Earlier today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a speech at the University of Washington where he said that the company was going “all in” with its strategy to move Microsoft products to the cloud. We’ve gotten our hands on an all-staff email sent out by Ballmer (printed below), which appears to be legitimate. The email reiterates many of the points Ballmer said during his speech this morning, urging employees to embrace the cloud. It also notes that Microsoft will launch an ad campaign today focused on its commercial and government businesses, which stand to benefit from cloud services.Update: We’ve confirmed with Microsoft that the email is legitimate.
Today, I spoke to a group of students and faculty at the University of Washington to discuss how cloud computing will change the way people and businesses use technology.
My goal was to challenge people to look at the cloud more broadly and understand the multidimensional nature of the cloud transformation happening today. Other companies have defined the cloud in a narrow, one-dimensional way. Although these companies provide some interesting components, Microsoft is uniquely delivering on a wide range of cloud capabilities that bring increasingly more value to our customers.
In my speech, I outlined the five dimensions that define the way people use and realize value in the cloud:
• The cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities
• The cloud learns and helps you learn, decide and take action
• The cloud enhances your social and professional interactions
• The cloud wants smarter devices
• The cloud drives server advances that drive the cloudThis view fuels our investments across the entire company, from datacenters to cloud platform technologies to cloud-based development tools and applications. Today, nearly every one of our products has, or is developing, features or services that support the cloud. As I said today, when it comes to the cloud, we are all in. We are all in across every product line we have and across every dimension of the cloud.
Of course, this is not news to any of you. We have been making huge investments in the cloud for the past decade. Nearly five years ago, Ray’s “Services Disruption” memo provided the outline for what we needed to do as a company, and with the delivery of Windows Azure at the recent PDC, we have made huge strides in making this vision real.
To keep our momentum, it is critical that every Microsoft employee works to deliver the full benefits of the cloud to our customers.
As a part of this, I request that you do the following:
• Watch the speech on demand here
• Learn more about our cloud offerings and how they relate to our overarching software plus services strategy here
• Review your commitments to ensure you are landing our vision with customers and partners.Of course, there is more work to do. We have strong competitors. We need to be (and are) willing to change our business models to take advantage of the cloud. We must move at “cloud speed,” especially in our consumer offerings. And we need to be crystal clear about the value we provide to all our customers.
To drive our message home even further, today you will see an ad campaign in the U.S. focused on our commercial and government businesses, a new website with consolidated content and case studies, and ongoing emphasis on the cloud from me and other members of the SLT in our upcoming speeches and presentations.
We have an enormous opportunity in front of us. We have great products and services in the market today and a range of new ones on their way.
All of our products make the cloud better, and the cloud makes our products better.
Thanks,
Steve
excellent strategy. first one in usually wins via marketshare. go all in with everything and you will be sure to collect marketshare fast
Steve Ballmer, like any other CEO within his league. Knows that Cloud Computing is the future.
I believe so too that, that is the case, Although I believe that Google is Evil as well.
So the question is, can the 2 mix up?
And yet clouds move very slowly. Am I right Jason?
Not when there’s a storm coming they don’t.
They drift on by lackadaisically most of the time.
Turns out the sun does most of the work and the clouds sort of form without any real central coordination or awareness.
I believe he’s referring to “cloud speed” as the speed of airplanes flying through clouds. Unfortunate choice of words, though.
“cloud speed”?
Is he on crack?
How does “cloud speed” compare to “warp speed” and “flank speed”?
I guess… cloud speed = internet speed
So that means, from where I’m standing, not very fast at all.
Take your time, Microsoft… otherwise, we’ll be spending our time fixing up your mistakes!
Always you can expect something like this when it comes from Microsoft’s CEO
Hello, this is Microsoft.
Steve Ballmer was referring to clouds from a hurricane, which could range up to 150 miles per hour. We apologize for any discrepancy you may have encountered.
Thank you.
Flee from the coastlines accordingly.
He should cut to the chase and go right to ludicrous speed.
Despite not liking Microsoft, that is for sure a good move. Cloud is the future & great investment. Hope they can make something great.
Is that like lazy summer afternoon clouds or hurricane force tornado clouds?
typical boo msft. they have so much cash to blow, who knows who they’ll buy to do this job for them. GO TEAM!
You mean like everyone else does?
Last I check every other company’s do this as well…
I can say that off the top of my head Google(they bought DoubleClick, YouTube, Android, Blogger, and many more..)
