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Microsoft banks on bang from BingJun 21, 2009 (The Charlotte Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Google and Apple get a lot of attention, but Microsoft is still the giant in the technology industry. Under the leadership of its energetic chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer, the company has more than 90,000 employees and $17billion in annual income. Microsoft has about 1,100 employees in Charlotte. About 200 more are near Raleigh. Ballmer was in town Friday to speak at an N.C. Technology Association conference uptown. After his keynote speech, he sat down with the Observer to talk about the future of mobile computing and Microsoft's new search engine (Bing) and to take some jabs at his two big competitors. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. Q: What's in store for Microsoft operations in Charlotte and Raleigh? We've been pretty stable in Charlotte. We've made some small adjustments in North Carolina. Handfuls of people, not a significant cutback in any way, shape or form. I wouldn't anticipate much growth, but I also wouldn't anticipate much more downsizing either. We do good work here, we get good people here. This has been a great talent market for us, and the productivity of the teams here is fantastic. Unless things go much worse in the economy, we've done our set of adjustments for the economic issues. Until we know where we are in the economy, I don't anticipate much growth anywhere. We certainly have some planned additions. But I would say our employment will be steady as opposed to rapidly growing, at least until we know where we are. Q: How has Microsoft's core business changed in your nine years as CEO? If you look at us from a revenue and profitability perspective, the most interesting changes over that time would probably be three or four: Windows and Office were big and are big. We've really added a server and enterprise business, which was small and now is huge and profitable. Very profitable. So that's a good add. I don't know whether it's a stray from the core. Now we look at it as part of the core, but 10 years ago it was not. We were losing money in funding Xbox. Xbox now generates money. Was that a stray from the core? I would say it was an extension of the core. It is now a profitable extension of the core and I think it was something good. I hope we continue to strengthen the core and I hope we continue to extend the core with Bing, with what we're doing with Windows Mobile and a number of other initiatives. Q: There's lots of talk about screen sizes. Small screens on the mobile phone, medium screen laptop and desktop computers, and large television-like screens. What do you see as the future of screens? I think people are going to use all three. I think anybody who doubts that all three will have an important role is probably wrong-minded. What device will you have with you the greatest percentage of the time? Probably the small screen. What device will you do your most important work, whatever that is? The answer is going to be the medium screen device. And where will you relax? Will you relax with a medium or large screen device, because it's more of an immersive experience? Maybe that's reading or watching video or whatever the case is. What's most important? The question is, "What are you doing?" Q: Do you think that we're too connected as a society? Do we use technology too much? No, and we'll be much more connected as we go forward. I see no downside to being connected. Are we too connected to paper now? In the 1500s, 1600s, post-Gutenberg there was probably a time when people asked if we were too dependent on writing on paper. I don't know how else to say it. It's a technology that facilitates life. Let's look forward, let's not look back. Q: Where do you compete with Google? The case of where we are attacking and they are strong competitively is in search. Where they are attacking and we are strong is in productivity and communications. It's kind of natural that each guy is trying to have some incursion. They're really a one-product company. They really only have a search business and everything else has no revenue. They might have users in some things, like they do for Gmail, but they really have one thing that pays all the bills. We have a number of things that pay our bills and some things we're investing in, like search. We're certainly going to compete in our current area of weakness, and we anticipate that they're going to make a run at us. It's our job to do the right stuff, be smart, run fast. The fact of the matter is, we're way ahead in productivity and communications. We have a lot of tools, we have a lot of customers, we have a lot of assets. They're going to try to be disruptive, and they're not going to be an easy competitor. Q: This week, it was announced that Microsoft settled an antitrust lawsuit in Mississippi, and several other lawsuits have cropped up in the past few years. Do you see these as a threat to the company? Very, very successful companies are going to invite regulator scrutiny. It's the good and the bad of big-time success. We have to be sure to understand what that means. It's a fact of our life. Q: How is Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, performing? It's running well. But it's too early to get excited. So far, the most important thing is that people are using it and think it's pretty interesting. It's a different point of view. They're finding things they never found before. It's not a projectable story, but my wife got an e-mail from a friend saying, "Tell Steve I switched to Bing. I don't prefer your results or Google results. They seem similar. But I really like the picture on the front." Hey, every little thing has the ability to say something. People like the images, some people like the video. Some people say it doesn't look like a search engine and it's a good thing, some people say it doesn't look like a search engine and it's a bad thing. We don't have to captivate everybody to start. We don't have to be better for everybody. But we have to be better for some. Q: How do you view the state of the economy? This economy certainly has come down and it's staying down. The good thing is we haven't found a second cliff to fall over. Which can happen; I'm not sitting here saying there won't be another cliff. But we fell kind of far and now we're relatively flat. Flat to slightly down. But there's still good news in that. Q: There's the criticism that Microsoft products just don't look as cool and sexy as Apple products. Are you trying to make yourself more hip? Apple is Apple. Apple is well positioned for its share. It's a company that has about 3 percent of the PC market. Their positioning is right for a guy who wants to have a 3- or 4-percent share and isn't trying to have a 70-, 80-percent share. We need to have a position that works for high school kids, college kids, that works for people who are early in their working careers, young parents and retired people. I want to be popular, which is a little different than being cool. Neither one's wrong. Apple's got a good business, it's good for them. We've got a good business that's good for us. I don't think they want to be positioned as we are, and I don't want to be positioned as they are. There's a reason they only have 3 percent market share. Part of their whole deal is based on having products that are priced higher, designed for people who want things that look a certain way, that make a statement. And that's fine. Of course we want to take share from them on the margin, but I don't think we're trying to be Apple in any sense. Our ads don't say we're hip. They basically say the best values, the best diversity and the best choices are all in PCs. Q: The most important thing you learned from Bill Gates is? Patience. To see more of The Charlotte Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.charlotteobserver.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Charlotte Observer, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |