Ballmer talks acquisition strategy
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Candid about Microsoft's expansion plans, the CEO was cautious when discussing the Facebook partnership and competing with Google search.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft's top executive outlined the company's plan to transition from a traditional software company to offering software plus services for the first time on Tuesday, giving some roadmap details for how the strategy will play out in the next year. In a keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shed more details on the plan other executives, such as Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, have been teasing out over the past year -- but not many more. He gave a time frame for the early part of the transition but mostly echoed what other executives have said about Microsoft's slow transition to adding hosted business services to its traditional software portfolio. "For software plus services, the time is now," Ballmer said, finishing off the first of a raft of keynotes on the first day of Microsoft's annual partner conference. He said that over the next year, Microsoft will continue to sell mostly on-premises software, but there will be more evidence of the transition to its hybrid model as the year goes on. Since Microsoft began talking about its plan to gradually transition to offering more hosted services last year in a speech by Ozzie at its TechEd Conference in Boston, many noted that the company had no choice. With such an entrenched business in enterprise and consumer desktop software, it would be impossible for Microsoft to be as nimble in offering hosted services as rivals like Google and Salesforce.com, which started their businesses as Web-based services providers. And a warmer reception for hosted services is clearly the direction the enterprise market is heading as businesses become more comfortable accessing Web-based services beyond the traditional consumer staples of e-mail and search that have been popular for years. The transition to providing more services will touch every part of Microsoft's business, but some changes will be more obvious than others, Ballmer said. The user interface will be an important place for innovation in this area, and Microsoft's Silverlight technology is the cornerstone of that, he said. Microsoft introduced Silverlight, a browser plug-in that allows for rich video and interactive media experience to be delivered within Web sites, in April. A solid services platform on which partners can build services and also that they can resell with Microsoft managing and hosting them also will be a clear sign of the transition, Ballmer said. Microsoft already is offering a combination of consumer-oriented services, such as Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Local Search, but will begin bulking up its portfolio of enterprise services as well, he said. Microsoft already has unveiled business services like Exchange Hosted Services for enterprise messaging and Office Live hosted service for small businesses. There will be new and expanded services like these as Microsoft progresses further with its software plus services strategy, Ballmer said.
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Cleveland Cavaliers owner Gordon Gund is involved in contract talks to sell the National Basketball Association team, which has become a top NBA contender behind second-year star LeBron James.
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The carrier's chief technical officer, Dick Lynch, talks strategy as the mobile industry enters a new era.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rebuffed&#160;Google&#39;s accusations&#160;that an acquisition of Yahoo would be anticompetitive.
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With merger and acquisition fever said to be waning, which deals will be the ones to work out?
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At Gartner Symposium ITXPO, Microsoft Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer touched on quite a few topics that are targeted towards Microsoft&#39;s end consumers.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has made courting Linux users and those considering the open-source option a top priority and said the sheer volume of innovation that Longhorn development efforts
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Rival's allegations of more antitrust activity is 'baseless,' Ballmer says.
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Company's recent acquisition will improve its competitive advantages.
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In a letter to Yahoo&#39;s board, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer&#160;offered to acquire the company&#160;for a per-share price of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock -- a 62 percent premium above the Jan. 31, closing price of Yahoo -- and cited the broad range of ways in which the companies might work together to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. Below is the text of the letter that Microsoft sent to Yahoo&#39;s Board of Directors:
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Perhaps lost in the acquisition discussion is how it could help Microsoft with its software-plus-services strategy for delivering business apps over the Internet.
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AT&T Inc.'s  incoming chief executive said on Wednesday that the U.S. phone company was open to using acquisitions to boost its overseas business, after failing to win control of Telecom Italia .
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New Delhi, Nov. 16: Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer today asked the Indian government to spend more on information technology (IT) while showcasing the software giantâs efforts to promote technology in the country.
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Lose the tie, SteveO! Analysis The rhetoric surrounding Steve Ballmer's unsolicited $44.6bn offer for Yahoo! will focus on the obvious - the potential market share growth that a Microsoft and Yahoo! tie-up would have against Google.â¦
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What&#39;s one of Steve Ballmer&#39;s biggest headaches? It&#39;s not Linux or security breaches. It&#39;s piracy, the Microsoft CEO said Wednesday.
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Speaking at the Gartner Symposium and ITxpo 2004 in Orlando, Florida, yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer outlined new security initiatives, some of which would make it into a pre-Longhorn &#39;Release 2&#39; for Windows, next year.