WORDS IN CONTEXT

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FRUSTRATION

There's more users in more companies around the world who are FRUSTRATED to know that their companies have the information that could help them make better decisions, yet are unable to open up that world of information to the users in an important way.

But I think there's a FRUSTRATION from the business community overall that the computer systems don't seem to have kept up with the need of the business in terms of delivering the business intelligence and knowledge that's really essential and vital to running the business.

Today I'm sure many of you, as I do, see FRUSTRATION among business managers, CEOs in your company, who have production as their top objective.

He said, "You know, it's kind of FRUSTRATING.

But, our FRUSTRATION still is that, as much work as your fellows have done in putting that information together in a consistent form, we still find that -- as an example, yesterday the suggestion that you can put your name in once, and address and it filters across the whole collection of final data positions, even within your own product set we find there is a lot of FRUSTRATION in -- for example, six months ago, there was about seven different address books across your product set.

And I'm AFRAID that maybe that's not -- we need a little bit more subtle view of the future.

I'm also going to apologize, I'm AFRAID, in advance.

This is a product that I'm AFRAID we probably won't do justice to today.

There's some flexibility they have with Linux or Apache that they're AFRAID they can't have with NT.

EXCITED, EXCITING, EXCITE

It's a real honor for me to have a chance to be here with you today, and to have a chance not only to talk a little bit about where we are with Visual Basic, where we are in terms of interesting and EXCITING opportunities that we see for developers, but to speak very specifically to the leading edge group of the largest software developer community in the world, which is the Visual Basic community.

And to have a chance to be here and just revel in some of the incredible success folks have had building applications with the tool set is very EXCITING for me.

More applications get developed and produced and deployed in VB, and we have very EXCITING plans to help the developer community, and the VB community in particular, take advantage of not only the PC but the Internet.

And, as EXCITED as I'll be about a lot of things, I don't want anybody to think for even half a nanosecond that there's not an EXCITING future in front of the PC.

I think one of the most EXCITING parts of the future of Visual Studio will be the notion of, well, I might have thought of it in the old days as VB controls.

I hope you agree with us that Visual Studio 7 is pretty EXCITING, and I certainly hope you enjoy the rest of VBITS.

It's about half high-tech and about half not, so I'm going to try and run the gamut here and try to give you a little bit of a sense -- I hope -- of where some of the real EXCITEment will come over the course of the next several years out of the information industry.

That's why we focused on building a software infrastructure on top of which each and every business represented here in the room can do its best, its most creative, its most EXCITING work.

I'm super EXCITED.

And it's my pleasure to have a chance to welcome you here today for what I hope will be as EXCITING an announcement to you as it certainly is to us.

I am very EXCITED about the venture with Ford.

So it's an EXCITING day for us.

And the new CarPoint is open for business for all manufacturers in the industry, and we are very EXCITED about that.

You can tell we're very EXCITED about it.

Where we started, I think if you look inside our genetic material, and how we identify ourselves and think about ourselves, and the chance to really talk about the sort of next generation frontier for application development, and the evolution of the way people build applications over the next five to ten years, this is, for me, a very, very EXCITING time.

We've got a ton of work to do, and quite frankly all of us in e-commerce, especially in apparel, have really just scratched the surface in terms of figuring out how to present customers with offerings which are EXCITING and interesting to them.

Now, this illustrative prototype that I am about to show you is designed to show you what happens when Web sites are transformed into programmable services, into these building blocks that Steve was talking about, so that they can be aggregated, composed into new kinds of EXCITING applications.

Number two, we've given you a hint of the sea of programmable services that we expect to see and that these services will be aggregated into new kinds of EXCITING applications that we haven't even anticipated yet.

Hopefully you can see why we're so EXCITED about this new world where we will be able to program the Web.

With this project underway, the future for Marks and Spencer looks very EXCITING.

 Our heart and soul, our company was built off providing tools to developers, the platform that they could use to do EXCITING applications.

