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Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has said that jobs will "come and go" at its Irish operations, but that the software giant remains committed to its base here.
Speaking at a media briefing in Dublin on Thursday, Ballmer said the transferring of 15 roles in its Irish-based .Net project to its headquarters in Seattle on Wednesday was not a statement about the Irish business or the company's commitment to Ireland. "It was unfortunate, but we figured out a way to make our operations more efficient by eliminating those jobs and that's what business is about," remarked Ballmer, who is regarded as Bill Gates' right-hand man.
But, Microsoft Ireland did receive a boost on Thursday when Ballmer announced that its corporate data centre in Dublin will be the disaster recovery centre for the company's Seattle operations. This means that should anything happen to Microsoft's facility in Seattle, its main data hosting operations will switch to Dublin. This, said Ballmer, will create jobs, but "not a huge number." He added that additional operational possibilities for Ireland were also being looked at.
Although Ballmer did remark that India and China were emerging as good places to base software development facilities, he said that the company liked the business environment in Ireland and had no intention of moving the things done in Ireland to these countries.
Such comments should ease any fears that the company may significantly reduce its workforce in Ireland as other technology multi-nationals have done over the last 18 months.
With 1,800 employees, Ireland is home to Microsoft's joint-second biggest operation, along with Japan, outside of its Redmond, Washington base. It operates a support centre and software localisation operation here.
As part of his whistle-stop tour of Ireland, Ballmer met with Minister of State, Mary Hanafin, TD, who has responsibility for the Information Society. Ballmer said he thought that the government had done a good job in developing the technology sector in Ireland, but had "suggested" to the Minister that more could be done to stimulate PC take-up here.
Joe Macri, country manager, Microsoft Ireland, added that Microsoft was now happy with the broadband infrastructure in and out of Ireland. Previously, Microsoft executives had criticised such infrastructure. Macri said, however, that both the government and the telecoms industry now needed to focus on providing high-speed access to local industry.
On the question of when the tech sector will recover, Ballmer said he didn't know when the turnaround would come, but he was optimistic about the future. "An improved economy, the bottoming-out of the market and increased innovation will help bring about the recovery," he commented. However, he did remark that the technology sector in general needed to be more innovative.
Microsoft has recently come under criticism from many of its customers for the introduction of a new licensing model. Ballmer admitted that it hadn't been implemented very well and that some customers' trust in company may have been "diminished." However, he said that the "simpler" process would be of benefit to both users and Microsoft in the long-run.
In terms of new products from Microsoft next year, Ballmer said these will include its smart phone range, tablet PCs, a new version of Office, a version of Windows called Media Centre that will work in conjunction with a TV, and a update of MSN with added parental controls.
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