CoDe Talks: Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft

A few weeks ago, CoDe Magazine's Publisher, Markus Egger, was granted an opportunity to have an e-mail interview with Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. Markus raises some interesting questions that are in the minds of many developers these days.

CoDe (Markus Egger): Mr. Ballmer, There is so much written about offshore development these days - I know Microsoft has offshore development operations in various parts of the world...how is it working out, and what advice would you give to US software engineers that might enable them to remain valuable?

As a global company, we are constantly working to improve our ability to serve our customers worldwide as efficiently and cost-effectively as we can. Although the majority of our core development work will stay in Redmond, we are growing our presence in key regions to enable us to increase local customer satisfaction and our ability to innovate. And by tapping into the growing technical talent pool outside the U.S., we can optimize for cost efficiencies that allow us to employ more people in the U.S., and invest even more in innovation.

In today's economy, software engineers - like everyone else - must continuously hone their skills and enhance their areas of expertise. The global economy offers great opportunities if we're prepared and flexible enough to take advantage of them.

CoDe: Steve, do you feel that INS and Homeland Security restrictions are in any way negatively affecting the US with regard to our ability to acquire the worlds best software engineering talent? How is Microsoft adjusting its business practices given that work visas are harder to get than they used to be?

We obviously understand and support the government's security efforts. We're continuing to create new jobs, and most of our new hires are U.S. citizens, but some of the people with the skills we need are from other countries. Many of the foreign citizens we hire are graduates of U.S. universities, yet the U.S. is just not graduating enough engineers overall to meet the needs of U.S. technology companies. China, India, and Japan all graduate a larger percentage of the world's software engineers, compared with the U.S. And we owe it to our customers to recruit the most qualified engineers we can find.

Like many other technology companies, we bump up against the current limits on visas that allow us to temporarily employ highly skilled foreign nationals in the U.S. The allotment of visas for 2005 ran out in February. At this point, we're managing to get the people we need, but it's not easy.

CoDe: There have been many instances where Microsoft has faced operating system competition. The open-source movement is perceived to be one of Microsoft's toughest competitors in recent years. This is particularly true for Linux, and now Sun has indicated that they will open source parts of Solaris. In the past, you have made it very clear that Linux is another competitor that Microsoft is happy to compete with. Can you tell us a bit more about how Microsoft is trying to compete with the open-source movement? What are the unique challenges, and what, in your opinion, makes Microsoft Windows the better platform for developers to stick with?

First, it's important to note that while we compete against Linux and specific open-source software products, we don't see ourselves competing against open source itself. We recognize the benefit of multiple development models, and support developers' choices in the model they select - though it's important to recognize the benefits and drawbacks of each model.

We've worked with our customers and the industry to provide access to source code in ways that make sense for everyone. Through our Shared Source Initiative we're providing access to code in a variety of ways - ranging from view and debug options under our Windows Enterprise Source Licenses to modification and full derivative licensing options under some of our Windows CE offerings.

To your question on competition, as open source has evolved, we've seen the dialogue go from an emotional debate to one that is now more fact-based and pragmatic. We are working to ensure that customers have access to evidence on how we are continuing to innovate and deliver products and technologies that offer them the very best business value?especially when it comes to cost and security. In a majority of cases, the Microsoft platform has a lower total cost of ownership than Linux, even though there is a widespread, erroneous perception that Linux is free. That's why our focus is on giving customers the facts they need to understand the overall business advantage and value associated with choosing Microsoft (for instance, take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/facts/default.mspx).

For developers, we need to ensure they have the data that shows why they should continue to bet on Microsoft. We offer the best tools to make developers productive. The fact that our platform has the penetration it does gives developers lots of opportunities. We have great programs to support ISVs and developers, like MSDN, Channel 9, our ISV buddy program, and error reporting for ISVs. Moving forward, you'll see Microsoft deliver even better support for productivity, in the forms of the .NET Framework 2.0 and Windows Longhorn releases, and great tools such as the Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

CoDe: Asides from obvious advancements such as the upcoming Windows "Longhorn" release, what is the "next big thing in technology" for Microsoft?

