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In a speech ostensibly devoted to SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server, Ballmer staked out what he saw as the key business differences separating his company from other software makers--including the growing cohort that makes up the open-source community.
Microsoft's chief executive officer later sat down with CNET News.com to explain that while Oracle and SAP might enjoy a more cordial relationship with the Fortune 500, Microsoft's ambition was to become the "grand consolidator of everything else."
The Express line of products takes you lower down the food chain to compete with open source and so on. What about the other end of the spectrum? I've heard a statistic that Microsoft accounts for less than 1.5 percent of total IT expenditures in large enterprises. Obviously, you want to grow that percentage.
Ballmer: Well, the question is, how do we get higher price points? We'll have some people in those "mission critical" applications choosing our enterprise editions. As people move into more mission-critical applications they will naturally choose some of our higher-priced items. We are the high-volume, low-priced guys in every space in which we play--with some small exceptions around open source, if you will.
Part of our pitch to enterprises is that we will help them save money. In terms of the trustworthiness of the platform, we have plenty of references and we have plenty of scale that should put to bed a lot of the legacy issues related to this stuff being enterprise-ready. We've had those issues for years. At some point, clearly those are legacy issues.
We have Express (stripped-down) versions of SQL Server and Visual Studio. Will we someday have Express versions of Windows and Office and other products?
Ballmer: We essentially have an Express version of Windows with Starter Edition. That's a product we don't have a lot of traction with in the markets in which we offer it.
But it's not offered in the U.S.?
Ballmer: It's not offered in the U.S. Windows is so low-cost, you have to ask yourself if there's really room for an Express-type version below that. And it's so fundamental to the definition of the machine and the basic experience people have, I wouldn't expect anything of that ilk.
In the case of Office, we have attacked that market with our Student and Teacher Edition. We will continue with Office 12; there will be news, over time, about where we are going with Student and Teacher Edition. But essentially, that edition targets the same market segment that we have been targeting with the Express Editions. But the people who buy most of those machines are parents, who might have more of a budget than a student does.
So on the Office side, there might be more news coming about a lower-cost edition with Office 12?
Ballmer: Yeah, I'm not trying to actually imply that there is. Today's not the day to talk about it. The Office team is always working to enhance their value proposition to all segments.
You mentioned Oracle this morning, and at least one of its co-presidents sees the company as a great industry consolidator in the coming years. Microsoft could also clearly play that role. Why haven't you? Any plans to pick up the pace of acquisitions?
Ballmer: Well, look, there are two segments here: the biggest enterprises and everything else. We are going to be the grand consolidator of everything else. That's what we're doing with Dynamics (Microsoft's business applications line), that's what we're doing with the small business accounting product that we've launched. We will be the grand consolidator of everything else.
In large enterprises, there were sort of two basic choices: partner with SAP or compete with SAP by acquiring PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...We decided we had so much to do and so many ideas and our plate was pretty full with consolidating everything else, that it made a lot of sense to partner. SAP and Oracle will battle it out.
Last month, you said Microsoft needs, for every line of business, to have things that "pop every six to nine months, things that pop every couple of years, things that pop longer than that." What can you do with things like Windows and SQL Server, that take so long to develop, to get that six-to-nine month pop?
Ballmer: They don't. Aspects take long to develop. We made the decision that the next version of SQL would be the version to get the .Net runtime. It took a long time to pop. And because we made that decision, it also took longer for .Net 2.0 to pop, because those things had to pop together. We needed to do that work.
The thing we would do differently in that position is to say, "Look, that may take three or four years, let's not hold the next release for that innovation." There are plenty of innovations that could have been put into the market earlier that would have been interesting and exciting. That's why I talk about the three cycle times. We're going to have things that take longer; we'll have regular releases; and we'll have service packs or service oriented value-adds that people will see every nine months or so.
Back with Windows 95's launch, the stars sort of aligned so that Win 95's debut more or less coincided with the Internet boom. Today, Web-based computing--blogs, IM, Web e-mail, search--that's the new phenomenon. Windows Live and MSN get you in the game. But how do those services pull through sales of Vista? What's the connection between Vista and Windows Live? Is there more that we haven't yet seen?
