Ballmer: Microsoft 'hell-bent' on success in ads


      Hefty investments in online services and consumer electronics will let Microsoft maintain its historically rapid growth rate, chief executive Steve Ballmer told financial analysts on Thursday.
      The largest software company is hosting its Financial Analyst Meeting at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters, where Ballmer described Microsoft's strategy as making several big bets on emerging businesses while drawing more revenue from its mature desktop and server software franchises.
      Microsoft is transforming its product development and business models around "software plus services", or software complemented with online services, he said. The company has been criticised by financial analysts for being slow to capitalise on advertising revenue as search giant Google has done.
      "We are hell-bent and determined to allocate the talent, the resources, the money, the innovation to absolutely become a powerhouse in the ad business," Ballmer said.
      Company founder Bill Gates, who made a presentation before Ballmer, announced that Microsoft is opening a dedicated centre to research online advertising and search called the "Internet Services Research Center". Headed by Harry Shum, the centre's research will focus on search relevance, spam prevention and searching scanned images, such as book pages.Continue At Source



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