When former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers for a record $2 billion, the sale was still shrouded by the then-ongoing Donald Sterling fiasco. Once the sale was made final, though, the media turned towards the new owner. In an interview with Reuters, Ballmer made it clear, there will be no iPad’s for his coaching staff.
The former Microsoft CEO stepped down from the Microsoft board last month, but he still owns a 4 percent stake in the company, the largest individual shareholder in the world. That 4 percent is worth around $15.7 billion, according to Reuters, so it’s not surprising he’s instituting a no Apple policy among his players and coaches
Per Reuters:
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Clippers will be a Microsoft organization. The son of a Ford Motor Co manager, he’s always been a company and product loyalist, banning his own family from using Apple’s iPhones.
“Most of the Clippers are on Windows, some of the players and coaches are not,” Ballmer said.
“And Doc [Rivers] kind of knows that’s a project. It’s one of the first things he said to me: ‘We are probably going to get rid of these iPads, aren’t we?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we probably are.’ But I promised we would do it during the off season.”
While Surface tablets aren’t as sexy as an iPad, and microsoft phones are a fraction of the market share of the Apple competitors, don’t expect to text Chris Paul with iMessage.
Ballmer, for one, knows he lost that battle after sitting atop the Microsoft board for 14 year until this past Feburary.
“And do I wish a higher percentage of today’s mobile devices were ours and we had birthed that category?,” Ballmer asked Reuters. “Yes, of course I do.”
That doesn’t mean he’s willing to let his players revel in Apple products though. Windows 8 might have taken a hit in the marketplace, but the HTC One (M8) for Microsoft will probably be the new tool DeAndre Jordan uses the next time he’s listening to some tunes, or showing off some kicks on Instagram.
