Steve Ballmer attacks Android security and Apple's high prices
Only days after an embarrassing parting of ways with Windows 8 architect Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is back to his industry-slaying form, laying into Apple for its high prices and Google's Android for its record on mobile security.
During a public interview with Ballmer by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Redmond's excitable front man slipped in the criticism of Microsoft's mobile rivals into a wide-ranging discussion of Microsoft's business units.
Apple, he noted, had based its model on selling hardware that was "highly controlled" and "high-priced", while Google's Android had become "wild" and uncontrolled to the extent that malware now targeted the platform on a large scale.
None of these are new or original comments that haven't been made by many other commentators but they do offer an insight into how Microsoft might try and balance the issue of price, security and openness as it develops Windows Phone 8.