Ballmer also hinted that Microsoft’s forthcoming fiscal year-end earnings report would be rosy. We had a good year, he said. And while he couldn’t comment on the results ahead of the release, I will say a double thanks in advance of our fiscal year results, he said, emphasizing double.
While Microsoft is working to expand its global software dominance in several new markets, most prominent on the company’s product roadmap are updated versions of its bread-and-butter standards, namely the forthcoming Windows Vista operating system, Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007.
You could say in Vista’s case, it’s a loooong time in the making if you want to. And I think that’s probably a fair statement, Ballmer said. I think it’s probably important for me to tell our partners to rest assured we will never have a gap between Windows releases as long as the one between Windows XP and Windows Vista. Count on it.
However, earlier in the day, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates reportedly told local partners in South Africa there was an 80% chance Vista would be ready for broad release in January as scheduled.
In other words, there’s a 20% chance Vista will yet again be delayed. Initially, Vista was slated for release in 2005.
On who should upgrade to Office 2007 before Vista and vice versa, or blah, blah, blah, as Ballmer put it, partners and users should regard all the new packages as a whole being bigger than the sum of the parts, according to Ballmer. I’ve moved to both of them and I tell you it’s the way to go people, it’s the way to go.
Ballmer also unsuccessfully attempted, on several occasions throughout his hour-long speech, to illuminate the company’s new people-ready software moniker that he said encapsulated the purpose of these new products. People-ready software means everything from a way of developing software, to Microsoft’s overall marketing campaign, to a way of life, Ballmer said.
More concretely and in addition to its customer relationship management push announced at the event, Ballmer outlined a couple of new market areas for Microsoft that its partners should focus on, notably enterprise search and security.
Ballmer said enterprise search was the best opportunity out there for its partners. After all, information management was about a $13bn market opportunity, he said.
Ahead of the company’s SharePoint 2007 launch, Ballmer announced a new Quick Start program for Microsoft Search. And a Windows Live Search Center beta would launch in July.
SharePoint would complement Windows Live Search, enabling companies to conduct searches from the Web, Intranets and desktops. SharePoint 2007 would include business data catalog and connectors to enable users to search unstructured data, such as line-of-business applications, as well as structured.
Enterprises also could search for employees with a particular skill across its company, as well as at its partners, vendors and suppliers that may be connected to the system. This is kind of like MySpace for real business use, Ballmer quipped.
On the enterprise security front, Ballmer announced Microsoft this year would roll out, in addition to upgrades of existing products, a full suite of products that you could use to help our joint clients protect their servers and all the way down to the desktop client, including anti-virus and anti-malware.
Really this year we will enter the security market in full force, Ballmer said. But he offered scant new details. He did say the company’s Forefront line of security products announced in June was a continuation of what it plans to release in the security space, rather than a replacement.
Customers want the kind of integration that Microsoft can uniquely provide in the security world, Ballmer said. We will continue to expand our range of services available both on a hosted basis and on-premise basis.
Ballmer also announced a new Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2, which automatically updates the client and is aimed at companies with fewer than 70 workers and the need for just one server.
Additionally, he said a new Live Partner Advisory Council had launched.
Addressing partners’ concerns about how Microsoft Live presents little opportunities to make them money, Ballmer reiterated Live offered them ad revenues, referrals, hosting, reselling and customization opportunities.
Of Microsoft’s more than 600,000 partners worldwide, more than 7,000 are expected to attend the company’s conference.
