Visionary or foolhardy? Steve Ballmer clearly thinks there’s a moment when companies have to ignore what their shareholders are saying - and even what some of their customers are saying. Shareholders and customers aren’t in the long-term vision business.

That was the underlying message here in Redmond today as Ballmer and Bill Gates kicked off Microsoft’s annual gathering for big investors and financial analysts. This is Gates’ last year before stepping aside next June, but his total lack of interest in the ways of the financial world is still apparent. You could almost shut your eyes and imagine you were at Google.

It was left to Ballmer to throw down the gauntlet to Wall Street. Investors think that "long-term" means three years, but that’s not much more than a single product cycle in many of Microsoft’s businesses. Go back 18 years, and even customers were saying Microsoft would never make it as a enterprise software company that they would trust their corporate data to, it shouldn’t bother. Look at it now.

The same relentless approach is now being applied to online advertising and consumer electronics - even though Ballmer concedes that many investors question whether Microsoft should be in these consumer markets and whether it can master the different business models involved. To judge by the questions so far, the financial types who have made the trek to Redmond have yet to be convinced.

July 26th, 2007 in Uncategorised | Permalink