Posted at 8:56 p.m. PST Thursday, December 16, 1999
Q&A: Steve Ballmer discusses
Microsoft's new mission
statement
On the final leg of his four-nation trip to Europe last week, Microsoft
Corp. President Steve Ballmer visited the company's
1,500-employee European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and
addressed 200 Irish senior business executives.
Afterwards, Ballmer spoke with Dublin-based freelance journalist
Karlin Lillington on behalf of the Mercury News. The following is an
edited transcript of their conversation, which ranged from Microsoft's
stock price and the antitrust trial to what kind of personality it takes to work at the world's largest
software maker.
Q: How do you see your role as head of Microsoft, and do you feel you need to differentiate yourself
from Bill Gates?
A: It was a pretty big shift for me when I took the job a year and a half ago. I'd say my job is to do
my best to see that the company is successful. There are parts of our business that need to be shifted
and changed and reinvented, and there are things that work super well. One of the things we've done
this year is we've talked about the reinvention of the company around the new vision (Microsoft's
new mission statement).
Q: Where do you want Microsoft to go tomorrow?
A: This next-generation Web platform is just a huge opportunity. Think of Windows as just a part of
it. Think of it as a new thing called i-Windows -- it's a client and it's a server and it's a set of services
that live out on the Internet.
And then around that, we want to provide tools for the business knowledge worker. We want to
provide tools for, an experience for,consumers who want to get things done at home, and we want to
provide an experience for small businesses. It's a platform. It's a building block. That's what we're
known for.
Q: There are 29 million lines of code in Windows 2000. Is there too much complexity for users?
A: No, I don't think users will have a problem with the complexity. We're going to need to go back
and improve the usability in a few ways for some systems administrators, but there are not going to be
any user problems. This is about value for users. We can never take anything away from a user.
That's a fundamental principle of software: you can't take back something unless nobody used it, and
most things, somebody uses. Software should get bigger every year. If you're trying to improve your
products, your job is to add more value and improve the products, to listen to the customers and give
them more. So I'm unapologetic about the amount of software.
Q: Assuming Windows 2000 ships in February, just after Y2K, won't that mean people will be
unlikely to have the cash for something as major as a new operating system installation?
A: It will ship in February! Will they have the money? Absolutely. Will some companies wait?
People act like they'll wait for a service pack or a fix or something. Some will. Most will wait until it
fits into their cycle.
Companies don't really orient their business cycles around our product releases. I don't think
anybody should ever expect that enterprises move like consumers and have an immediate uptake.
These things happen over a period of years.
Q: Do you regret that the launch delays mean you've missed the chance to have Windows 2000 go in
as part of companies' Y2K spend, given that many will choose to completely replace systems?
A: Well, we would really have had to have had this out in 1998 for that. We wish we'd had it out
earlier. Of course.
Q: Define innovation.
A: I think innovations are new things that are good for people, that people use. Now take Windows.
I consider Windows innovative. It was a new thing people used because we were able to synthesize.
It's not all new ideas, but it was a unique synthesis that made something popular, that basically no one
else could make as popular as we did.
And it wasn't just that we had many users -- the first system didn't have many users. It was the
combination of that, and supporting multiple hardware platforms and application models and
application availability.
Some people would say that anything that's kind of wild and interesting is innovative and I think that
probably Webster's dictionary would agree with that, but I think it's important to remember that there
are plenty of things that are wild that no one ever uses.
Q: Do you honestly think that there are threats from other operating systems out there? From Linux,
for example?
A: Absolutely.
Q: And why?
A: Why?
Q: With Linux, one of the main arguments against it is still this complexity issue. It isn't something
that's simple for system administrators. It isn't easy for users to use.
A: But people keep working on this stuff. It's free. It's a real threat.
I also think people underestimate the role of what I might call ''Windows middleware.'' Marc
Andreessen, who was running Netscape at the time, used to say, ''Someday, Windows will just be a
poorly debugged set of device drivers running Netscape Navigator. And all the users will know about
is Navigator, and all the developers will talk to is Navigator.''
