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It seems that netbooks have seen massive growth over the course of 2009, despite many analysts claims throughout the year that the popular devices were essentially a fad and would soon die off.

Word comes from HotHardware that this year has seen a rise of more than 100% in the total number of netbooks shipped. While that’s not an indication of just how many have been sold, the fact that netbooks are proving increasingly scarce in the run up to Christmas is a fairly solid indication of just how hard well those shipments translate into real sales.

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Rumours have been circulating that Microsoft could well ditch its CEO, Steve Ballmer, at some stage in 2010, but some have been quick to criticise that prediction.

It seems that Ballmer has been in slowly heating water since the launch of Microsoft’s by now egregious last operating system, Windows Vista, which managed put a company Microsoft’s size in a very awkward position indeed. It had been estimated that if Windows 7 had stumbled in the same way as Vista, Microsoft might well not have survived it, but fortunately enough, here we are, with Windows 7 a roaring success.

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Dell has revealed some of the more interesting details of its upcoming Adamo XPS, which looks to be its own entry into the “ultrathin” category that Microsoft seems to think is going to oust netbooks and become the next big thing.

I can't even tell you why I want one... I just do.

Dell has taken plenty of time over the last two months or so to show us some attractive of pictures but it’s only now revealing any real details of what we can expect to see from its upcoming Adamo XPS. The Adamo is physically fairly stunning, but the news that it’s just 9.7mm thick and weighs in at 1.4KG is even more unusual than it’s strange hinge/stand arrangement.

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has confirmed something that was once literally an offhand joke but seems a solid move now; we’ll see an Xbox 360 Blu-Ray drive, likely as an external rather than an internal device.

According to an interview over at Gizmodo, when Ballmer was quizzed about the likelihood of Microsoft putting a high-definition media drive into future models of the Xbox 360 itself, his response was to say that, “Well I don’t know if we need to put Blu-Ray in there – you’ll be able to get Blu-Ray drives as accessories.”

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Things aren’t looking good for Steve Ballmer, with word streaming in that investors are beginning to question the degree Microsoft’s success under it’s long standing CEO.

Ballmer has always had the all important 'Eeeeeuuugh' factor...

Steve Ballmer’s antics have time and again earned him space in the headlines, but Steve Ballmer making headlines personally is often a bit more of an embarrassment for Microsoft than free news space (as anyone who remembers him chewing out an employee he noticed holding an iPhone last month will know). Now though, it’s started to look like the investors are beginning to question Steve’s ability to lead the company.

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