Economic Change And The Channel
Because the last economic boom was fueled with debt, the recession marks a major restructuring of the economy and any return to growth must be driven by improvements in productivity and innovation, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a keynote Tuesday.
"This is the toughest economy any of us have ever worked in," he said. "The economy is going to reset at a lower level. That's inevitable." He urged channel partners to focus on maintaining customer satisfaction and retaining market share in these tough times, later adding that there is growing pent-up demand for IT. "This is going to be an IT-driven renewal of growth. And that gives us all a fantastic opportunity."
Ballmer also said Microsoft remains "tenacious" in technology areas such as search and virtualization where it has had to play catch up with its competitors " and taken a lot of criticism for its setbacks. "Man oh man have we taken a lot of abuse," he said.
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