Ballmer lobbies for Microsoft's R&D spending plan

posted by abennett
Be the first to comment | I like it!
More »
on this topic
May 31, 2006, 03:09 PM —  IDG News Service — 

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer Wednesday defended Microsoft's plan to boost its R&D (research and development budget) for next year to Wall Street analysts who worry the increased investment will lower earnings potential and mean less return to shareholders.

Microsoft right now is preparing for two major product launches -- Windows Vista and Office 2007 -- while trying to gain footholds in nontraditional markets for the company such as Web-based services, security, storage and business intelligence, Ballmer said in a speech to analysts at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. It is crucial Microsoft to continue to invest in all of these areas because as it has proven in the past, the investment will pay off in the long term, he said.

"If you believe in the opportunity we believe in you have to invest behind it," Ballmer said. "You have to be optimistic about your opportunity to change the world. ...This takes a long-term view. Everything about Microsoft takes a long-term view, I

IDG News Service

I like it!
Post a comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Free books

Essential JavaFX
Get started building rich Web apps quickly with an introduction to the power of JavaFX key features -- scene node graphs, nodes as components, the coordinate system, layout options, colors and gradients, custom classes with inheritance, animation, binding, and event handlers.Enter now!

The Nomadic Developer
Consulting can be hugely rewarding, but it's easy to fail if you are unprepared. To succeed, you need a mentor who knows the lay of the land. Aaron Erickson is your mentor, and this is your guidebook. Enter now!

Featured Sponsor
Case Study: AISO grows its "green" business

AISO founders envisioned a Web hosting company that was environmentally friendly. While the company employed energy-efficient innovations like solar panels, its infrastructure produced unacceptable power and cooling requirements. Find out how AISO leveraged AMD technology to overcome their challenge in this case study white paper.

Download this white paper »
Myth of the Million Dollar Database

In this whitepaper, Scalar explores the opportunity to change the landscape with respect to mission critical databases built around Oracle. Leveraging technologies such as Linux, high-end commodity processing power and Oracle RAC technology to architect, design, build and maintain database infrastructure that delivers maximum availability, reliability and performance at a fraction of traditional cost.

Download this white paper »
Success Story: Weather.com handles whatever nature serves up

On a typical day, weather.com, the Web site for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, serves up between 15 million and 20 million page views. But in September 2004, when back-to-back hurricanes ransacked Florida, the peak traffic on one day more than tripled: over 70 million page views by more than 7 million unique visitors. Read the full success story now.

Download this white paper »
Marketplace