Executives Tout Subscription Services

In their presentations at Microsoft’s annual meeting for financial analysts in July 2005, many top executives spoke about subscription-based hosted services for businesses.

Opportunity

Bill Gates, chief software architect: We’re going to go after an area that I think has been underestimated, which is software services for businesses that we’re just edging into, but [where] we see gigantic potential over a five-year timeframe.

Steve Ballmer, CEO: We’ll achieve growth not only by focusing on our anchor businesses but by competing and winning in a wide range of new services, many of them based on advertising or subscription revenue. We are committing and committed to this notion of software as a service.

Jeff Raikes, group vice president, Information Worker: [Services] show very little revenue now as a percentage of the overall IW business, but we see them as big opportunities.

Eric Rudder, senior vice president, Server and Tools Division: I think the new services uptake is really an untapped revenue stream for us.