E. Helm Microsoft Quotations

Microsoft is going to feel the pain: over 80 percent of desktop Windows are through sales of new PCs.

Microsoft sees software as a service as a part-answer to the maturing software market.

Windows Vista is on the final approach. Microsoft needed to take some early steps to start thinking about the next version.

Windows is Microsoft's biggest business unit, and Vista is it's biggest challenge. Frankly, I think it's going to be very difficult for Microsoft to make its case to corporations.

Its engineers have not necessarily proven that they can ship software on time. Maybe Microsoft needs less heroic engineering and more of a business focus.

If you look at Microsoft's two biggest businesses, Windows and Office, they don't have an obvious Web 2.0 play. But the server and tools business at Microsoft has a vested interested in making Web 2.0 work, and they have a strategy to do it.

This is Microsoft talking to businesses about why it's a good IT vendor and particularly why its different from IBM.