Ballmer: Windows Live is designed to work on all Windows systems. It may or may not pull through Vista. We will certainly do things in Windows Live that take advantage of Vista. But it's like the next version of Office--it will run on versions of Windows other than Vista, too.
See more CNET content tagged:
Steve Ballmer,
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Office 12,
segment,
Microsoft Office
BizTalk.
IE 7 is unnecessary.
WinXP is quite adequate. No interest in Vista
Current Office is quite adequate. Office 12 seems to be coming
with too many functions I don't like or want.
,Net has yet to show any value.
Windows Live and MSN are functional failures, at least at this
time.
Passport seems to be an MS attempt to run your personal data.
Well, Ballmer has his goals. That's nice. They just aren't mine.
And, that's life
Yeah, no value to you because you're obviously not a developer. .Not in the best API i've ever used, MS has innovated heavily in my mind on that front. Its better than pretty much every other Dev Inv i've used.
mySQL Is great for Small DB's...SQL=Large Scaleable DB's
Too many functions in Office? Yeah whatever. There are actually less, that do more, and its by far easier to use than any other orfice on the market.
MSN is a functional failure with 215 Million Users. Failure? Id hate to see what real failure is to you.
If those arent your goals, to upgrade that is. Then why do you comment on things you really dont know much about?
Microsoft is knee deep in releasing a 5 year project that the Titanic would probably be easier to steer away from the iceberg.
GW
reality T.V. show.
natural to him. Just likes it's natural for me to do what I do. I'm
very good at, much like Balmer.
The difference between me and Balmer is that I don't blow
smoke up my clients A$$'s in hopes the'll continue to use my
services or products.
Let get this straight, you think your products should be put off
of the legacy level. or should be someday. How about putting
out a product that doesn't derserve the Legacy Level.
Windows is cheap here is the US. Bull! $199 for an upgrade and
$299 for the whole version. Is that cheap to you, or the 10
percent of Americans that are rich. My clients will tell you that
your software is over priced. And I'll tell them the only reason
there is a slimmed down version of XP overseas is becuase if
they didn't create some kind of cheap OS for the Internation
Market they would of lost it to Linux.
Wait, they already lost China!
One thing you'll notice about a truly superior computer
company: There not in the headlines everyday trying to compete
with EVERYBODY's technology in the computer world. A truly
superior computer company will continue to progress on it's
roots. The core that made the company. Take a look at APPLE
and you will see.
For you, Microsoft, the core has been lost to XBOX, book search
competition with Google, search enjine competion with
everybody. As well as a host of other projects that you represent
but fall short of everytime.
Microsoft, a company with endless resources, can't even abide
by a Judges ruling. And now I have been subject to Steve Balmer
telling CNET News.com how everything is just peachy.
Stop lying to yourself and the rest of the %85 percent of general
public about how Microsoft is doing. Why don't you stop yapping
and start producing? I mean producing something that isn't a
security risk for everybody that uses any one of your products!
This is what we would like to see. No a bunch of smoke being
blown up our IT A$$'s.
www.techviewstoday.tech01.net
~Justin
A: Make windows a decent price
B: Make so it runs on more than just the latest PC.
Till then, I will stick with my UNIX based OS's.
I recently bought a CD from raptorhead.com, an open source desktop apps company that provide bundled service and support for OSS on Windows Pc. This is an example of providing low cost but quality software to consumers and small business operators.
- Micro "soft" PR Ad...C/NET "interview"
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by Llib Setag
November 8, 2005 11:15 AM PST
- Ballimer to C/NOT:"Let's act like we are just having an "interview", but in reality it is a Microsoft PR promo for up & comming vaporware & more press for our next savior "Vista"...OK?
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(15 Comments)Here's the money & script, follow along C/NOT (or we will pull all of our banner ads from your site.
THIS IS NOT NEWS...