Microsoft Determined To Stay On
Top
(06/11/99, 5:38 p.m. ET)
By Stuart Glascock, Computer Reseller News
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp.'s
hard-charging,bombastic, number-one
apostle, capped awhirlwind work week by
telling a hometown audience that the PC will
reign as king for many years, despite new
form factors and rapid evolution in
technology.
Speaking today before about 175 members of the
Washington Software Association, which represents
some 2,500 software companies in Washington state,
Ballmer said Microsoft is determined to remain atop the
software world that is dominated by PCs.
The computing industry can look ahead to 20 more
years of exponential changes vis-a-vis Moore's Law,
Ballmer said. He also said he envisions a new era of the
"PC-plus," a time when the PC may be attached to
many new form factors, such as mobile devices, smart
phones and televisions with set-top boxes, but that the
PC won't be replaced by these devices.
"PCs will remain a very important, critical device over
the next 10 years," Ballmer said.
Ballmer Monday presided in San Francisco over the
launch of Office 2000, the most Web-enabled Office
suite to date. Tuesday, he pitched Windows NT in
carrier networks at SuperComm '99 in Atlanta. And
Wednesday, he discussed PC growth rates at the
PaineWebber Growth & Technology Conference in
New York.
Personal computers will control the newer, smaller
devices, and accept them, but PCs do not go away and
neither will the software that they run, said Ballmer.
However, the software will change dramatically, he
said.
"What you see on the client will look far more like what
we think of today as Web pages," Ballmer said. "In
some applications, a flat HTML application will work.
Some will be largely client-based. As we think of the
future of Word or Excel, the whole way in which the
client environment displays information changes. Think
about HTML with more rich controls in it. Even in the
Internet environment, things will go that direction and
XML will be the key technology that enables people to
capture the best of both worlds."
"Also, in the era of broadband, there will no longer be
software packages that are not also services," Ballmer
added.
Windows operating systems, for instance, in a few
years may be a bunch of bits on a computer, but also a
bunch of bits on a server that keep the system up to
date, he said.
"Every software package will go through an evolution"
whereby they become a mix of software and services,
Ballmer said.
Microsoft is preparing for this new PC-Plus world by
focusing on five areas: consumer Windows, IT
professionals, developers, knowledge workers and
electronic commerce, Ballmer said.
"We want to enable people to do what they want,
where they want, on any device, connected to the
Internet," he said.
VARs who simply resell products will go out of
business unless they follow the software evolution and
incorporate services into their business models, he said.
"I'm not worried about the channel as long as these guys
keep adding value," Ballmer said. "Retail is another
story. Most software will be sold online. But broadband
isn't here yet."
Before heading back to Microsoft's Redmond, Wash.,
corporate headquarters, Ballmer took two parting shots
at competitors. He credited Linux with being a
competitor in the server market, but downplayed its
potential on the desktop. Then, he slammed Sun
Microsystems Inc., and underscored his point about
PCs being king."[Sun] can't beat us unless they're on
the PC platform," he said.
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