Of Pucks, Dances, and Future Valuations

The fact is that I'm actually a pretty big Steve Ballmer fan. I mean, the guy’s overseen the creation of the most powerful and valuable company in the history of technology. But I've been pretty vocal on TV, in print and, gulp, even with the head of Softee's PR firm, Richard Edelman, about how I think Steve's had this company skating to where the puck's been and not where it's going for the last few years. I mean, the Zune vs. iPod? Talk about a blow out of UNLV over Duke 1990 NCAA Championship proportions...

And I think Softee's a great long term investment that has up to $20 upside over the next few years and just about $5 downside. The Vista roll out is slowly but surely gaining steam and PC unit sales estimates have steadily climbed from about zero to the low double digits in the last few quarters since people first thought I was on crack for saying Vista would spur growth back a couple years ago. Wasn't the first time they thought that and won't be the last. (Come to think of it, I've never actually even SEEN crack in real life...have any of you?)

At any rate, I've always felt bad for all the trolling and bashing Steve Ballmer gets for this famous video. But the reason I post about all of this today is simply because I got a kick out of seeing the video embedded on DealBreaker.com...as the video clearly states that it's hosted by, who else, but Google.

Anybody wanna guess which company will be more valuable ten years from today -- Google or Microsoft...and at what valuation -- a trillion dollars each at least (Google would have to rise six-fold and Softee would have to quadruple)?

We'll be previewing tech earnings and how to trade them on tonight's Happy Hour, btw.