Microsoft to Boost R&D, Hire 5,000
Reuters | at | by Mike
Microsoft said on Thursday it would boost spending on research and development by 20 percent to $5.2 billion in the current fiscal year while increasing its work force by 10 percent. Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, said the software giant would make "aggressive" investments as it prepares to bet the company's future and its mainstay, the Windows operating system, on Web-based services. "We are increasing the level of investment for the future," Gates told a gathering of about 240 analysts. Gates said the software giant would add 5,000 employees to its 50,000-plus work force for the current year than ends in June 2003.
Spending for thousands of new workers and billions in investment dollars is needed to deploy .NET, Microsoft's over-arching plan to change the way information changes hands so that software and services no longer depend on individual computers. In his presentation, Gates outlined Microsoft's strategy over the next few years, saying the company would look to migrate customers over to Web-based computing and services in three phases over the next several years.