A feisty Steve Ballmer poured scorn on Google’s Android mobile phone open-source operating system at yesterday’s Telstra Investor Day.

 “They (Google) can hire smart guys, hire smart people, blah-de-blah-de-blah,” Ballmer said in answer to a question from the floor. “I don’t really understand their strategy, maybe somebody else does. Turning up to an investor meeting saying, ‘we’ve just launched a mobile operating system with no revenue model, yay!’ ­ I wouldn’t do that.”

Ballmer reeled off a list of competitors in the mobile operating system market, including Apple, Symbian, Blackberry, and Mobile Linux, and said:
“Google doesn’t really bubble to the top of the list”.

Some might say Windows Mobile doesn’t, either. But Microsoft is understood to be working on a new mobile OS, based on the upcoming, touch-sensitive Windows 7 ­ and part of Ballmer’s visit is presumably devoted to encouraging Australian software developers to turn out apps for the new system, to be marketed via a new online store dubbed Skymarket.