[Am-info] Quotes from Ballmer

[John J. Urbaniak]

These quotes from Ballmer are incredible!  Q is Computerworld, A is
Ballmer.  Emphasis mine.


http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/financial/story/0,10801,72186,00.html

Read the whole article.

John


Q: What was the impetus for
     Microsoft's licensing changes?

A: ...People say, 'How can you only be slightly [revenie] positive,
because some
     people think this is going to cost them a lot more money?' The
truth
      of the matter is, many customers under the old system -- because
     they didn't know what they needed -- probably paid us more than
     they absolutely needed to if they weren't keeping track of their
     licenses very well.

    Under the new system, *we keep track of everything.* Once you put
something under
     assurance, we know it stays under assurance. . . . And if it's not
under assurance, there's
     only one thing you need to buy: You've got to buy the license
again.


Q: Under your new Software Assurance maintenance program, you charge 25%
of
      the volume license fee for server software and 29% of the volume
license fee for
      desktop software on an annual basis. Are those percentages set in
stone?

A: The prices are appropriate, is what I would say. . . . I can make the
percentage go down.
      We'd just increase the prices of all the products.


Q: But the new program does remove a lot of upgrade options, and
customers do
      like choices, don't they?

A: No. No. I don't agree with that. I don't actually believe customers
like choices. What
      customers like is a good, low price. That's what customers really
like.

Q: Many customers were hurt by the elimination of Microsoft's version
upgrade
      program (VUP), which allowed them to upgrade from one version of a
software
      product to another in the same product family at discounted rates.
What would you
      say to them?

A: The greatest challenge is around the fact that we eliminated the VUP.
. . . But either you
      eliminate the VUP or nothing about the whole assurance scheme
makes any sense. Then
       the customer's again in a position where they're either counting
licenses, they're counting
      them well, they're not counting them correctly.

      Here we say, 'Look, if you want to be under assurance, *we* do the
license tracking. *We
      know how many you have.* *We take care of that responsibility for
you. . . .' *