Rob Helm Quotes on Business & Commerce (5 Quotes)

I think they're going to announce business-focused services that are complements to Microsoft's software. I think at the July financial analyst meeting, executives said clearly they saw it as a viable business.... Outside vendors are proving it's a viable business.

Its engineers have not necessarily proven that they can ship software on time. Maybe Microsoft needs less heroic engineering and more of a business focus.

It was too early, and MSN didn't have a strong brand recognition in the small-business area, ... Since then, Salesforce.com has shown that hosted CRM is a viable business, and this time around Microsoft has a better understanding of how to get to customers.

Microsoft's engineers have been griping about too much bureaucracy, and this reorganization runs counter to it. It is bound to cause some discussion among employees as you are essentially putting a business manager on top of a very technical group.

If you look at Microsoft's two biggest businesses, Windows and Office, they don't have an obvious Web 2.0 play. But the server and tools business at Microsoft has a vested interested in making Web 2.0 work, and they have a strategy to do it.