Microsoft exec: Challenging times play to our strengths

With a tough economic climate figuring to put a crimp on IT spending, Microsoft is already working on honing a message that it can help businesses save money.

In an interview Friday, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop said that companies are certainly re-evaluating their tech spending projects, but tried to make the case that Microsoft stands to fare better than most.

"Relative to Microsoft's general approach of making all technology, all software very affordable...that plays very well at these times," Elop said. "Who knows what lies ahead, but nonetheless, we've got some pretty good messages."

Stephen Elop

Microsoft has been working on getting those messages ready in a hurry. Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner sent an e-mail to Microsoft's sales force Wednesday night highlighting a dozen or so things the company can do to help customers save money.

The things on the list aren't big surprises--unified communications to reduce travel costs, virtualization to save on server costs, as well as Microsoft's many licensing and financing options.

"It is the case that we are very focused and getting even more focused on having a conversation with our customers around value," Elop said.

But while Microsoft has long grown sales by offering a lower-cost option than software rivals, it now finds others, including Google, using those same arguments against core products like Windows and Office.

Elop reminded me that it's not his first time managing through tough times.

"I've been through a pretty significant economic downturn in the early part of this century--boy that sounds old--when I was at Macromedia," he said. At the time, he said he told his troops that Macromedia could lead through the tough times and come through it stronger at the other end. "I think at Microsoft we can do that even more so."

[Mr. Dee]

I hope they create a list for future products like Windows 7 and Office 14 to not obsolete two year old hardware with heavy requirements. Deliver value to customers by providing better options in your software and make it perform better. Office 2007 Enterprise takes about 10 to 15 mins to install on decent hardware, we are talking about an Office suite here.

[Penguinisto]

MSFT's biggest problem is ROI. Bought marketing-borne studies be damned, MSFT will have a very tough time against Open Source. OSS allows customers to really try the thing before they buy it (and not just try to gauge things from some time-limited trial rig-up), and the cost is far, far lower in the areas of licensing fees (usually $0.00), upgrades (no treadmill), and compatibility (open standards all the way). <br /> <br />Plus, as Mr. Dee pointed out, MSFT relies too much on Moore's Law to bail them out - most corps will want to keep their existing equipment for awhile longer thanks to lower capital budgeting. Good luck convincing an enterprise client that he/she has to ditch that barely-paid-off Dell PE 2850 and replace it with a Dell PE R900... ;) <br /> <br />/P <br /> <br />/P

[Vegaman_Dan]

While you tout all things Open Source and keep blasting away at Microsoft in your bigoted hatred, the reality of the situation never actually matches what you are saying. <br /> <br />I'm sorry, but OpenOffice isn't replacing MS Office. Linux is not replacing Windows for desktops. Try as you may to obscure the facts, these basic realities simply cannot be ignored.

[Penguinisto]

Has naught to do with hatred, Dan - the numbers support it. Pointing at bits (MS Office, Windows Desktop) and hand-waving them as the end-all be-all on your part isn't going to change that, either... <br /> <br />/P

[Lerianis]

Yeah, but there is a little problem. Most 'open-source' software like OpenOffice I have tried, and it is CRAPPY compared to Microsoft Office.<br />Until open-source software gets much better than it is right now....... forget about corporations using it.

[Penguinisto]

@Lerianis: Your opinions have little to no basis in technical fact. Please try sticking to those first. ;)

[QuiteHappy]

Penguinisto, go back to your original posting. Your 2nd point (echoing Mr. Dee) makes sense and hopefully MSFT is seriously considering it when they are working on trying to save customers' money. <br /> <br />On your 1st point though, even you yourself said '... will have a very tough time...' Note you used future tense. So basically, you kinda agreed with Lerianis that OSS was just not there yet. And that's all Lerianis was trying to say, I guess.

[lgmbackman]

I hope more and more people and companies will understand that MS has nothing to give you but words.<br />MS is compleatly worthless today.

[Lerianis]

No, they are not completely worthless. The fact is that their products, while not being perfect, are pretty damn good.<br /><br />Vista is very good (though it has some things like the steep hardware requirements that I take issue with), Microsoft Office is very good, and so is the rest of their products, both hardware and software.

[QuiteHappy]

You need to give concrete supporting information (facts) for readers to get interested in entertaining your point of view. <br /> <br />Without supporting info, I feel from your words that you personally were just unhappy about MS. <br /> <br />When a company achieved a $60+ billion revenue for the last FY, you cannot simply say '...has nothing to give you but words.' Guess what? Had the company given nothing but words, then it could not have got the revenue from its smart customers, right?

[MrRealistic]

Hmmm - lets see 18.2% revenue growth, 41.6% earnings growth and the stock is up almost double that of the major indices today. Clearly the rest of the world (who presumably are fueling the aforementioned growth) and the investors (who are betting on this vs other stocks at this time) don't share your sentiment. <br /> <br />Lerianis (who's rersponse is posted to this thread )also sums it up well from a products perspective. Fact again is that MS products while not always first to market are often first to MASS MARKET which has driven pricing down for all of us. Care to think what you'd be paying for Lotus 123 had Excel and Office not come along and driven Office productivity to the mass market? Ditto for SQL Server when stacked up against the former big 3 in the RDBMS market - Oracle, Sybase and Informix. Compare the costs. <br /> <br />And lastly, just look at the relative costs of VMware relative to MS technologies in the virtualization space. <br /> <br />Fact - while emotions always run high in these discussions, in the vast majority of cases, MS technology provides superior value, often also at significantly lower cost than their competition.

[Dalkorian]

Wow, the M$ apologists were really out in force this weekend. Enjoy your slavery, I'd prefer to own things myself. Fista is a perfect example of all that's wrong with M$ - laden in so much DRM crapware designed to take control of your computer if the Bill doesn't like what's running on it that it takes a supercomputer to run it, UAC designed to annoy the users so they stop complaining about what a security nightmare winblows actually is and chock full of proprietary bastardizations of standard protocols. Notice none of this makes the operating system do what it's supposed to do, it's all there to LIMIT your options and control.<br /><br />I guess if I knew nothing about computers myself, I'd like a little hand holding at times. Problem is fista is an abusive helicopter parent. Some people like that I guess.

[jes834]

hmm but yet they re still alive and making money in everything but search

[hsbrown2]

There are a lot more tools and papers available to make Microsoft a powerhouse in times of economic difficulty, even globally. <br /> <br />When you apply Microsoft's Infrastructure Optimization maturity model, Microsoft Operations Framework IT Service Management framework (both of which are technologically agnostic BTW - you could apply them to a pure UNIX environment if you wanted, and still achieve a desired result), and the gamut of Solution Accelerators available through microsoft.com for free, you can make a practice out of raising the bar for efficiency in IT, creating greener datacenters, and lowering TCO of the SMB and/or Enterprise infrastructure without selling a single software license. <br /> <br />I think the point is that Microsoft isn't just about selling software - it's about enabling businesses to create utility for themselves and their employees through the magic of software - Microsoft software or otherwise. Today, creating utility means making sure that everyone is able to realize the full potential of their software and hardware investments, and squeezing every drop of value from those investments. <br /> <br />From that standpoint, there simply is no comparison to Microsoft and the ROI it provides it's customers - noone even comes close.