If this is true, then Ballmer has released some strong words in their war with Google. This is from a statement made by an engineer who left Microsoft for Google in 2004.

Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure….At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: “Just tell me it’s not Google.” I told him it was Google.

At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: “Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I’m going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google.” ….

Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay….Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that “Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.”

Developers..developers..developers…OH never mind.

Meanwhile Steve Ballmer does the best Gene Simmons impersonation ever.

The Google Talk site is now live. It was reported yesterday that Google would unleash it’s IM client some time this week. It turns out that you can download Google Talk beta today. (isn’t every Google service beta?)

Google Talk requires a Gmail account as this is how you authenticate. So if you been holding out and don’t have a Gmail account you are out of luck. If you need an GMail invite post a comment to this thread. Between Derek and I, we have a hundred.

Google also went the extra step of not forcing their proprietery client on you. According to their site you can use any client that supports Jabber/XMPP. They even give a list of alternate IM clients. Since I use Trillian for everything, including Sametime, this is great.

The Google Talk client itself is very clean looking and lightweight. Cheers to Google!

From the site:

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free–anytime, anywhere in the world. Google Talk offers you:

* Choice: Get in touch how and when you want to–over email, IM or a call

* Quality: Talk through your computer but hear your friends as if they were in the same room

* Convenience: Your Gmail contacts are pre-loaded into Google Talk so inviting or talking to your friends is just a click away

UPDATE:
Google Talk Articles and Hacks:
How to Broadcast MP3’s, Podcasts and other audio over Google Talk
Google Talk and Gizmo Project interoperable
Game in Google Talk
HOW TO use Google Talk (now) with iChat

Google is having a busy week. First they release Google Desktop 2 which has the same searching power but now indexes your Gmail and Outlook email. The new side bar shows you news, email, weather, stocks, photos, web links, and more at a glance.

• Get all your personalized info in one place with Sidebar
• Launch applications and search instantly with Quick Find
• Find all your email, files, photos, web history, Gmail, and more
• Search conveniently in Outlook with the Outlook Toolbar
• Developers: Write plug-ins for Sidebar

And today we get wind that the rumors of a Google IM client are true. Google plans to unleash a instant-messaging with (a rumored) VoIP service. Google Talk will be the name of this new service. In fact talk.google.com resolves and redirects you to an 404. Google is expected to release Google Talk as soon as Wednesday.

It’s currently unknown whether Google Talk will compete with Skype’s SkyOut and SkypeIn services. But this seems to be a lot of effort to go through to simply release another Yahoo! Instant Messenger clone.

First we had RTFM, now it’s GIYM. Google It, You Moron is a new way of telling someone to stop asking you stupid questions and to take five seconds and find the answer themselves.

So teach your luser’s a valuable lesson by giving them this handy link.

From the site:

Internet Lesson 101: Always check Google before asking a question.

Someone thinks you are a moron, and just gave you a link here because you asked a question that would have been easily answered with a quick Google search.