And so does Apple, Oracle, IBM and the list goes on…
So why is it a problem if Microsoft does it?
Did you not get the email? this is the internet… everything Microsoft does is evil… and Apple are the greatest, most best company ever.
Being on crack wouldn’t quite explain why he wants his company to move at “cloud speed” though…cause last I checked, clouds just drift along with the wind…
Interesting strategy…. :|
And about 2-3 years too late. How is it that a company of MS’s size is just getting around to this now?
That’s corporate speed :)
Yep, the bigger they get the slower they get.
Come On. Now I actually use all AWS but you can’t say MS is only starting it’s cloud strategy now, it was probably the second big player in.
This new vision if he pulls it off is “all in” cloud-ify the lot this is a bigger vision of the cloud then I’ve heard talk of so far.
They’re not just getting around to this now. This was just a speech where he dispelled any confusion about their commitment. Microsoft has been doing “cloud” for longer than Google has existed with MSN, Hotmail, Messenger etc. XBOX Live is one of the best ‘cloud services’ in the world. They have thousands of corporate customers using hosted Exchange and SharePoint. Get the facts dude.
Wasn’t Microsoft just making fun of Google for their “Cloud” apps? Man oh man Microsoft. If you can’t beat them, steal their ideas. Good work.
I think this is what Microsoft has wanted all along. Cloud computing gives them a framework for a subscription model.
They just need to bash Google so that they can call their product superior and convince people to pay for what Google does for free.
Picasso.
Ballmer doesn’t get it and I doubt Microsoft ever will truly understand the web.
Hotmail was a purchase, just as the technology behind Bing was.
Whilst they do have some on-line successes, Microsoft still makes almost all their revenue from selling Windows and Office.
The problem is of course that Office going to the cloud is essentially being forced upon Microsoft because Google Docs and Zoho office are so good.
On top of this, Android is fast gaining market share in the mobile space(as it should) and the Zune hasn’t(thus far) done so well against the iPod.
This is still very much the microsoft of old and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
OK, ppl think that
- Google Docs and Zoho Office are SO good
- Android(Linux w/ great screen, which turns out that it is not so great after all) should gain marketshare.
I give up.
” Android(Linux w/ great screen, which turns out that it is not so great after all) should gain marketshare.”
Please explain to me how Android, a mobile phone OS, can have a great screen? a phone running Android, of which there are many, could have a great screen but Android itself isn’t hardware.
I give up…
I believe he meant how Android’s GUI looks and works.
Khalid, your comment was very insightful. After reading this article, my initial reaction was that Steve was leading microsoft in the correct direction at a good speed. However, after reading your comment, my entire perspective of where microsoft is in comparison to it’s competitors was made clear.
Thanks.
Is this you Khalid again?
you made my day :)
Bing was not “purchased technology.” Like Google it is a combination of acquisitions and work done wholly by Microsoft employees.
To make this clear, this is not a 90/10 type split either. Without being too specific, just understand that internal work is behind substantial portions of the Bing engine.
By the same token you could say Amazon got all it’s money from selling Books and CD’s what does it know about the cloud….
Ah…where to begin. Pointing out that Hotmail was purchased is a diversion. You could say the same thing about Google. I’ll give you a short list of Google acquisitions.
- Applied Semantics – core technology behind AdWords
- Baidu
- Picasa
- Keyhold – which became Google maps
- Android…which became Android
- Upstartle – which became Google Documents
- YouTube
- Doubleclick
- Feedburner
- Jaiku
I could go on.
Hotmail being an acquisition is very relevant indeed. Why? Because it’s pretty much their only *big* web success.
Baidu is Google’s biggest rival in China. Such an incorrect statement makes your entire post practically-pointless.
What became Google Maps is invalid in my eyes simply because Microsoft essentially claimed that that product couldn’t be put on-line and that was why desktop software would always win. Google accepted the challenge and proved them wrong.
Of course companies buy things all the time, but most of what you’ve listed aren’t a part of Google’s financial successes, so they’re not entirely relevant.
Uh, Writely is what became google docs. I know. I had a writely account that was grandfathered into Google Docs.
Oh, and I also had a GrandCentral account that was grandfathered into Google Voice when they purchased that service too.
what a joke… 5 yrs ago a “services disruption” memo? i guess it’ll be 50 yrs before they’re fully in the cloud :) Ballmer should be replaced…
The way I see it, clouds move very yyyyyyy slowly.
