Microsoft's Ray Ozzie Says PC Is Razor, Services Are Blades

Insisting that PCs will continue to play a "growing part" in people's daily lives in spite of aggressive incursions from smaller and hipper devices, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie sees huge potential for PCs as tools that will allow people to consume an ever-increasing spectrum of services, reports <i>LATimes.com</i>.

Bob Evans, Contributor

June 1, 2010

2 Min Read

Insisting that PCs will continue to play a "growing part" in people's daily lives in spite of aggressive incursions from smaller and hipper devices, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie sees huge potential for PCs as tools that will allow people to consume an ever-increasing spectrum of services, reports LATimes.com.Asked if desktop PCs will play smaller roles in the future, Ozzie offered these perspectives in the Times' Q&A piece:

I agreed until you said a "small part" - the PC is a part, but it's a growing part. PCs are becoming less expensive and easier to use. Whereas once people might have bought a PC for one room in the household, we have families buying a four-pack of netbooks to share with their kids.

Yes there's a pad form factor, and a phone form factor, and yes, the TV will become more intelligent. But really it's not a shift from the PC to these other things - rather, there's an increase in the number of screens we connect with.

We believe the PC is still strong, but we think the opportunity is even greater because now we can deliver services across these various devices.

Later in the interview, Ozzie offers a perspective on the Microsoft-Google rivalry, and on how he feels the two companies are perceived: "The reputations of companies obviously change over time. Microsoft was the scrappy upstart disruptor in its early days, and IBM was the incumbent to be disrupted.

"Being a larger and more successful company now, we tend to pursue very broad-based opportunities that take the customers we have and give them more value," Ozzie told the Times. . . .

"Google started out as a scrappy upstart, and now it's getting large too as a function of its success, and it'll go through its own phases."

About the Author(s)

Bob Evans

Contributor

Bob Evans is senior VP, communications, for Oracle Corp. He is a former InformationWeek editor.

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