Vista - an unrecoverable blow to Microsoft: Ballmer

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 06 October 2009, 22:45 IST   |    31 Comments
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Vista - an unrecoverable blow to Microsoft: Ballmer
Bangalore: Microsoft's reputation has never recovered from the launch of Vista, Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive, said as the company gears up for the release of its new operating system, Windows 7. Ballmer said that Microsoft's reputation took a beating after the release of Vista in 2007, an operating system which caused computers to hang indefinitely, among many other technical glitches. "We got some uneven reception when [Vista] first launched in large part because we made some design decisions to improve security at the expense of compatibility. I don't think from a word-of-mouth perspective we ever recovered from that," Ballmer told the Daily Telegarph. "I'd be hopeful that we see a bit more rapid pick-up, particularly people who are upgrading the software without touching the hardware - than maybe we have in years past." Microsoft is continuing on the acquisition trail and is likely to buy around 15 companies this year, in line with previous years. Further the company won't be buying Twitter, as the micro-blogging site does not "want to be bought". Ballmer also ruled out buying companies in search domain, where Microsoft is working to challenge Google's dominance of the market with its new search engine Bing. Instead, it will invest 5-10 percent of operating income internally on improving and marketing its product over the next several years. Microsoft has locked its total R&D budget at $9.5 billion in order to keep establishing new businesses. "You'll continue to see us work hard and invest in the marketing and the like, and of course we're trying to get the Yahoo deal through regulatory," added Ballmer expects search to represent a double-digit percentage of Microsoft's revenues within five years.

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