Company CEO Steve Ballmer tells financial analysts the software company will deliver enterprise versions of Windows and Office.
Speaking at Microsoft’s 2005 financial analysts meeting in their Redmond hometown, Mr. Ballmer indicated the company would offer “higher-value versions of existing products” to help the company grow and increase in value.
Mr. Ballmer noted the success of Windows XP Professional, offered at a higher price than the Home version. “It drove literally billions of dollars of revenue growth versus the home version. We have plans in the Windows Vista generation to introduce an enterprise edition.”
Office will get a similar treatment, with a version of the company’s signature productivity suite called Office Premium, as well as a concept Mr. Ballmer referred to as Office Server. Windows may even see a premium client access license program, due to the company’s work with enhancing security and management features.
Like search rivals Yahoo and Google, Microsoft sees the temptations of the online advertising market and the billions of dollars it holds. Mr. Ballmer again reiterated a previous claim that Microsoft won’t have just the best search engine, but the strongest online services as well.
“There will only be a handful of major players in the ad market, and you can rest assured this company will be one of them,” he said in his remarks at the meeting. And he took analysts to task, lightly chiding them on perceptions of Microsoft’s growth rate:
“I believe in it I think more than you do, I’ll be honest. You might be thinking that Windows and server and Office are slow-growing businesses. We think that they are poised for very steady, robust growth.”
Mr. Ballmer even mentioned Linux, regarding its adoption for high-performance clusters in several industries, and noted that Microsoft barely registers in that market. “Mostly a Linux world, frankly, today,” he observed.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