So we have a set of technology initiatives that span, but we want to make sure that our people, as the company grows, always stay rigidly -- rigidly -- flexibly anchored in an orientation towards a set of customers who they can go out and prove value to and inspire and EXCITE.

 He'll speak later and have a chance to show you some of the EXCITING things we think we're doing.

In the consumer area, we really have three separate divisions serving the consumer space:  the Consumer Windows division; the consumer and commerce group, which Brad Chase and John DeVaan run -- they'll be with us later; and our Home and Retail Division, which is quietly posting over a billion dollars of revenue selling hardware and software products that actually go into the home, that are not delivered via the Internet and really building up quite an EXCITING business.

 Windows, Office, BackOffice, our Visual Tool suite; some of the most EXCITING applications I see actually use Office as an embedded part of the solution, use Exchange for work flow -- we see that from a variety of ISVs today -- SQL Server as an engine, in addition to the work with Visual Tools and the Windows platform to write presentation logic, to write application logic and put it all together.

 If you look at the instant messenger technologies from AOL, from Yahoo, from EXCITE, they all have Windows client-side code, because the best dot-com sites will need to distinguish themselves, not only with what they do up on the server, but there will be client-side code that goes in and is important.

And the PC-plus era will be a very EXCITING one.

This is a device we have nothing to do with, that I carry personally, and I'm EXCITED about, therefore I want us to build software that fits into these, and even if we don't, I want to make sure our server software integrates well.

The thing I think is EXCITING is we're coming to a conclusion that even with kind of low-speed DSL connections, you can get a reasonable digital media experience, because of the improvements that we and others are making in compression.

Are you more EXCITED putting billions into AT&T or acquiring like a Jump.com or even a Hotmail?

So we're pretty EXCITED about this device, and while it may share some technologies with the PC, it's clearly not Windows and it's clearly not a PC.

I give you an example that just happens to come out of our Office 2000 launch, because it's on my mind, and we've been SURPRISEd by how EXCITED people are by one of the new capabilities.

And it's easy to get very EXCITED about that, and doing that not only on a corporate intranet, but out on the Internet in a hosted way.

So, after seeing this, I think my friends will be pretty EXCITED about the trip.

It's a very rich, very EXCITING product.

And I think in the short term there's a lot of furor over the low price, low service alternative, which has sort of sprung up on the Internet, particularly in terms of the way consumers get served, but in the long run I couldn't be more EXCITED about the opportunities to provide higher service on the Internet.

We were initially fearful that the billers wouldn't be EXCITED, that they wouldn't see the same opportunities to put on subsequent marketing messages and sell space in the bill and get stuffing done the right ways, that they can in the paper format.

And I know you'll have a chance to hear from Don Listwen and from Cisco and, you know, they've got a lot of EXCITING ideas in the way voice will be integrated in over this Internet infrastructure.

So we're pretty EXCITED about Office 2000.

NASDAQ's been doing some very EXCITING things with Windows NT.

We're very, very EXCITED about doing 64-bit SQL Server.

We need to provide new and EXCITING form factors, and we definitely have to systems that connect with everything, everywhere.

So, we're starting to see a lot of innovation, and I think we'll see a lot more innovation from the companies in this room, on the chips and the systems that really let the PC of tomorrow and today move forward in some pretty EXCITING ways.

I'd LOVE to give you a sense of some of the EXCITING user interface techniques that we're experimenting with for the PC, as well as for new classes of next generation devices in the home.

I think what Dan will show you today is pretty EXCITING.

And I'm just EXCITED to have a chance to address today an audience who has done such great and such innovative work to create a market that will sell over 100 million units this year, and will be part of this next generation of empowerment any place, any time, any device.

The thing that I'm pleased about, the thing that I was EXCITED about when our folks were telling me about this implementation was they could talk about reduced inventory, they could talk about reduced lead times.

What we think will be very interesting for everybody is to bring a little bit of the EXCITEment of the factory to our meeting this morning and show you some of the things - well, we can't bring the whole thing...so what's happening.

We're EXCITED about the uptake we've seen and the participation by the industry in this area.

This is an EXCITING day for us, and I hope and think an important day for our customers.

