Steve talks frankly
A Steve Ballmer public appearance is rarely likely to be uneventful, so when it was announced that he was popping over to London as part of a 5-day European tour we decided to see what he had to say.
The broad theme of the event was to clarify Microsoft's Software plus Services (S+S) concept, which is the name used to describe its evolution towards things like Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing.
Ballmer started by thanking and reassuring the 300-odd assembled Microsoft partners. "Software is not just something you throw on a DVD and distribute anymore; now it also lives in the internet and in multiple devices," said Ballmer. "Our basic approach and roots are not changing. Technology changes, routes to market change and delivery mechanisms change, so the partner model has to change."
He was keen to stress, however, as were many of the earlier speakers, that the point of S+S is that client and web-based software can co-exist. "People like the richness of client software but the ‘click to run' convenience of web-based software," said Ballmer.
"Google talks about thin clients and then launches a big, fat browser"
To illustrate his point, Ballmer couldn't resist referring to his main antagonist - Google - and the recent launch of its web browser: Chrome. "Google talks about thin clients and then launches a big, fat browser that runs as, effectively, an operating system over Windows."
Warming to this theme, Ballmer revealed that Microsoft is planning to unveil a new server operating system designed with cloud computing and the S+S platform in mind. "We need a new server operating system designed for the cloud," he said. "We will be launching one in four weeks but it doesn't even have a name yet. Let's call it Windows Cloud for now."
