Microsoft to sharpen focus on products

Software giant Microsoft today said it would focus on products and profits by developing a good product line, even as rival Apple shot past to become the world's biggest tech company by market value yesterday.

“My focus is on everyday — what we should be doing to our product line, where do we go, how do we make products more innovative. I will make more profits and certainly there is no technology company on the planet which is as profitable as we are,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, while launching the company’s ecosystem around its cloud services here today.

“It's a long game, we have good competitors. We, too, are a very good competitor. We are executing very well and that is going to lead to great products and great success,” he said, but added that he would have to accelerate plans for the entertainment and devices businesses that Ballmer himself is leading.

As for the ecosystem around its Microsoft’s cloud services, global talent development corporation NIIT will train over 100,000 students on Windows Azure over the next three years, while Cognizant would enable implementation, migration and management of cloud-enabled application portfolios built on Azure for clients, both in India and globally.

Moreover, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, is building a large-scale application on Windows Azure to study the basic resource allocation constructs and strategies required for addressing enterprise needs on the cloud.

“India has been developing and personal computers (PC) and smart phones are very popular here. India, along with Japan, Germany, Brazil, the UK and France, comes in the top five or six markets in PC consumption after giants like the US and China,” added Ballmer.