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Microsoft's Ballmer commits to Ireland
Thursday, September 26 2002
by Andrew McLindon


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.