I do not know if he is on crack or what, what I do really know is that MS is coming too late in the cloud and with the wrong tools.
If by “one-dimensional way” he means big table vs SQL server I think he got it all wrong.
I am particularly interested in this line: “The cloud learns and helps you learn, decide and take action.”
Is this just a marketing statement, or is there some new Cloud artificial intelligence or machine learning technology Microsoft is working on?
Yeah that one had me stumped too.
The sad thing is, there’s plenty of good economical reasons why Microsoft and it’s clients should be thinking about using Cloud services. It really wasn’t necessary to make up statements like:
“The cloud creates opportunities and responsibilities”
It makes it sound as if you can you parent children in the Cloud.
It’s urban legend that the UK Government uses a Zeitgeist tape; a tape that contains a weekly summary of all the small things the nation is talking about, like “who Susan Boyle is”. It’s assumed that many ministers, including the Prime Minister don’t have the time to watch TV or live “normal lives” so get completely out of touch with reality. They are given the video tape to keep them in the loop.
After reading his memo, I think some Microsoft employees should give Balmer a tape on the Cloud.
mr. ballmer followed up by saying “FIRE BAD!”
How about adding:
The cloud wants smarter software, Mr. Microsoftware.
Mark, agree, besides this MS SQL Sharepoint duo with thousands of nested tables and meta SQL stuff that can hardly work on solid earth, how it can stay intact on this fragile cloud ?
Wow, I forgot how much these sort of corporate emails annoy me. It could have been written by the Microsoft Assistant.
“Are you writing a inspirational corporate memo?”
Fill in the template. I mean really, what useful information was in there (apart from the redirection to the speech on demand, which was probably full of hyperbole also).
Anyway, that rant over, I’m glad that Cloud services are now firmly in Microsoft’s radar and yet I’m confused as to what this actually means. Are they going into the Cloud hosting business, moving their existing apps to the Cloud or what?
Even after a search around the Microsoft site ( http://www.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/en/gb/products/cloud-services.aspx ); I’m still pretty clueless to what their service offerings are.
At least with Amazon it’s immediately transparent what their Cloud products and services are.
(http://aws.amazon.com/)
Usually that sort of clarity of vision filters it’s way down from above and if this memo demonstrates Microsoft’s vision; it’s foggy ahead.
Tim, I don’t know what he means and probably neither he does.
Heard of many things
1) Abjure or Navy blue or cyan something – they think this is the colour of the cloud, nobody told them that clouds change colors in “cloud speed”
2) Office into the cloud – they have to strip off all those features that nobody needs and that never work as expected, but they have to explain first why all this not needed fat was there in first place.
;-( poor kids they received this kind of speech
Everyone’s talking about the cloud, so I will too!
Oh how i miss bill gates.
As does MSFT
No kidding, since Bill left its a bunch of corporate blowhards just using whatever big words are floating across their desk, only of course, when they realize making fun of it didn’t work out.
Microsoft has just completely stopped innovating…
It’s great to see some top-down direction and validation of the cloud being applied at Microsoft. Steve definitely sees the opportunity.
But it’s also an indication that the ship is unable to steer towards the cloud despite the Captain yelling “turn!”.
The Microsoft culture simply is not structured or incentivized to make this happen. I visited the Microsoft campus in January 2010 and Azure was an obvious threat to existing products and services.
Employees are being assigned to Azure from seemingly unrelated backgrounds, and are only grudgingly complying. There’s no passion about the cloud. Only the “uncool” kids work on the cloud at Microsoft.
Cooperation won’t come easily. Focusing 80% of employees on the cloud would require an 80% change of the guard IMO.
One more remark here …. MS will never make it into the cloud unless the scrap ie and come up with a decent fast browser or may be they expect to run cloud apps under chrome or chrome frame ?
Maybe this could be a good thing? Unless of course, its Silverlight all the way.
And M$ seals it’s fate. The “cloud” (internet) is not the delivery system people want for Word/Excel/Powerpoint.
The internet is still to slow and is not yet ubiquitous so road warriors will not buy into not having W/E/P installed on their laptops. If they are putting all of their apples in on basket, they are in for a rude awakening.
Maybe they should sit down with Larry Ellison for some perspective…
Ah Steve…
Let’s just hope all this does not “cloud your judgement” ;)
I must admit that as time goes by, I’m developing a grudging and growing respect for Steve Ballmer.
I used to think of him as that weird guy that worked with Bill Gates. But over time, I’m impressed by his steadiness, long-term vision, quiet competitiveness, presentation skills and willingness to change the direction of Microsoft in line with a changing market.
