Days after his Windows chief
officer resigned at a critical point for the company, Microsoft CEO Steve
Ballmer made it clear Wednesday evening that he wasn’t looking back.
Ballmer’s message, often
punctuated with shouts and fist pumps during an on-stage discussion in Santa
Clara, was one of continued innovation. He touted the approachability and
superiority of Windows 8 and the new Surface, Microsoft’s foray into the tablet
world, and talked of innovation in hardware and software that would help the
world’s largest software developer reinvent itself amid mounting pressures from
competitors — namely Apple.
“We’ve had some success, but you either move forward or you go away,”
he said at the event, which was sponsored by San Jose-based Churchill Club.
Ballmer continued down the
list of recent Microsoft acquisitions — such as enterprise social network
Yammer — and talked excitedly about plans for a product overhaul in the post-PC
era. Left mostly unaddressed, however, was the departure of Windows division
chief Steven Sinofsky, responsible for the Window 7 and Windows 8 releases. His
resignation comes amid mixed reviews of Windows 8 , questions about the
company’s ability to keep pace with shifting trends and speculation over
internal discord. Sinofsky was widely expected to be tapped as the next chief
executive.
Ballmer got the Sinofsky
question out the way quickly with an early softball from Reid Hoffman, chairman
and co-founder of the online business network LinkedIn Corp., who led the
on-stage discussion. Ballmer said Sinofsky was leaving on a high note and he
wished him well
Ballmer made a strong pitch
for Windows 8, the most dramatic upgrade of the company’s flagship product in
more than a decade, and said the touch-based system was a playground for app
developers to create new JavaScript and HTML products.
Ballmer said the Surface
tablet, which runs on Windows 8 and features attachable keyboards that double
as covers, gives consumers the versatility of mobile and PC in a single piece
of hardware.
“The distinction between a PC and a tablet, in our ecosystem, I
think, completely goes away,” he said.
Ballmer also wants to increase
Microsoft’s smartphone penetration from a single-digit percentage to 60% of the
market. The Redmond, Wash.-based company officially launched the Windows Phone
8 around Halloween.
“If anybody thinks we’re at the end of the hardware innovation in
pocket-sized devices, I think that’s nuts,” he said.
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