Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made lots of news with his comments at last week’s McGraw-Hill Companies’ 2009 Media Summit in New York. The video of his conversation with BusinessWeek’s Steve Adler is now online, and viewable below. His comments about Apple — which have generated lots of discussion among TechFlash readers — take place around the 14-minute mark.

 

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and VMware adds another former Microsoft executive to its ranks  

VMware’s executive lineup is starting to look very familiar to anyone who followed Microsoft in the 1990s. The virtualization company today said it hired Richard McAniff, a 21-year Microsoft veteran, as its new executive vice president and chief development officer. There he joins former Microsoft executives including VMware CEO Paul Maritz and Tod Nielsen, VMware’s chief operating officer.

McAniff spent much of his career in Microsoft Office most recently as a corporate vice president. He was involved in products including Excel, Access, Office business intelligence, and Web components for SharePoint Portal Server. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley notes that he left the Redmond company quietly at the end of last year.

"He is very entrepreneurial," said Mike Koss, the founder of Startpad, who has known McAniff for 10 years and worked for him at Microsoft. "Richard is the kind of guy who has fire in the belly. … He was looking for one more big project, one more big challenge."

One of McAniff’s interests is cloud computing, and he cited that area in the news release announcing his new job.

“From the introduction of VMware Workstation in 1999 to giving customers a clear path to cloud computing, VMware has clearly established itself as an innovation leader,” McAniff said. “I am excited to join the VMware team at an important time in the company’s history."

Microsoft and VMware are also competitors in the market virtualization technology, which, among other things, lets companies run multiple operating systems on a single computer server. It should be interesting to see whether the growing Microsoft heritage in the VMware executive ranks ultimately ends up factoring into the competition between the companies.

[John Cook contributed to this post, speaking to Mike Koss this afternoon at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network's First Look Forum.]

READ MORE and COMMENT, more and Microsoft’s nightmare car bumper  

 

Driving around Seattle last week, I found myself behind this Audi with two very interesting decals. Do you think the owner was trying to send a subtle message to the Microsoft employees in the region? About the only thing missing was a Google logo and a picture of Thomas Penfield Jackson. It’s probably safe to say Steve Ballmer wasn’t behind the wheel.

Have a good tech photo of your own? Email us or post in our new TechFlash photo group on Flickr.

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Running out of cash, Trusera may close next month  

Trusera may be forced to close down its online health community next month if it can’t raise more cash, said founder and CEO Keith Schorsch in an email today. The company — which raised $3.2 million from angel investors and Benaroya Capital — attracted several hundred thousand visitors. But Schorsch said they didn’t have the opportunity to "scale into our monetization model."

"We have been seeking funding or partnerships to enable us to continue operations, but no deal has emerged that would allow us to continue to fund our business operations," Schorsch said. "Unless we can raise additional funds for the company by the end of April, we will close Trusera to the public on April 30."

More info in the company’s blog post. Trusera operated an online community for people coping with disease, with the company started after Schorsch dealt with the struggles of finding information regarding his bout with Lyme disease.

Angel investors included Chris Ackerley, Erik Blachford, Phil Nudelman, Geoff Entress and Kim Rachmeler.

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