Mike Wendland
E-MAIL THIS STORY | PRINTER-FRIENDLY FORMAT MIKE WENDLAND: Ballmer talks up links to the Net Microsoft CEO ballyhoos connecting to public's Web use December 2, 2004 BY MIKE WENDLAND
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST As chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., Steve Ballmer has been called software's biggest cheerleader. But these days, the always ebullient Detroit native seems pretty bullish on the Internet, too. MONEY, SOFTWARE FOR FOCUS: HOPE Detroit's Focus: HOPE has received a grant of $50,000 in cash and $1.4 million worth of software from Microsoft that is to be used for continuing computer training for local residents. The donation is part of the software giant's Unlimited Potential program, which aims at increasing access to technology skills training in underserved communities. The grant is to be announced today during a visit to Focus: HOPE's center on Oakman Boulevard in Detroit by Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. Microsoft has previously donated more than $3.4 million in cash and software to Focus: HOPE, one of 260 nonprofits around the country supported by the Unlimited Potential program. Focus: HOPE's Information Technologies Center offers programs that train students to support and manage office computer systems. More than 500 students have graduated since the center opened in 1999. Ballmer is in Detroit today, calling on big customers at General Motors Corp. , Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler . It's a high-profile part of the effort by the software giant to listen to its customers and to use what it hears to become an even stronger force in shaping the future of the Net. "The Internet, particularly for software companies, is revolutionary," Ballmer told me Wednesday, a few minutes before speaking to an executive forum sponsored by Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business. "Every day, we have millions of people visit our Web site, and every day, I can tell you what's on their mind. If we just listen to them, we will succeed." In his talk to the Broad forum, held at MSU's Management Education Center in Troy, the 48-year-old CEO outlined what he calls Microsoft's Customer Focused Innovation, a philosophy that involves lessons learned online or by responding to the public's cyberhabits. And although the talk -- accompanied, of course, by a PowerPoint presentation -- was geared at corporate types, his visit comes amid a whirlwind of recent Microsoft activity directed at the Internet. It's reminiscent of 1996, when Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates ordered the company to do an immediate U-turn and make everything it does revolve around the Net. In our conversation, he made it clear that Microsoft has big new designs on the Net. So far this fall, Microsoft has launched a music download service aimed at competing with Apple's wildly successful iTunes Music Store, a new search engine hoping to steal clicks from Google and -- today -- a new service called MSN Spaces that hopes to capitalize on the year's most popular online trend, blogging. "Blogging is huge," he said. "It brings together the three biggest Internet trends: communicating, sharing and socializing. It started with e-mail and instant messaging and music sharing, and it's getting bigger each day." MSN Spaces (http://spaces .msn.com) is a part of the upgraded Microsoft Messenger 7.0 instant messenger program to be rolled out in several phases, the first of which became available after midnight today. It's a free tool that allows users to quickly and easily set up a blog, those popular combinations of diaries and online journals that people use to communicate their opinions, attitudes and activities. But the Internet has also been one of Microsoft's biggest problems. Leaky software that's been notoriously vulnerable to attacks by worms and computer viruses has brought widespread criticism of the company and calls by some in business to switch to other operating systems, like Linux. Ballmer, 11th-richest American on the Forbes list with a personal wealth of $12.6 billion (Gates is first with $48 billion), says Microsoft is listening to customers about their Web problems. "Do we have to do better?" Ballmer asked rhetorically. "Absolutely. But we are constantly improving." At the top is everyone's list is spam. That's true even for Gates, who Ballmer says gets about 4 million pieces of e-mail -- most of it junk -- every year. (Ballmer said he misspoke a few days back when he was quoted as saying Gates gets 4 million e-mails a day.) Ballmer says only about 10 junk e-mails make it into his e-mail inbox each day because of anti-spam technology the company has developed. "I would say that 80 percent of your Free Press readers get more spam than they need to," he said. "Existing technology built into our products and others is capable right now of filtering it out. Why we haven't been able to get people to do so, I haven't figured out yet." Microsoft is proposing a new Internet standard called Sender ID that verifies the domain name from which the mail is sent by checking the origin of e-mail against the purported owner of the sending domain. Last month, Microsoft got a major boost when America Online, the nation's largest Internet provider, reversed an earlier decision and endorsed the concept. Ballmer also sees digital music continuing to be dominant. While he grudgingly calls the best-selling Apple iPod "a nice device," he predicted that standalone music players will be obsolete in five years, replaced by mobile phones that have much more powerful MP3 players built in. "The thing about technology is it always is changing," he said. "Customers want convenience, and the trend will be getting everything in one device." Contact MIKE WENDLAND at 313-222-8861 or mwendland@freepress.com.
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''November 18, USA'' - William Henry Gates III or just Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, receives up to four million emails a year, and most of it is "junk" or "spam," according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. An entire department filters the unsolicited emails.