Microsoft today announced a new strategy to blur the distinction
between software that runs on PCs and servers and applications that
run on the
internet cloud.
In an interview with Computer Weekly, chief executive officer
Steve
Ballmer explains why he believes Microsoft's approach is right
for IT departments. Users want software that will run in any number
of places, he says. That means in corporate data centres, on
desktop PCs, or a hosted data centre providing SaaS.
The model used by Marc Benioff, CEO of
Salesforce.com, which
provides services over the internet alone is wrong, according to
Ballmer. "No one wants mainframe centralised computing," he
says.
Microsoft plans to offer its own hosted service so that users
can run applications in the so-called internet cloud. But the
company has no immediate plans to scale back development of its
desktop and server products.
In the future, Microsoft software such as
Office
will have four modes of operation. Users can continue to buy the
software and install it. They may choose to have Office streamed
down from a centrally managed image of the software stored on a
server or via the internet. Or they can run Office using Microsoft
Terminal Services, from a thin client device, which provides the
Windows GUI over an internet connection.
"We will rewrite Office to work in a browser," he says. The
product is likely to work a bit like the way Outlook Web Access
provides Internet Explorer users with access to Microsoft
Exchange.
Ballmer acknowledges that Microsoft is facing increasing
resistance from users to upgrade to the
latest version of Windows. In spite of sales in excess of 180
million units, the operating system has not been taken up by
corporate users in the volumes anticipated.
"We dialled up security in Vista, but we had to break backwards
compatibility to make it secure," he says. As a result,
applications have needed to be re-engineered for Vista, slowing
down the take-up in business.
Ballmer is adamant this will not happen again. "If we have to
break backwards compatibility each time, we may as well get out of
the operating systems business."
The next version of desktop Windows, called
Windows 7, will be an easy upgrade for Vista users. "We will
not be changing the underlying software architecture in Windows 7,"
he says.
Ballmer boldly predicts Microsoft's virtualisation product,
Hyper-V, will corner 70% market share, He does not see the
demise of rival VMWare as such, but in the database market where it
competes with Oracle, Ballmer sees Microsoft taking a dominant
stake.
Microsoft Office is competing with
Google Apps. Even though Google has a tiny share compared with
MS Office, Ballmer admits some of the functionality in Google Apps
is actually quite good. "Google has done some clever things with
its spreadsheet. I recognise that and you can bet we will have
those features in the next version of MS Office," he says.