Microsoft: Free at Last
eWeek | at | by Mike
U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's recent endorsement of much of the agreement reached between the U.S. Department of Justice and Microsoft Corp. lifts many clouds from the company's future. Now Microsoft, under the leadership of CEO Steve Ballmer, is free to turn its attention to such initiatives as acquisitions, .Net, shared source code and a more componentized Windows.
Ballmer addressed these issues and others, including why Office 11 requires Windows XP, in an interview at Microsoft headquarters, in Redmond, Wash., with eWeek's Executive Managing Editor/Features Jeff Moad, Technology Editor Peter Coffee and Senior Editor Peter Galli.
eWeek: How will the favorable ruling change Microsoft's strategy? Will it allow you to be more aggressive in acquisitions, for example?
Ballmer: We have essentially been working on compliance for over a year-given that the resolution from the judge largely looks like the consent decree. We have been very serious about compliance, and you should expect us to continue to be. However, we are going to do new things to enable new scenarios for our customers, and that will take us into new areas-that could be acquisition or could be incubation.