Memoranda (a contrast of Jobs's and Ballmer's styles)

<i>[Ballmer's] mockery of Google’s search as “a white page with 10 blue links” indicates that he has no idea why Google has been so successful. I’d wager that if anyone is ever going to gain on Google in search, it will be by presenting even more focused results — less clutter, fewer distractions, more emphasis on making the results easily scanned.</i><p>Hmmm, reminds me of something Paul was saying the other day about ideas he'd like to fund...

There's a big difference between the two memos. Jobs' email is "guys, we messed up, let's learn from it". Ballmer's email is to fire up the troops.<p>I think the different purposes of the two memos explain the difference in styles. It's not a function of the two's personalities.

"which means Microsoft had more revenue and nearly twice the net profit of Apple and Google combined"<p>Wow, I thought Google was having more profit than Microsoft already. Why is everyone pointing Microsoft as dead and Google as the leader then? At least it's not the case yet.