Steve Ballmer has defended Microsoft’s “technology bets” and claimed Windows Phone 7 handsets are the best on the market.
Microsoft’s CEO is under increasing pressure, with a string of executives leaving the company and rumours about his own departure.
However, in an interview with a US newspaper, he sounded bullish about Microsoft’s mobile success and his firm’s tech decisions.
We’ve got the best-looking phones on the market
“There’s a lot of competition, but we’ve got the best-looking phones on the market,” he told USA Today. “We’ve got the greatest range of alternatives, the phones, the software, the craftsmanship. It is as good or better than anything out there.”
“We have a lot of work to do,” he admitted. “But, we’re in the game. We sold 1.5 million into the carriers [via the OEMs, that Microsoft supplies with OS licences].”
Windows Phone 7 launched in October last year, and neither Microsoft nor mobile operators have revealed how many handsets have sold to customers. By comparison, Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 handsets in the first three days of availability.
Bing like a “weed”
Ballmer also cited search and gaming as two of its successes, alongside the business market.
“We’ve made bold technology bets,” Ballmer claimed. “We’ve bet on the cloud and our enterprise business; it’s going fantastic. We made the bet on Xbox; we made the bet on Kinect.”
“We bet on Bing and are growing like a weed in that business,” he added. “So I feel pretty good about the bets.”
As of this month, Bing has 3.3% global market share, according to Net Applications, but its search engine is also used by Yahoo, which holds a 6.7% market share.
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