Posted 03/08/10 at 07:41:05 AM by Paul Lilly

Up to this point, Microsoft's bread and butter has been on desktop applications, like Windows and Office. But going forward, the software giant has its head in the cloud, according to Steve Ballmer, who said Microsoft is "betting our company" on cloud computing.

To prove it, some 70 percent of Microsoft employees are hammering away on cloud-related projects as you read this. That's already well over half, but within a year, Ballmer says that number will climb to 90 percent.

Ballmer's remarks came during an address at the University of Washington, in which he also gave credit to Apple's app store for doing a "very nice job" with it.

This goes in line with what Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, recently said when he indicated that much of the company's planned $9.5 billion budget for research and development will go towards the cloud,  noting that Microsoft wants to reinvent itself.

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Posted 01/22/10 at 11:30:31 AM by Paul Lilly

Celebrities have been known to sign just about anything, including body parts, so should it really come as any surprise that one of the faces of Microsoft would scribble his name on a Mac? It shouldn't, and that's exactly what Steve Ballmer did.

A student from Trevecca Nazarene University asked Ballmer to autograph his laptop, which elicited a hearty laugh from Ballmer after he noticed it was a Mac.

"It's got Windows on it, I promise," the student quipped.

Like a good sport, Ballmer scrawled his name across the silver casing much to the delight of the onlookers, adding "Need a new one?"

How long until you think it shows up on Ebay?

YouTube Video

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Posted 01/07/10 at 09:41:03 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Microsoft and HP would unveil a slate PC during Steve Ballmer's evening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show. And that is actually what happened. But the Hewlett-Packard tablet that Ballmer showed to those in attendance failed to create any palpable buzz.

If anything, the tablet dampened hopes of Microsoft setting the bar quite high for Apple's rumored tablet by unveiling a truly revolutionary slate of its own at CES2010. Being a Windows 7-powered tablet, it was anything but avant-garde.

A lot of people thought – or actually hoped - that Microsoft would unveil something based on its Courier tablet prototype, but it wasn't to be. All said, not a lot is known is about the HP tablet and the version of Windows 7 that it runs.

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Posted 01/06/10 at 09:45:54 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

The Microsoft Keynote has started! Click the image below to jump into the conversation and follow along with tonight's announcements!

Read on to follow along with our keynote liveblog!

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Posted 11/19/09 at 06:09:59 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Windows 7 is the best PC operating system ever, according to Steve Ballmer. "We've already sold twice as many units as any OS in a comparable time frame," an exultant Ballmer informed shareholders at a meeting on Thursday.

Its latest operating system has helped the company obscure the spectre of Vista's failure. A couple of NPD reports published during the past fortnight indicate that Windows 7 has so far surpassed Vista in terms of sales, revenue, and adoption rate.

One shareholder apparently became the face of moderation for a bit during the meeting when he questioned Ballmer about Apple's huge popularity with the younger generation. Ballmer admitted that there is some room for improvement. But on the whole, he seemed satisfied with the fact that Windows is by far the most popular OS in the world.

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Posted 10/09/09 at 04:16:26 PM by Paul Lilly

We can't imagine anticipation running any higher for the imminent release of Windows 7 than it already is -- anyone hosting or attending a launch party? -- and rightfully so, given that the OS seemingly combines the best of XP and Vista while getting rid of most of the negatives. However, don't expect Windows 7 to save a struggling PC market from sluggish sales.

So says Steve Ballmer, who during a news conference in Munic, Germany, downplayed the role of Windows 7 in any PC sales increase that may follow.

"There will be a surge of PCs but it will probably not be huge," Ballmer told the audience, according to Reuters. Ballmer also went on to suggest that the ailing tech sector would take some time to rebound into old form.

Ballmer could be playing the karma card, as he seems intent on tempering expectations for Windows 7, while at the same time he and Microsoft's marketing gurus have entered a massive campaign to promote the upcoming OS. Amid all the hoopla, Microsoft even offered a 90-day trial of Windows 7 to enterprise users in an attempt to entice them into upgrading.

Then again, who knows what goes on in Ballmer's head - see here.

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Posted 10/09/09 at 09:26:39 AM by Paul Lilly

It's hard to argue with the success of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, which has prompted competition running the gamut from Asus and MSI, to startups looking to cash in on the rapidly growing market. But one company Amazon apparently needn't worry about is Microsoft.

"We have a device for reading. It's the most popular device in the world. It's the PC," Microsoft's Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday.

 Er, what? But Ballmer wasn't joking and went on to say that Microsoft would be willing to work with Amazon to port more books over to the PC.

"I would love to see companies like Amazon and others bring their books to the PC," Ballmer said. "Hopefully, we can get that to happen with Barnes & Noble or Amazon or somebody. But no, we are not interested in e-readers ourselves."

Microsoft might not be interested in e-readers, but consumers are. Portable readers are expected to do particularly well this holiday shopping season, and Industry research firm Forrester this week raised its forecast for e-reader sales by 50 percent to 3 million units.

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Posted 09/29/09 at 09:21:55 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Steve Ballmer recently sat down with Techcrunch to wax philosophical about browsers and their connection to the operating system. Ballmer was asked about the legal disputes over Internet Explorer bundling. Without missing a beat, he called the notion that operating systems can be independent of internet access “not a sensible concept”.

Ballmer went on to take a few swings at the upcoming Chrome OS, saying, “If you remember, [Marc Andreessen] said something like, Windows will just be a poorly debugged set of device drivers running Netscape… Now, that’s kind of basically the attitude expressed in Chrome Browser, Chrome OS.” He also called Chrome’s browser market share a “rounding error”, but noted that Firefox is having a real impact. Ouch for Chrome.

When asked about how Microsoft will fare against the continued onslaught of competitors, he answered like he’d been thinking about it a lot. Ballmer explained that Macs attack from the top of the market, and PC sales have gained a bit on Macs in the last year as people shied away from more expensive options. He went on to say that Netbooks were going to continue to be a big part of the Windows strategy.

Ballmer clearly lays out a world in which competitors are sometimes operating systems, sometimes browsers, and in the future may even be both. Even with all these new threats, he seems pretty sure Microsoft will stay on top. What do you think?

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