Baan, for example, is so EXCITED about this, that together we're working on really driving SQL Server to be 90 or 95 percent of their overall volume over the course of the next 12 to 18 months.

And so we're EXCITED about the kind of partnerships.

This is really a critical issue for us, and we're very EXCITED about where we are.

So it's been a pretty EXCITING environment.

The other part that was really EXCITING was the way we did the application, we really surrounded all our old systems.

This is a particularly EXCITING time for me to have a chance to make this presentation.

Maybe I'll read to you just a couple of comments from the folks at Prudential, and let you get a sense of why they're so EXCITED.

I had a chance to meet with one of our Wall Street clients this morning, and we spent a lot of time talking about the EXCITING applications which could really change the way they work, and a lot of those are knowledge applications.

But I think we at least are very EXCITED with the momentum that Windows now has, not only at the client, but also at the server.

We're EXCITED to see that over 41 percent of the publishers today are using Windows NT Server, and have a high interest in installing NT servers tomorrow.

That talks a lot to the range of applications, the heterogeneous support for Windows and Macintosh clients, and the kinds of EXCITING applications that are really being done across the board.

That's very EXCITING.

One of the most EXCITING is something that we call Chrome Effects.

Chrome Effects is a set of technologies that we've built using XML that live inside the browser, and let you do very EXCITING 2D and 3D publishing and animation work inside our browser.

But I think when you see the kinds of things that you'll be able to do from an online publishing perspective, you could get very EXCITED about the potential.

I hope people get something of the sense of the kind of tools that we're trying to make available so you can do very rich, very EXCITING interactive pages without a huge amount of work.

MR. BALLMER: We're certainly very EXCITED about the Chrome Effects technology.

So it's not the free nature of those things that EXCITEs people.

When they get EXCITED it's typically more because there is some flexibility they have, whether it's source code, or ability to modify.

What we tried to do then, and what we're trying to now, is to say: Look, there are EXCITING, innovative things, which we can let people do on the Windows platform, some of them may go beyond and require some code on the client, other than just a basic HTML renderer.

And so, for me, it's an EXCITING time.

For Microsoft, it's certainly a very EXCITING time.

I think it's just an EXCITING time in the industry.

We're very, very EXCITED about the data that has come back on Windows 98 in terms of improvement in the quality of user experience with that product versus earlier releases with Windows.

CHI has now discounted using Notes Domino, and are very EXCITED about building on Microsoft technology.

I have found that your staff shares these same principles, and am very EXCITED to continue to grow the relationship, to build success for both our companies."

So it's been a year where I'm EXCITED about some of the things we've done in the face to face arena.

I'm also very EXCITED though about some of the progress that we've made on our Web site, microsoft.com.

I'm very EXCITED about where we are.

I'm very EXCITED about what's still ahead of us.

And I'm very EXCITED, frankly, about the opportunity to continue to really invest, to improve the customer experience with the personal computers, and really to get Microsoft ready to hopefully continue to be a leader as we look forward to an industry which will be vastly different five years from now than it is today.

The EXCITEment we feel here is that ActiveStore enables us to extend that presence out to the point of sale.

MR. BALLMER: HP has been an important partner in a variety of different industries, not so much in retail in the past, and that's why we're so EXCITED about HP's focus and commitment, and the opportunities that we have to really push things going forward.

I had a chance to talk to a couple of our customers about JPOS and OPOS, and how we can kind of bring those things together through the standards efforts, and I'm certainly EXCITED about the opportunity to have our company participate in reducing the complexity and building standards inside the retail industry.

So, we're real EXCITED to talk about that.

And we've been very EXCITED about our opportunity to get in with Microsoft and think about product architecture, to think about services in NT that frankly weren't there that we needed to manage a distributed network of retail environments.

But, the EXCITEment about providing value to their customers, rather than spending all this time in the plumbing, you know, was generally well received.

So there's a lot of EXCITEment in our development community about that possibility.

So it's real EXCITING to see the vision come to life, to see the number of participants that have contributed to it.

