Ballmer: Current Woes Won't Halt Tech, Microsoft

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Photo: Lou Dematteis

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Microsoft’s normally exuberant CEO didn’t disappoint a packed hall of over 500 attendees at an event here last week. Steve Ballmer was largely upbeat about Microsoft’s products and cheerfully responded to questions about product deficiencies and competitive threats as “challenges.”

But he did start things off with one clear note of caution.

“The IT economy, our industry, is not immune to what goes on in the global economy,” he warned. “And yet as I talk to people in the industry, technology and telecom, people still see a certain buoyancy in the market.”

Ballmer speculated tech may be relatively better off than other sectors because it’s a global industry and some parts of the world are doing better than others, while the consumer side of tech is faring better than the business side. He added that, for now, there may simply be confusion about what exactly to be worried about.

“No one is really sure about the credit crisis or how it’s going to be improved by the bail out,” he said.

“At least for now, the people I talk to in the business are, I wouldn’t say ‘optimistic,’ but they’re feeling better than if you watched CNBC all day,” he added, referring to the financial news cable channel.

Ballmer, interviewed by software venture capitalist Ann Winblad, covered a wide range of topics related to the state of the software industry and also took questions from the audience, during the event organized by the Churchill Club.

While Winblad asked a series of nuanced questions about Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) direction in the software industry, one of the first questions from the audience was very direct and critical. A man identifying himself as a longtime Windows user asked why mighty Microsoft couldn’t make Windows more reliable.

Ballmer took it in stride, insisting Microsoft’s analysis of user complaints shows every version of Windows has been better than the earlier one. With Vista, he conceded some of Microsoft’s development decisions led to early compatibility problems as part of a trade-off to provide better security.

He said Microsoft’s goal is “a world of no reboots and user happiness.”

Winblad asked about Microsoft’s strategy for competing with Google and Ballmer readily conceded the software giant has a lot of work to do to catch the search leader — noting Microsoft’s share of that market is only about 9 percent in the United States.

She noted that Ballmer, about two years ago, had predicted that it would take five years for Microsoft to be a credible competitor to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) in search. She asked if that plan was still on track and whether Ballmer had acquiring Yahoo in mind when he made the five-year forecast.

“I suspect it was at least in my head,” he said.

But he also said winning in search, or any market, isn’t about using “brute force,” but redefining the experience for users and the business model.

“To go up from 9 percent in any market is going to take a while,” Ballmer said. “We’ve improved the core relevance of our search results in an amazing fashion. Vroom! The market leader has the brand; we need to try and fundamentally reinvent the search business.”

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.