Microsoft, Ballmer in the Cloud at District Tech Conference

Software giant announces new "slate" computers and other devices designed to compete with Apple's iPad, iPhones.

By Bob Keefe | July 12, 2010

Microsoft Corp. will introduce several new "slate" computers and smart phone platforms in the next several months as it steps up its competition with Apple's popular iPads and iPhones, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told attendees at a tech conference in the District on Monday.

Ballmer came to Washington, D.C. from Microsoft's home of Washington state to announce the new products as part of the opening of a five-day Microsoft partner conference taking place at the Verizon Center.

More than 14,000 people are expected to attend, making it one of the bigger technology conferences in the Washington area in recent years. Along with top Microsoft executives, former President Bill Clinton is keynoting the event.

The new products announced by Ballmer on Monday are part of major Microsoft push into "cloud" computing - something that the software giant paid little attention to in the past but has been forced to address amid increasing competition from Apple, Google and other big tech giants.

"The world of tomorrow is a world of smart cloud talking to smart devices," Ballmer told attendees.

Among those smart devices, he said, will be new Windows 7 platform slate computers that Microsoft is developing with hardware partners Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Asus and others. It also is teaming up with Dell, Samsung, HTC, LG and others to develop new smart phones based on Windows 7 and its cloud computing initiatives.

"We're making a big investment in this area of smart devices really designed with the cloud in mind," Ballmer said.

While not addressing Apple's iPad or iPhone by name, Ballmer indicated he and Microsoft were feeling the heat.

"This is a terribly important area for us," he said. "It's certainly an area where - how do I say it - we feel all of the energy and vigor and push that we have ever felt to innovate, to drive hard, to compete."

Microsoft's new focus on cloud computing and cloud-connected devices could be key to the company's future growth and that of its partners in the Washington area and around the world, according to tech industry analysts.
 
Research firm IDC, for instance, estimates that cloud computing - in which software and services are delivered wirelessly from the Web instead of pre-installed on PCs or servers - will drive 19 percent of all new software spending in 2013-2014. Spending on cloud-related software is expected to grow five times faster than spending on other applications.

In addition to announcing the new slate computers, Microsoft is showing off other cloud-related products this week in the District.

Monday, the company unveiled a new platform it calls Windows Azure that links Web developers with on-demand computing services and storage so they and host, scale and manage Web applications on the fly. Several companies, including HP, eBay, Dell, Fujitsu agreed to participate in the roll-out of new products and services based on Azure.

Microsoft also is demonstrating a new cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform it plans to release in September.

The world's biggest software company hopes it can rely on its deep enterprise ties and its dominance in commercial industry and government as it tries to catch up to Apple's gains with consumers with its iPad and iPhones.

"You need to see between us and our (partners) a range of slates and a range of phones that you can take to your customer when they come with this, that or the other random device that's not currently supported by corporate IT," Ballmer said.

"We want to give you a great device, a consumer oriented device - but a device that fits and is manageable with today's enterprise IT solutions," he said.

Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference runs through Thursday.



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