Computer Problems? Hire Steve Ballmer.

No this isn't advertising for Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer. Apparently the 13th wealthiest man in the world (worth over 18 billion) is not to rich to help you fix your computer problems. This story comes from another Microsoft executive who told the press about Ballmer's personal experience with Spyware.

Apparently CEO Ballmer was at a friend's wedding reception when the bride's father complained that his PC wasn't working and asked Steve if he would mind taking a look at it. At this point I would think Ballmer would pass him off and move on to the next topic of conversation but that's where I'd be wrong. Ballmer spent almost two days trying to clean the PC, removing worms, viruses, spyware, malware, and severe fragmentation. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Ballmer was unable to fix the computer.

I wonder how Microsoft thinks we should maintain computer running Windows when even the CEO of their corporation can't do it. But this isn't where the story ends. Steve Ballmer lugged the computer back to Microsoft HQ and assembled a team of top engineers to fix it. The engineers spent days working on the machine and found that it was infected with over 100 pieces of malware, several of which couldn't be removed.

Thankfully the Corporate Machine that is Microsoft was able some potentially bad PR and spin it into a business venture. Another Microsoft executive commented that, "This really opened our eyes to what goes on in the real world." Apparently Microsoft executives and employees don't live in the real world. So last week, Microsoft launched Windows Live OneCare, an "all-in-one, automatic, and self-updating PC care service designed to help consumers more easily protect and maintain their PCs". Presently, OneCare is only available in the US and costs $50 annually. Not to worry because I'm sure OneCare will be released in other countries as the system develops.

Microsoft has some huge cajones to charge users an annual service fee to fix problems in its operating system that shouldn't be there in the first place. Thankfully, competition is still somewhat alive in our economy and Symantec/Norton and McAfee will be releasing comparable programs to OneCare shortly.

For more information on Windows Live OneCare, check out Google News.