Microsoft vulnerable to economic woes after all

Ballmer not so bullish anymore

Microsoft vulnerable to economic woes after all. Biz, Microsoft, Steve Ballmer 0

1 October 2008 11:32 GMT / By Katie Scott

Just days ago, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's head honcho, spoke to journos of his confidence that the tech and telecoms industries would enjoy a "certain buoyancy" despite the worldwide economic woes.

He did admit, however, that companies are not immune, and has now revised this, painting a far gloomer picture of things to come.

"Financial issues are going to affect both business spending and consumer spending, and particularly ... spending by the financial services industry", Ballmer told reporters in Oslo.

"We have a lot of business with the corporate sector as well as with the consumer sector and whatever happens economically will certainly effect itself on Microsoft", he added to Reuters.

"I think one has to anticipate that no company is immune to these issues."

"There are parts of our every business which are probably safe in the sense that it's not like our business would go to zero."

"On the other hand, when businesses have less money - they can borrow less money, they can spend less money - that can't be good. When consumers feel the economic pinch, house prices come down. That can't be good", Ballmer concluded.

He also added his confidence that the US Congress is going to be able to stabilise the current financial situation as will the European Central Bank.

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Comments

  • There was a time when there was a saying, that "no-one would ever be fired for buying IBM". Well, the market changed, cheaper IBM clone computers came along, and the world got on with it's business, with IBM then selling off the PC side of it's business to Lenovo after resting on it's laurels for waaaayyy too long.

    Microsoft seemed to have the same idea, that we cannot survive without them, but the truth is that now there are many good (free) well supported operating systems you can use instead of hitching your wagon to the Redmond catastrophe that is Vista.

    Same with Office - after years of small, inconsequential, but costly upgrades that our power users insist they 'must have' (even though they may only use 5-10% of a programmes features), I finally lost my rag and cut Office out of our business and have gone done the OpenOffice route.

    Cash is a big concern for everyone in corporate land at the moment, and if there's an easy way to save a few quid, I'll do it. Microsoft have given me nothing but headache's over the last couple of years and I see no reason to continue chucking large amounts of our money at Bill and his cohorts.     Posted by John B., UK

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