So it's been an EXCITING ride.

I got to speak yesterday to 9,000 people, and I was kind of expecting that this is a revved up audience - they've traveled a long way, paid money, who are enthused and involved and EXCITED and leading edge, and I asked this audience, "How many of you have ever used Java?

I'm very EXCITED about the five-year time frame.

And that's what I'm -- I get most EXCITED about, with all the work customers are doing with -- and collaboration and groupware applications, building upon the infrastructure we keep getting richer and richer in Exchange to support that kind of application.

I don't know when we'll catch Oracle, but we're at 70 percent their run rate right now in terms of new database seats per year, and the SQL Server 7 product, which I'll talk about later this morning is, I think, the most EXCITING product -- well, certainly the most EXCITING database release we've had in a long, long time.

Merrill Lynch has been developing a fairly sophisticated COM-based application on NT 4, and I can tell you that when we talked to them about NT 5 and what it does for cost of ownership and management, they're very EXCITED.

Now, I know that they did a lot of excellent work in building that application, very EXCITED about it, on NT 4, but the possibility as we deploy NT 5 with Merrill Lynch to help them reduce the cost of deployment, of management, of operation of that application is incredible.

There's a number of customers we've worked with: Moss Micro, an ISV in Southern California has done an EXCITING sales force automation application.

We think we've got a lot of customers who have done EXCITING work already with the current versions of Office and SQL Server 6.5.

Another EXCITING new innovation is Access 9 is what we call data -- (inaudible).

Perhaps the one I'm most EXCITED on this list is the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

We live in an EXCITING time in the computer industry.

I'm only disappointed that I was unable to keynote our first Fusion event last year, because for me probably the most EXCITING thing that I get to do in my job at Microsoft is to talk to employees and talk to our solution providers.

And so, it's just such an EXCITEment for me to have a chance to be here with you at Fusion to give you a little bit of my view of where we are together, what we can do together in the future.

All of those customers are very EXCITED, and they're wondering about what's coming next.

I mean, it's really, really EXCITING.

When I look at what...(inaudible)...client server, you're looking at database...(inaudible)...and how to do that, but it really didn't get the business people EXCITED.

I think it's a very, very EXCITING thing.

I thought the fleeting example was really WONDERFUL, in terms of how to dimensionalize some of the EXCITING ways in which ...(inaudible)...can develop, and I'm pleased we were able to help.

So this year we're making a major new investment to try to have regular technical briefings and technical discussions, not only for the owner of our solution providers, but also for the bulk of technical people who do want to make sure to keep current on what's possible and what EXCITING things other solution providers are doing.

So we are EXCITED about the opportunities in front of us.

We're very EXCITED about the new work.

I want to again not only say thanks, but I want to say how EXCITING it is and how EXCITED I am and how EXCITING it is for me to have a chance to be here.

In many companies the focus, in many organizations, the focus on information technology is only on cost, or only on the wizardry and EXCITEment of the new project.

I'm going to try to come back and ground that again, because I think we are EXCITED about the way IT is used [in general].

We are very EXCITED about the future of information technology.

If their employees are enthused and EXCITED and motivated, sure, they'll spend time.

And you see companies, it's fun for us, it's EXCITING to see how companies LOVE this thing when it goes in.

I'm EXCITED.

That's great." He said, "Why are you so EXCITED?" I said, "Well, you must make good use of IT." And he said, "I don't know if we make good use or bad use; I just know that when I need the price of automobile insurance in the State of Colorado, I still can't just in a simple way from my laptop with Excel -- " a Microsoft product he uses -- "I can't really look at how many claims we've paid for car accidents in Denver, Colorado versus Durango.

I talked a little bit about the digital nervous system and how EXCITED we are about it.

The PCs in the home is a very EXCITING arena.

But still today we see the prime EXCITEment and certainly the prime buying of personal computers happening in the business market.

On the other hand, we will bring to market later this year in Japan a product I am just as EXCITED about, that we call the small business server, targeted at companies that have twenty-five or less PCs.

There's an EXCITING future ahead for the personal computer industry.