I mean, you could say DOS (Microsoft's original operating system, which runs beneath Windows) is
now a poorly debugged -- well, it's well-debugged -- it's just a set of device drivers running
Microsoft Windows. And so the people who'll obsolete us could be somebody who comes along the
side of us, or someone who comes along on top of us.
You've got thin-client competition that just would be sort of browser only. You've got Linux
competition. You've got Java competition. There's a lot of competition out there.
Q: Is the operating system going to become less important? Some say the importance of Windows,
of any operating system, is waning because of the Net.
A: As I said, I think the platform is more than a client-side operating system. It's the client, the server,
and a set of services. That's my belief.
Q: What do you think of a technology world in which you, personally, can make the Nasdaq fall
three percent in a day?
A: I think it's a world in which nobody listens or pays any attention to what I said! (Laughs.)
Q: Did you expect that kind of reaction? Was it just a throwaway comment?
A: I knew it wasn't a throwaway, but I didn't think it was that big a deal at all. I mean, somebody
asked me -- it was a group of writers and editors -- ''What's the unwritten story of technology?''
And I said, ''Well, duh.'' I didn't expect anything like it. And obviously, no one agrees with it.
Everything's much higher than at the time I made my comment. (laughs)
Q: Microsoft's stock certainly seems to have been unfazed by the findings of fact (October's initial
finding by the judge in the antitrust case that Microsoft has a monopoly on PC operating systems).
A: Yeah.
Q: Some people would say that the very fact that you can postpone the release date of Windows
2000 so many times and still expect a huge market for it is proof that Microsoft is a monopoly.
A: I think people know they have something good coming. People don't have to upgrade. (There are)
500 million PCs in the world and you know what? If the product doesn't offer any value, nobody will
ever upgrade.
Q: Did you feel personally battered about when the findings of fact came out?
A: We certainly respectfully disagree with the findings of fact. We know we're in a very competitive
business, and for some reason the judge didn't quite end up agreeing with us about how competitive
our business is. We're glad to see that the judge acknowledged that our browser is a good product,
that it advanced the state of the art, that it benefited users, that it gave users a good price -- but, you
know, that got buried in most of the press coverage.
The judge chose to highlight a set of relationships we have that we would consider very positive, and
somehow to make them appear in a negative light. We have a great partnership with Intel, but
somehow that managed to be made to look funny. I think we were disappointed.
Q: Would you have done anything differently?
A: I don't think I'd do anything differently. I think we behaved 100 percent according to law, and in
the best interests of our customers. Intel was getting ready to bring out a piece of software that was
completely incompatible with Windows 95. I think it was our obligation to tell them, as our partner,
and in our customers' best interests, that they were going to do that.
I think it's in our best interests to work with Apple, I think it's in our best interests and in our
customers' interests to have discussions with Netscape about the best way forward together. But we
don't have to. If it doesn't make sense, it's OK.
I am sure there are times when people at Microsoft, you know, could have put things more, what
shall I say, low-key or gently. That's bound to be true. When we're competing, do we compete hard?
Do we always ask ourselves, ''Why did we lose that customer? Could we do better? Could we have
a better price? Could we have a better product?'' Of course. I mean, that's what you're supposed to
do.
Q: How would you define a Microsoft personality?
A: Passionate. Concerned. Loves the products, which means loves what customers do with them.
Likes to see their stuff used. Energetic. Those are the things I feel we have.
Q: What would you like to attain that you haven't attained yet?
A: Number one: We're just in the middle of the revolution, so to speak. Ugh, revolution (groans at his
use of the word).
Q: You're sounding like Steve Jobs.
A: Yeah, I'm not trying to. We're just in the middle of this incredible opportunity wave that the world
has experienced with first the PC and now the Internet. I certainly have great ambition to see our
company rise up and provide the technology for the next wave, benefit consumers and succeed as a
company.
Number two: I've got three small kids and I have an ambition to be a great dad. I'd like to be a pro
basketball player, but that's not in the realm of the real. (Laughs.)
Q: A final question: settlement or litigation?
A: We'd love to settle. That would be our preferred course, but certainly, we have to have the ability
to add capabilities to our products that consumers want. And that's the one principle we're fighting
for. We can compromise on a lot of other things, but that's essential.
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