Last week at the Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting several MSFT execs took to the stage and discussed (with some demos) MSFT. Transcripts and video from the event are now online.

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Bill Gates

For example, our online site that delivers search results, there is no one who carries a beeper, because the software understands that if any of the hardware component fails, it knows how to redistribute that load. So it’s completely fail-safe. There’s multiple locations. That kind of capability can be provided to even fairly small-scale datacenters.

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Steve Ballmer
From the transcript:

There are software products, enterprise products, client products that really enable people, other software developers, to build software plus service. So we have stuff like Windows Live, and Office Live, Popfly, MSN, Live Search, Virtual Earth for individuals. I’m particularly charged up about what we’re doing in business services. We have an offer now for managed communications and collaboration where we’ll run the e-mail, the collab infrastructure for an enterprise account out of our own data centers.

We’re investing today in two new capabilities. We are going to be an advertising company, and we are going to be a devices company. Being an advertising company means learning about online and operational efficiency. Advertising is a new business model. Now we don’t just talk about ISVs, we talk about publishers.

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Kevin Johnson, President, Platforms and Services Division (
Most of Johnson’s presentation focuses on advertising. He says:

In this last year, I’ve really amplified my personal focus on building this new core business around online advertising.

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Robbie Bach, President, Entertainment and Devices Division
Several points on advertising.

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Ray Ozzie, Chief Technical Officer
Worth reading/watching.

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Craig Mundie, Chief Research & Strategy Officer

The machine will become contextually aware. It essentially has infinite memory or recall capability, and the whole model of search at the global scale is just sort of an indication that there’s not really that much limitation to what we can remember and our ability to go find it. The question is we don’t find it in a way that makes it generally useful to people to build new applications. So the second thing that will happen – and here by “context” I mean not only what you do but the environment in which the machine sits – you know, sensors, video sensors, audio sensors – these all will essentially accumulate context and define the environment.

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Discussion and Questions: Ozzie and Mundie

+ Transcript and Link to Video: Executive Discussion: Ballmer, Gates, and Liddell
Some talk about advertising.
Ballmer says:

On the consumer side our ability to monetize after market a PC with application — I mean, we do better than anybody else selling software. We sell a reasonable amount of Office. You can buy Office for home, student-type use for just over a hundred bucks. And yet most of the Office you would find on home computers has been pirated. And so the notion of being able to monetize — and monetize — I’m not talking about Office now, but in general, advertising is a potential better monetization source in a market where piracy is high; I think we have net opportunity, particularly consumer and tiny businesses, home businesses, et cetera, to actually increase revenue on everything we do that’s application-related, because of the move to software plus services.

Source: Microsoft