We're phenomenally EXCITED about the opportunities.

They've done these online and alternate delivery banking services and been incredibly EXCITED about what they've gotten from us in support.

They provide the innovation, the EXCITEment, the applications, and I'm not talking today just about the developers that live in third-party software companies.

And so you amalgamate all of the EXCITING foundation that has been built both at Microsoft and in small third-party companies, and in custom application development companies, and in companies like IBM and Oracle and many, many others.

And I will say that this is the first time this has been demonstrated publicly, and I'm pretty EXCITED about that.

We're pretty EXCITED about Windows Everywhere.

And we're EXCITED to be continuing to pursue Windows Everywhere, the richest platform for developers with the broadest set of deployment options.

I think there is so much great innovation and relatively, I'm much more EXCITED about what we call knowledge workers than most people are.

And I'm more EXCITED in terms of what it gives developers than what it takes away from PC manufacturers.

WONDERFUL

Today, my bank has a Web site, my broker has a Web site, my insurance company has a Web site, and they're all as rich and WONDERFUL as those people know how to make it.

And I think it's important to always return to that essential ingredient, despite all the WONDERFUL new things we're seeing with the personal computer, the new ways in which it can be used in the home, the new devices that we see, it will always be an important thing for us to look back and focus in on the ways in which the personal computer can continue to make us all smarter, more effective analyzers, communicators, understanders, expressers of our ideas, because that's been the heart and soul and I think will remain a very vital part of the personal computer revolution for the next years to come.

And they say, "we have a lot of computer people in our company." I said, "that's a WONDERFUL thing." And they say, "we have a lot of computers in our company." And, frankly, I say, "that's an even better thing." Then they'll ask kind of naively, "but why is it when I was trying to do X, Y or Z, I wound up not being able to find the information?" The goal of a Digital Nervous System is to really have in place the infrastructure that allows the kind of rich communication, analysis, collaboration and action that companies really dream of.

At Crestar we've taken the silos and gone into this WONDERFUL mix.

But, memory -- you know, memory debuggers like Numega are WONDERFUL things.

Database administrator training: SQL Server 7 is a WONDERFUL product, but we want to make sure it's a product that customers can get comfortable with quickly, not something particularly that database administrators push back on because we haven't reached out to empower them to successfully manage SQL Server 7 applications.

Certainly, mini-computers and mainframes are WONDERFUL processing systems, and personal computers have been WONDERFUL tools for personal productivity.

I think people are focusing far too much on pricing and shopping and commoditization when, in fact, the things that I see that are good and WONDERFUL about e-commerce and the Web and the Web lifestyle have to do with service.

You'll see the same thing in financial services, information services, the kind of thing that Gideon talked about, the knowledge salon concept, which Giga is pioneering and I think it's really a WONDERFUL breakthrough in the way we think about knowledge management.

I sure see a world that's rich and WONDERFUL and rosy.

It has not yet to come, Site Server 3 we just released, but it's a product that I don't think we talked enough about, and helped you understand enough, because it is a WONDERFUL product.

We made a decision at that time that it was critical to us, it was critical to our customers, and that there were simply just WONDERFUL opportunities to try to really link out and forge a bond and a partnership.

Site Server's a WONDERFUL product.

I thought the fleeting example was really WONDERFUL, in terms of how to dimensionalize some of the exciting ways in which ...(inaudible)...can develop, and I'm pleased we were able to help.

[United Kingdom] is another WONDERFUL example of the kinds of things people are doing to re-engineer relationship between the government and the citizens using the Internet.

For all intents and purposes, it controls the microprocessor market, but they're considered by many in the media and many around here as a true success story, a WONDERFUL company, a do-gooder.

In most companies, the networks of computers that are in place are not a critical component, yet the PC is a WONDERFUL tool for analysis, for communication and for training, and we view it as a primary objective for us as we think about how to push Windows forward, to be able to really have these networks of Windows PCs help companies think, learn, analyze, plan and take action, much as the human nervous system allows us to make those sets of actions.

