Steve Ballmer, from Tongue Fetish to Crazy iPod/Zune Dance

Will the fun ever end with Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer? Not likely. And it all began back in 1985, with an innocent, telemarketing video advertisement for Windows 1.0. But you can't blame it on the "advanced operating environment" that was Windows 1.0, nor can you hold any of the operating systems released under the Windows brand umbrella accountable for Ballmer's behavior. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is all about delivering a top performance, be it in advertisement, during a product launch or on stage.

And it was inevitable that, as the install base of the Windows operating system will be taken to 1 billion by Windows Vista by mid 2008, Steve Ballmer would become a sacred landmark of today's worldwide pop culture. Don't believe me? Well then, just take a look at the first video embedded at the bottom and you will grasp the idea. Ballmer's tongue fetish is old news. The last time that the Microsoft CEO delivered us with an exemplary oral display was at the business launch of Windows Vista at the NASDAQ headquarters in New York, on November 30, 2007. Still, Ballmer's oral exhibitionism has passed in the background...

And the history now reminds us mostly of the Microsoft CEO, than of the extraordinary dedication to presenting the clock feature in Windows 1.0, or the crazed "Developers! Developers! Developers!" chant, or not even of the Windows Vista Wow tongue display, but a funny dance... But who would have thought that a combination between Zune, dancing Ballmer and an iPod commercial could equal comedy. Zune's "welcome to the social" was morphed into "welcome to the so-so," a slogan more accurately reflecting Microsoft's digital media player. And of course, like all innovative things associated with the Redmond company, the video closes with the blue screen of death... a metaphor for the end.