In his final shareholder meeting, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer defended Xbox and Bing.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be leaving Microsoft soon. Potential replacement Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has expressed an interest in selling Xbox and Bing. In his final shareholder meeting, Ballmer called Xbox and Bing a key part of Microsoft’s broader vision.
Microsoft’s plan is to incorporate products, such as Xbox One’s integration of Bing and SkyDrive, a file hosting service with cloud storage. Bing has voice integration, so Xbox users can use the voice search across media types. Microsoft recently released information about Bing and a video of Major Nelson putting it to use on the next-gen console.
Ballmer said Xbox One is “a reflection of what is possible when a company, our company, is unified under a common vision.” Microsoft is also using Bing to test Microsoft’s Windows Azure service.
One shareholder brought up a recurring issue: customer security and privacy, an issue Microsoft struggled with when putting fears to rest concerning the Kinect.
“We all want to live in a country and a world that’s safe and secure,” Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said. “But it is a business imperative that we maintain our customers’ trust in every country of the world.”
Ballmer announced his resignation in August. By August 2014 he will have stepped down, which is something he does not plan to do before a successor is named.
Source: GeekWire