From our perspective, the "big bet" we're making is integrated innovation. No other company is investing for the long term as we are on delivering truly integrated solutions - technology that "just simply works" for customers and which addresses key customer issues and pain points such as manageability, ease of use, security, and so on. Integrated innovation is about a customer experience where using Microsoft products together gives you a "whole" that is far greater than the sum of the parts. For Microsoft, this is truly a cross-company effort. It will take the server and client operating systems to deliver great usability and manageability features. It will take applications that deliver compelling scenarios and extend our platform's value. It will take excellent tools that developers and ISVs can use to easily and quickly build new applications. And it will take integration across the Windows client and Windows Server System to comprehensively address the issues that customers care most about ? like manageability, ease of use and security.

CoDe: In the world of software development, one topic that seems to be ever-present and ever-controversial is that of development methodologies. Anything from the Rational Unified Process to Extreme Programming (XP) seems to be hyped as the next silver bullet for the modern way to build better applications. In the past, Microsoft appears to have been somewhat tight-lipped about the subject. Now, Visual Studio 2005 Team System has been announced, which seems to be a comprehensive and flexible lifecycle tool. However, due to the systems flexibility, it does not make a strong statement about any particular approach. Is there a unified strategy within Microsoft for Software Lifecycle Management? Do you think standards and processes followed by Microsoft are valuable for companies of much smaller size? How does Visual Studio 2005 Team System fit into all of this?

First, the Team System absolutely includes development methodologies. We will actually include two methodologies in the product: a "formal" methodology for large teams and those who want good, rigid processes, and an "agile" methodology patterned after Agile and Extreme Programming principles. Of course, the methodologies themselves are fully customizable, so that companies and partners can tailor and extend the methodologies for their own needs.

As for Microsoft's own methodologies, we do follow many of the principles espoused by our commercial methodologies (security testing, code reviews, unit testing, etc). But just like our customers, our individual product teams tailor their methodologies to account for a number of factors, including size, scope, and sophistication of the project, experience of the team, duration of the project, and more. There are many variables that go into a software project and, as we've learned at Microsoft, no single methodology is suited for all teams and all projects. This is where we think our approach is more appropriate for the industry: rather than building a tool around a rigid, inflexible methodology, we've taken a more flexible approach that lets customers adapt the tool and processes for their needs.

CoDe: What companion devices or other computerized devices are you using? PocketPC? DVR? SmartPhone? Car computer? MSN Direct watch? Do you still take your TabletPC everywhere you go? When do you think that these devices will become so prevalent that they will surpass PCs (and PC-based technologies) in number of devices sold?

I love my Pocket PC and I use my Tablet PC constantly. SmartPhones may eventually surpass the number of PCs, but PC growth is far from over. Today there are some 600 million personal computers around the world. By 2010, we estimate the number will grow to one billion. So there's huge, huge opportunity across the range of devices. We are, as you noted, also doing some great things with Windows Automotive. Microsoft technology is currently in 23 cars lines from 12 different automakers. And MSN Direct is a specialized wireless service that delivers personalized information - news, weather, sports, stocks, personal messages, appointment reminders and more - through Smart Watches.

By: Markus Egger

Markus is an international speaker, having presented sessions at numerous conferences in North & South America and Europe. Markus has written many articles for publications including CoDe Magazine, Visual Studio Magazine, MSDN Brazil, asp.net Pro, FoxPro Advisor, Fuchs, FoxTalk and Microsoft Office & Database Journal. Markus is the publisher of CoDe Magazine.

Markus is also the President and Chief Software Architect of EPS Software Corp., a custom software development and consulting firm located Houston, Texas. He specializes in consulting for object-oriented development, Internet development, B2B, and Web Services. EPS does most of development using Microsoft Visual Studio (.NET). EPS has worked on software projects for Fortune 500 companies including Philip Morris, Qualcomm, Shell, and Microsoft. Markus has also worked as a contractor on the Microsoft Visual Studio team, where he was mostly responsible for object modeling and other object- and component-related technologies.

Markus received the Microsoft MVP Award (1996-2006) for his contributions to the developer community. Visual LandPro, one of the applications Markus was responsible for, was nominated three times in the Microsoft Excellence Awards.

megger@eps-software.com

megger@eps-software.com