Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has never been shy about voicing his opinions on any given issue. At an interview conducted during a recent Churchill Club event in California, Ballmer chose to weigh in on Apple and the iPhone, and even gave the company some friendly advice. According to CNet, Ballmer's specific "advice" to Apple was to make the company more like Microsoft, a move that would apparently give Apple a fighting chance in the smartphone market.

The iPhone sales numbers have been quite good so far, but in this case, Ballmer is talking about market trends over time. He's expecting Apple to do poorly in both the smartphone and notebook markets over the next five years, mostly because the company continues to stand by its rather un-Microsoft-like integration of both proprietary software and proprietary hardware. Ballmer seems to think that the future of the smartphone lies in providing a phone OS to a wide variety of hardware manufacturers. He said that only Symbian, Linux, and Windows Mobile are positioned to meet this need.

The core of the argument is essentially that divorcing the hardware and the OS allowed Microsoft to take control of the computer market, and since Microsoft could do no wrong, Apple had better get on the bandwagon fast. If you're curious about Ballmer's full statement, you can find the video of the interview on ZDnet.

Somehow, I doubt that Steve Jobs will be taking Ballmer's advice any time soon. Apple has, however, moved to separate mobile OS X and desktop OS X, so such a move might be possible in the future. Still, it won't happen in the next five years, that's for sure.