That requires us not only to focus in on the PC as a WONDERFUL tool for personal productivity, that causes us to focus in on how we can teach PCs to listen, to learn, to help be more adaptive to human beings.

LOVE

We're people who LOVE software and see software as the key to transforming things in the so-called digital economy.

Project management has become kind of the purview of the elite, the project managers who sit there and print out huge PERC charts and CAD charts and other kinds of charts that none of us really understand and LOVE in the same way as the project managers.

Every financial services company would LOVE to have a standard notification service on the Internet that will get you a piece of information exactly when you want it -- instantaneously.

I LOVE the developer audience.

I personally LOVE the pivot table feature that's been in Office for a number of years, and is enhanced in Office 2000.

I'd LOVE to give you a sense of some of the exciting user interface techniques that we're experimenting with for the PC, as well as for new classes of next generation devices in the home.

We still LOVE the PC, we just see a lot of new opportunities for all of us.

We'd LOVE to hear from you.

We'd LOVE not to let other people write drivers.

I can't say we have a clear plan that we both LOVE.

But, as I said earlier, we LOVE feedback.

MR. KLINE: So it looks like Intel and the hardware manufacturers will LOVE this product.

We'll always admit we have a hidden agenda that someday we'd LOVE to migrate everything to Windows, but in the short term you need great interoperability tools.

I LOVE our solution providers.

Not only do I LOVE talking to you and hearing what you have to say and hearing your feedback, but I LOVE the kind of businesses that you've built.

I LOVE the success that you've had.

I LOVE the opportunity to learn from you.

And I LOVE them both very dearly.

Our objective for this conference is really to spark your interest and to let you know that we're here; we'd LOVE to help.

So, I'd LOVE a chance to take people's questions, thoughts and comments.

But we'd certainly LOVE to have a chance to sit down in different parts of the world.

And you see companies, it's fun for us, it's exciting to see how companies LOVE this thing when it goes in.

I LOVE it.

And the truth of the matter is, despite how negative I'm going to be for the next 44 minutes and 6 seconds, I LOVE this company.

I LOVE this company, but we'll have a chance to share with you some of the issues before us.

And while we LOVE Java very much here at Microsoft, we don't LOVE that middleware operating system.

In the long term, I LOVE our company.

But, for all the IT people out there who have an application that they'd LOVE to deploy but can't think about it, because they don't have the budget to buy a new PC, this sort of gives another option.

SAD

As I was listening to the quote from the Economist, it was sort of a dreary quote, a SAD quote, you could say, about the state, I think, of technology use in many companies around the globe.

I care about the Mac, and I would find it SAD, very SAD, if Apple was not a thriving part of the computer business.

Because it's always added value in unique ways, done good work, and I would find that a very, very SAD thing.

AMAZING, AMAZED AMAZE

But the PC has been this AMAZING device that because of its local intelligence, because of its local storage, has allowed it to help both at work and in homes in an array of scenarios that nobody would really have dreamed possible even 15 years or so ago.

The security infrastructure, the performance infrastructure, and the scalability infrastructure is really, I think, quite AMAZING.

And, finally, Visual Studio 7 around the end of this year, which will provide a tools infrastructure that really lets you bring these things together in just an AMAZING way.

The range and nature of the partnerships are AMAZING, and the opportunity not only for other businesses, but the opportunity for consumers to benefit from these technology shifts, are absolutely tremendous.

The thing that has characterized the PC over the last nineteen years since it was introduced is its AMAZING flexibility and the AMAZING capabilities that it gives to individuals to arm them to be creative.

The world has found real value in this kind of AMAZINGly flexible, general-purpose device, and I think it will continue to evolve, with help from companies like ours and others.

Windows 2000 is simply the PC at its very best, and while we haven't tuned Windows 2000 for home applications yet, things like Reader Rabbit that are mission-critical amongst the Ballmer children don't work, but for business uses, it simply represents the best the PC has ever been and it's really an AMAZING step forward.

