Capital Commerce: Redmond comes to Washington (D.C.)
The global war on terrorism has been kind to the bottom lines of defense contractors–and now Microsoft is looking for a bigger piece of the pie.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, on a rare stop inside the beltway, spoke recently of helping the military services achieve "information superiority"–with some of the software giant's new products and services, naturally. At a forum hosted by four area technology councils, Balmer said one of the military's key needs is to "empower people with the right information, superior information so that they can make better decisions when they are out in a battle situation, in a war situation, in some theater of activity. It's about empowering and enabling the war fight."
Beltway types might wonder what Balmer has gleaned about war-fighting from the other side of the country, but it turns out Microsoft has plenty of good intelligence on the Pentagon: The Army, Navy, and Air Force are its three biggest customers. But that's just a start. Ballmer noted that the company has recently expanded its presence in the Washington, D.C., area with 500 employees and over 7,500 other customers. Partnerships with six area software vendors are aimed at catering to the needs of other defense contractors. And the company is touting new software that has multiple uses and can be Internet based, instead of expensive programs tailored to a specific agency that rely on stacks of costly servers–like those in the basements of most cabinet agencies.