Steve Ballmer has laid out the new priorities for Microsoft and shares his strategy to kill Yahoo, Google and 
Apple. Here is an excerpt from mail he sent out to MS employees:
- Windows: The success of Windows is our number one job. In the weeks ahead, we’ll launch a campaign to address any lingering doubts our customers may have about Windows Vista.
- Apple: In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We’ll do the same with phones–providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.
- Software plus services: Some people think software plus services is all about search. But it’s really about changing the way software is written and deployed.
The future is about having a platform in the cloud and delivering applications across PCs, phones, TVs, and other devices, at work and in the home. It’s also about driving change in business models through advertising, subscriptions, and online transactions. Software plus services is a huge opportunity for us to deliver new value on the desktop and the server to all of our customers. This year at PDC, you’ll hear more about our cloud platform initiatives and the next versions of our Live and Online technologies. - Google: We continue to compete with Google on two fronts–in the enterprise, where we lead; and in search, where we trail. In search, our technology has come a long way in a very short time and it’s an area where we’ll continue to invest to be a market leader. Why? Because search is the key to unlocking the enormous market opportunities in advertising, and it is an area that is ripe for innovation. In the coming years, we’ll make progress against Google in search first by upping the ante in R&D through organic innovation and strategic acquisitions. Second, we will out-innovate Google in key areas–we’re already seeing this in our maps and news search.
Third, we are going to reinvent the search category through user experience and business model innovation. We’ll introduce new approaches that move beyond a white page with 10 blue links to provide customers with a customized view of their world. This is a long-term battle for our company–and it’s one we’ll continue to fight with persistence and tenacity. - Yahoo: Related to Google and our search strategy are the discussions we had with Yahoo. I want to emphasize the point I’ve been making all along–Yahoo was a tactic, not a strategy.
Read the full text here
I like the fact that Ballmer acknowledges’ Microsoft’s weaknesses and is so desperate to beat Google! But at the same time I guess this is more of a corporate speak – seems like he doesn’t yet understand the difference between strategy and tactic!!
Who is the bigger gunda? Microsoft or Google?
Watch my all-time fav M$ video
anybody who has worked in a big product company for years will know what stuff like this is… just talking, talking (for the stupid shareholders who need updates on stratedgy every quarter).
MS have been saying abt search for years, they simply cant beat yahoo leave alone google at search game. search is a self-fulfilling circle difficult to beat incremental quality improvement. more traffic=better machine learning=better results=more traffic.
“Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that” – yeah thats how windows have been surviving. the moment OS X was available cheaper and say works on dell, end of game for MS(well atleast 30% share will be gone)
Microsoft is dead company just like Oracle. Sure they make tons of $$$ which will die out slowly, but no innovation, nothing exciting. Lets talk about Facebook or Twitter.
Classic problem of big companies making profits out of legacy products. They cannot kill the cash cows, but can extend their usage across multiple platforms. This is what they are setting out to do.
Search is not the only game in town – I think its been needlessly in the glare because of the information part of it. Having all the worlds information in a tank of harddrives is one thing, making money out of it is another. All the search companies, and social networking companies will go through this phase too.