ed. Steve Ballmer is 2nd in command at Microsoft, and ActiveWin appear to have been very lucky, and got a chat with the big man.
ActiveWin.com: In all of your years at Microsoft, what do you consider your finest achievement?
Steve Ballmer: It"s hard to put my finger on a single thing. I am very excited about where we are as a company today and our growth prospects going forward. Over the last five years, we have put in place a strong mission and values that guide our business approach and culture. Last year we adopted a Business Plan that sets forth a clear roadmap for employees, partners and the industry about our focus and direction. Our competitive focus and execution is clear with respect to Linux and open source. We have solidified important changes to our internal processes that enable much better cross-group collaboration, while giving each of our 7 business groups the ability to function with the appropriate degree of autonomy and agility. We have put a major focus on cost-efficacy so that our operating income is again growing faster than our operating costs. We have initiated key rebuilds in major cost centers such as marketing. And we"re investing significantly in R&D and engineering excellence, and showing excellent results in new product innovation, quality, security and reliability. To be clear, none of this is "my" achievement. It really as an effort that has involved a lot of hard work by Bill, me, our leadership team and our employees.