Software as a Service, Software plus Services etc, etc is a hot topic, but the reality for most of us is that for today we need to deliver traditional software while planning for the future.  Steve Ballmer discusses this and more at the Gartner ITxpo 2007 event.  I have snipped a few words that I thought were interesting, but please read the rest of the article for more info.  For a video of Steve on Microsoft in the online world, have a look at Steve's blog at Steve Ballmer video - The Online Opportunity

Ballmer addressed what appeared to be recurring questions among attendees: What is Microsoft's strategy around SAAS (software as a service), and what is Microsoft's answer to Google?

Ballmer made it clear during the session that seeing any similarities between Microsoft and Google would be a mistake. "We don't look alike at all," he said. There is a "world of search and advertising, where Google is the leader; we're number three, working to be number two and then working to be number one."

Microsoft has been able to differentiate itself in certain verticals such as shopping and through its user interface, Ballmer said. He then said that in productivity and business computing, Google's offerings are "not as good as 'me-too.' We haven't seen a lot from the other guys."

Moreover, Ballmer said he sees the on-demand, cloud-computing world evolving differently in the short term than over the long term.

 

He focused on Microsoft's four major business models: the PC, the Web, the enterprise market, and devices and entertainment.

"We need to bring them together, and as we bring them together, the cloud will get more important," Ballmer said. "But we're not going to move to a world where everything is on thin client. We aspire to bring the rest of all of these models together."

<snipped>

And SAAS is one of the facets of Microsoft's Web strategy. Still, Ballmer said, users will never be able to do as good a job with a services- or browser-based version of Microsoft Office as with an OS-based version. "But we need to simplify deployment," he said.

Ballmer then put in a plug for Microsoft's Silverlight technology, which is a cross-platform, cross-browser technology to enable people to "do rich and reach applications."

"The Web model will continue to get richer," he said. "At some point you'll feel like you're downloading the whole OS. More and more, OS capabilities will flow down to you, and we're doing some of that with Windows Live. So you'll see more real-time extensibility via the cloud."

Meanwhile, Ballmer said Microsoft is perhaps, "the number one company in the world to have benefited from the consumerization of IT. … We believe in it, we have lived it, and we hope nobody else will do unto us as we have taken from others before."

Ballmer Talks Cloud, Advertising, SAAS

ttfn

David