Steve Ballmer - Quick chat with Microsoft's CEO

Transcript:

Q: Hey, where are we?

A: Heyyyyy, how are you guys doing?

Q: Who are you?

A: Steve Ballmer. Who are you?

Q: I'm Robert Scoble.

A: I know that. You're in my office at Microsoft Corporation.

Q: We're in your office? I heard there's an Xbox up here, is that true?

A: There's no Xbox. There are some suggestions, from my son, on Halo 2 and 3 on the board.

Q: You're famous for the "developers, developers, developers" speech. Why are developers so important for Microsoft?

A: At the end of the day the innovation in the software business and the IT business comes because someone writes a great piece of code. Even in the hardware frankly most of the innovation comes because someone writes a great piece of code. An important piece of code. A great piece of code.

All the solutions, whether we create them ourselves, whether they are created by our partners, or our ISVs, it all starts with developers, developers, developers.

Q: I’m on the evangelism team here, why do we have an evangelism team?

A: Well, really helping developers understand what we got available for them to use, not just frankly in Windows, but in Office and our Server products, what they can take advantage of, exploit that. How they can save their time. Save their energy. How they can do in some senses better applications. Applications that integrate better with other people’s applications. You know you’ve gotta communicate. Some of that has to happen on the Web site. Some of that has to happen in face-to-face meetings. People here have to be listening and creating code samples.

All of that we call “evangelism.”

Q: What is your call to action for developers?

A: Well, I think that one of the key things that people have to understand is that the PC is an important part of the overall ecosystem that people are using. It’s intelligence at the edge of the Internet. And I think that people got very excited, appropriately, about Internet and HTML and browsers, but I think there’s gonna be two places of innovation for developers over the next few years.

One is gonna be taking advantage of intelligence at the edge of the network. The PC and other intelligent edge (mobile phones) devices and the other is going to be using Web services and XML to glue things together: applications, services, across the Internet, inside the datacenter, inside a developer’s applications. Between those two phenomenon I think there’s plenty for developers to think about.

Q: Microsoft has been a leader in transparency, blogging, and Channel 9. Why did you allow blogging to happen?

A: In the world of developers I don’t think it would have mattered if I wanted to allow blogging to happen or not. But I think it’s been a great way for us to communicate to our customers and for our customers, more importantly, to communicate with us. We trust our people to represent our company. That’s what they are paid to do. If they don’t want to be here they wouldn’t be here. So in a sense you don’t run any more risk letting someone express themselves on a blog than you do letting them go out and see a customer on their own anyway. It just touches more people. Hey, if people need to be trained or understand better we can do that but I find that it’s just a great way to have customer communications.

Q: Now time for some tough questions.

A: OK. End of the softballs.

Q: On the blogs there are those who say that Microsoft doesn’t innovate anymore. Can you give us some examples of where you see innovation?

A: I think we’re doing a ton of innovative work. If you take a look at the stuff we’re doing with interactive television I think it is super innovative. I think the Tablet stuff has been a little slower to take off than we had hoped, but I think it’s super innovative stuff. If you take a look at what we’re doing right now in the Office world with our next generation, with this generation, and the next generation of Office products. The stuff we’re doing with Live Communicator and the real-time stuff I think it’s very good and innovative work.

Take a look at what we’re doing in Visual Studio and Systems Center and the DSI, the management issue, I think it’s very innovative work. If you take a look at MSN Messenger, I think it’s very innovative work.

We have other things coming to the fore. Longhorn and a bunch of important -- the Xbox 360 – even before that. Very innovative stuff.

I do think that people miss. There was a big gap between the last major release of Windows and this one and people kind of miss that. They want more frequent releases. We got that message. That’s important.

But, I look out at the world and I say ‘who is doing the innovative stuff over the last few years?’ Did IBM out innovate us? I don’t think so. I don’t think they’ve done much interesting at all. What about Oracle? I don’t think they’ve done much innovative at all. What about the open source guys? Ah, the business model is interesting but we haven’t seen much in the way of technical innovation. People cite Google. Google has done some interesting stuff. We’ve done some interesting stuff. Peace. There are going to be some other companies that do some innovative work. And our job is to go out and do what we’re gonna do which is to out-innovate them going forward. Which is what we will do, even in their prime domain of search.

Q: Coming up with tough questions for you is pretty hard, if you were in my position, what tough questions would you be asking the CEO of Microsoft?

A: I think developers have to ask the following basic questions. Number one are you guys going to create opportunities, not just for me to write programs more simply, but are you gonna create opportunities where my program somehow works with another guy’s programs and one plus one equal three. Windows has been that. You get to use multiple applications at the same time with some level of data interchange.

I think the work we’re doing in Longhorn. The work we’re doing with the file system in Longhorn. The work we’re doing with Avalon in Longhorn. All falls into that category and I feel very very good about that.

I think you have to ask us are you gonna give us a way to have one plus one be three with other applications in terms of the way they communicate and work out on the Internet. We’re working hard on strategies to facilitate that. With MSN and some of the other things we’re doing. I think that’s an important area.

I think at the end of the day developers, though, more than almost anything wanna know “are you guys gonna win?” Because the technical stuff is interesting, very interesting, very important, but people want to bet on platforms that are going to win because platforms that win get more support. Get more management tools. They get more of everything. I think our track record has shown a consistent track record of winning and even in areas, like the Internet, where people we weren’t gonna win we came back to win. So, I’d say to us “are you guys still committed to winning?” Of which the obvious answer is “absolutely we are” and that success of our platforms benefits our developers.

Q: To end it up, since a lot of Microsoft employees watch Channel 9 too, what would you say to all the Microsoft employees around the world who work at Microsoft?

A: I’d say the same thing to our developer customers as I would say to our employees. There has never been a better opportunity than today to make a real difference in the world. The next 10 years are going to be as exciting in computing and information technology as the last 10.

Don’t be confused. Even though more than 10 years ago most people didn’t have PCs. They didn’t have cell phones. They didn’t know what the Internet was. The next 10 are gonna be every bit as good. Whether it is Web Services. Whether it is intelligence at the end. Whether it is service based applications. Whether it is next generation user interfaces. Whether it is mobility. The next 10 years are going to be very exciting. The key is to set big bold goals for yourself. Whether it is the skills that you develop individually. It is the projects that you work on with others and seek to go after. I think we have got to be able to be big and bold. I tell our people let’s be big and bold in our ambitions. I tell developers who use our platforms and tools to be big. Be bold. Be ambitious and count on it – the future is so bright you gotta wear shades.

Q: I wore jeans right into the CEO’s office.

Q: What do you want to be remembered as?

A: Now you’re asking deep, profound, questions. Mostly I want to be remembered by my three sons as a great dad and a great husband. But when you get past that I wanna be, you know, kind of remembered as a guy who helped build a company that did great innovative work that was able to continue to do great and innovative work long after its founding. The company is 30 years old. We started out as the beginner in this industry. We’re about the only company that has not only survived, but thrived through the whole period and 30 years from now when I’m long gone I want this company to be still knocking out the innovative hits.

Q: Thanks very much Steve.