Sufia Tippu
Sunday, 12 November 2006 14:08
IT Industry -
Market
Page 1 of 2
“iPod is an island and that’s what plays into one of the strengths of our Zune; Google is a just a search engine and YouTube is actually something that people copied up from TV and is a copyright law problem waiting to happen; IBM has worked hard to get the government to be its ally on the regulatory front and that’s why it doesn’t draw flak from regulators.”
That was Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, saying
whatever he felt was right, and not caring less if he was politically
incorrect. Or was he just hitting back because the going was becoming
too tough for Microsoft with the likes of Google and Yahoo, pressing
hard on the innovation button?
There was no specific agenda for his visit. The Microsoft spokesperson
gave the usual stereotype reply that India was important for Microsoft
from both a customer and talent perspective and that Ballmer’s trip was
to keep himself abreast of development and opportunities here.
Sources at the Microsoft India Development Center said that this visit
was just to pep up the morale at the development center. Microsoft has
not exactly been the blue-eyed favorite among analysts with a pretty
unsatisfactory growth graph during the last few quarters especially
against the background of Google and Yahoo going great guns.
Apart from doing the usual rounds of meeting the Prime Minister and
interacting with the employees at the Microsoft India Development
Center in Hyderabad, Ballmer, for a short while also played a different
role of being a guest editor at The Economic Times, one of India’s
leading business dailies.
With competition coming up loud and clear, it was but natural for
questions to revolve around Google which is seen emerging as the
‘thought leader’ of the Internet age with Microsoft falling behind.
When queried about this, Ballmer is said to have replied that at the
end of the day there is only one thing to do - develop and bring new
products and services in the market.
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