For the MS haters out there, the company just reported its highest-ever revenues and profits. Unlike one-trick ponies Google, MS is a leader in multiple product markets, and I admire how even in market where they don’t lead, they change direction, buckle down, make improvements and go in for the long-term (mobile, search, etc).
Microsoft will be the most successful tech company in history, despite the odds. It has survived many waves of change that have seen many other tech companies disappear. Even Apple nearly died, and was only saved by Bill Gates. Only MS has thrived from the early days, and with Ballmer’s new emphasis on the cloud, I’m confident MS will stilll be leading in 20 years.
Steve Jobs is an over-entitled creative genius whose ego will be his downfall (and Apple’s). The Google leadership team is a couple of boys and an old geek spoiled by sudden success and increasingly showing they can’t cope in the big leagues. Ballmer may not be charismatic, but he’s the kind of leader that projects seasoned experience and inspires confidence.
Go Ballmer. Respect.
dude, your satirical skills are off the hook! “respect for steve ballmer.” man, that’s comic gold!
Dude, you really should wise up. Ballmer actually is delivering and has been for a while now. It’s only halfwit monkeys like you who haven’t cottoned on yet.
Incidentally names should be capitalised. Just thought I’d point that out.
Microsoft is a very rich company but they have allowed too many companies to grow up under them and take their markets. Microsoft had expertise in search and advertising long before Google, but Google leads the market now. Microsoft was in music before Apple but lost that market. Microsoft mobile had a strong market presence that was totally squandered. They actually invented the technology now called AJAX but did not roll it into any public Web properties (like Hotmail) until well after others had taken share from them.
Simply put, they do not seem able to lead from the front. That is why their stock price has been flat–the market sees only the potential for incremental growth in the few markets MS owns now–OS and Office.
just take this comment
<>
It is not that Microsoft does not know these CLOUD threats, your 65% revenue coming from ‘MS office’ and rest from packaged software OS and Windows server , MS SQL etc..
GOOGLE and SALESFORCE.com are giving what is MS bread and butter at 1/4 of the price. How MS can compete , they can compete and gain market share in the new CLOUD but they have to loose at least 50% revenue , they are not ready . FOr that no company in the MS shoes is not ready, history has shown us why IBM lost PC os war to Microsoft for the very same reason that is CONFLICT of interest in promoting disruptive technoloties at the price of losing current REVENUE ..
heyo heyo
Steve Ballmer is the visionary that Microsoft needs, and they are extremely lucky to have him. Bing? I think I speak for everyone here when I say that it’s much better than Google IMO. And now with Windows Phone 7 Series, this WILL be the iPhone and Android killer we’ve all been waiting for. I hope Ballmer stays with Microsoft for the next 20+ years and continues to produce these innovative products.
You forgot the “sarcasm mark” on your post. Here:
lame techcrunch comment system doesn’t allow brackets…
2nd try:
/sarcasm
beatybeaty, I most certainly was NOT being sarcastic. Microsoft continues to make very useful and high-quality products and this is mainly due to the vision of Steve Ballmer.
stop it! you’re killing me! “vision of steve ballmer!” you sir are a sarcastic genius!
“very useful and high-quality products” damn that’s funny stuff.
Not as funny as your semi literate scrawlings, cowboy.
Shoo. This isn’t for you.
“I think I speak for everyone here when I say that it’s much better than Google IMO.”
Protip: You don’t.
The fact that Windows Phone 7 has any need to “kill” the iPhone and Android is a great example of Microsoft’s vision problem. Visionary leadership of the Windows mobile strategy would not have left room for new competitors to leapfrog so dramatically.
Clouds are slow.
Bad analogy, Ballmer.
clouds move quickly. they’re just large and far away… but i’m no scientist… yet.
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99059.htm
Clouds are slow? Clouds are everywhere! So what’s the hurry when you are everywhere? And clouds can be horribly fast too… and still be everywhere.
Shatner would say: Why is Steve riding the cloud? Steve wants to hug the cloud, he wants to envelop the cloud. Steve wants to make love to the cloud.
I think it would be appropriate here to add what Larry Ellison thinks of “the cloud” :)
http://youtu.be/8UYa6gQC14o
スティーブ・バルマーからマイクロソフト全従業員へ：「私たちはクラウドの速さで動く必要がある」
English only. Mr. japanese
Puters Put’n!