As chief financial officer and chief marketing officer of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft (MSFT), Tami Reller is responsible for business performance, finance and marketing of the Windows operating system, Internet Explorer and Windows Live. On Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. Reller spoke with analysts from Nomura at CES; here are the highlights from their conversation:
On Ultrabooks - “OEMs have delivered” on Ultrabooks at a “great price point” with great battery life; “They are stunning laptops, which hasn’t always been the case in the PC” arena. As watchers of Steve Ballmer’s keynote from yesterday know, companies like Dell, Acer, and HP have all designed Ultrabooks that should hit the market in the coming months.
Windows 7 adoption after Windows 8 release - “With enterprises, there is no doubt that Windows 7 and Windows 8 will coexist; we are one-third of the way in the transformation from XP to Windows 7” in the enterprise market.
Flooding in Thailand – “With these things, it tends to take a few quarters to work itself out.” As Intel noted in early December, sales in quarter four will be lower than previously expected due to the shortage of hard disk drives, a development that will hit Microsoft as well.
Competing with the ecosystem of iOS and Android, and encouraging developers – “We think we have an incredibly compelling opportunity for developers… for one, “just the sheer reach of Windows,” with 500 million plus licenses right now on Windows 7 and more than 1.3 billion running some version (XP, Vista, 7, etc) of Windows; in addition, the terms for developers are “the best in the industry,” giving them “a real opportunity to make money.”
Piracy – Customers getting a genuine copy of Windows remains a “top priority” for Microsoft; however, the BSA & IDC Global Software Piracy Study published in May of last year shows the struggle that still faces software companies, with the software piracy rate around 20% in North America, north of 30% in Western Europe, and just shy of 80% in China.
Enterprise – “I’m very bullish on what we can give the enterprise” between the combination of Windows 7 and Windows 8; as was noted above, many enterprises are still transitioning from older versions of Windows to 7, which brings into question whether or not some will simply hold off and upgrade when 8 hits the market.
On Ultrabooks - “OEMs have delivered” on Ultrabooks at a “great price point” with great battery life; “They are stunning laptops, which hasn’t always been the case in the PC” arena. As watchers of Steve Ballmer’s keynote from yesterday know, companies like Dell, Acer, and HP have all designed Ultrabooks that should hit the market in the coming months.
Windows 7 adoption after Windows 8 release - “With enterprises, there is no doubt that Windows 7 and Windows 8 will coexist; we are one-third of the way in the transformation from XP to Windows 7” in the enterprise market.
Flooding in Thailand – “With these things, it tends to take a few quarters to work itself out.” As Intel noted in early December, sales in quarter four will be lower than previously expected due to the shortage of hard disk drives, a development that will hit Microsoft as well.
Competing with the ecosystem of iOS and Android, and encouraging developers – “We think we have an incredibly compelling opportunity for developers… for one, “just the sheer reach of Windows,” with 500 million plus licenses right now on Windows 7 and more than 1.3 billion running some version (XP, Vista, 7, etc) of Windows; in addition, the terms for developers are “the best in the industry,” giving them “a real opportunity to make money.”
Piracy – Customers getting a genuine copy of Windows remains a “top priority” for Microsoft; however, the BSA & IDC Global Software Piracy Study published in May of last year shows the struggle that still faces software companies, with the software piracy rate around 20% in North America, north of 30% in Western Europe, and just shy of 80% in China.
Enterprise – “I’m very bullish on what we can give the enterprise” between the combination of Windows 7 and Windows 8; as was noted above, many enterprises are still transitioning from older versions of Windows to 7, which brings into question whether or not some will simply hold off and upgrade when 8 hits the market.