I think that with the kind of innovation in hardware that you see going on at Intel, at Unisys, at Compaq, at Dell, at Hewlett Packard, coupled with some of the kinds of things that we're doing in software, you'll see that some of the same AMAZING flexibility that we've seen at the PC, at the client side, will start to affect and transform and improve the kinds of electronic commerce websites that people are building.

But it will be these opportunities to do new hardware devices and to have a set of software that can be deployed across these devices in a flexible way, that I think is really AMAZING.

When you think of it that way, it's kind of AMAZING -- my telephone's on the Internet, my TV set is on the Internet.

It's pretty AMAZING.

 And certainly the position that AOL has established there is really quite AMAZING.

The kind of very high-end super servers that people are building today, multi-processor clustered systems running on top of Intel based architecture with operating systems like Windows NT is AMAZING.

What that has opened up in terms of ability for developers to target a large market, to build skills in the right area, to fund based upon volume but with low prices, new R&D has been AMAZING.

And if we in the second generation had taken a narrow view that said, word processors and spreadsheets and character mode were all the knowledge worker would ever want, we would have never had this second generation that had this AMAZING impact on the way people work.

But I think the point that Vivek was making about the fundamental changes that will happen to all of our businesses, because of the broad presence of the Internet really is more AMAZING than we anticipate today.

And if you really focus in on that, and if companies like ours and Tibco really do the right job of enriching everything from the operating system, the Office software, the development tools, the information buses, we really will have an infrastructure that lets you do AMAZING, AMAZING things, from a customer service perspective across the Internet over the next four or five years.

There are smaller companies where people can have great experiences, but really Microsoft's an AMAZING place.

This is an industry that has been able to do AMAZING work together.

But, if you take a look at the improvements that we've made in scalability between 6.5 and 7.0, it's AMAZING.

When I stop and see some of the kinds of things that, say, Great Plains or Baan can demonstrate, the kind of accessibility to information, the kind of rich e-commerce scenarios that people are supporting on SQL Server 7 are really AMAZING, and I think very, very important.

Now, some of you may say, oh, my God, to propagate new releases of software to several thousand locations every two weeks is AMAZING.

Yet they're able to roll out new software on an every-two-week basis--really quite AMAZING.

today already over 30 percent of retail security transactions are happening over the Internet, which is really quite an AMAZING thing.

And the AMAZING thing about Office is, the rate of sale of Office is actually increased in many regards over the last couple of years.

It's a product that has had AMAZING acceptance and approval in the reviews that reviewers have done about it.

households now own a PC, which is really quite AMAZING if you go back several years.

I had an AMAZING experience in this area the other day.

We had a chance to talk with Tony Fano (sp) from NCR today, and he was walking me through, you know, printing labels, point of sale, in-store systems, scanners, the range and quality and depth of work going on in NCR is really quite AMAZING.

It is, frankly, AMAZING.

It's one thing when you can't get your computer working; when you can't get the lights to go up and down, though, that's really an AMAZING deal.

It's really pretty AMAZING stuff, and with Site Server 3, with NT and with SQL Server, what we really see happening is that many -- in fact, the lion's share of most of the popular commerce sites are being built on Windows NT.

The press has no idea that there are over 20,000 companies in the Washington DC area that are high-tech entrepreneurial companies like the companies in this room that are doing incredible and AMAZING work.

It is an AMAZING...(inaudible)..., though, that the high-tech entrepreneur community is...(inaudible)...on American business, and we wanted to make sure that you could really go out and explain that to people very well.

What you've done, and what you've achieved, is AMAZING and something that we certainly are certainly very thankful for and appreciative of.

It is pretty AMAZING that for, literally, a couple hundred dollars a year for a personal computer you can buy $2.5 billion of R and D, for just $200 to us and an appropriate set of services to our partners to go deploy and manage and get that R and D investment productive inside that organization.

JEFF CRAWFORD: We've done some really AMAZING things, from...

I know the opportunities of...(inaudible)...are AMAZING, whether you're talking about customer service businesses like leasing, whether you're talking about financial services businesses, insurance businesses, publishing, knowledge management businesses, the telecommunications companies, the new cellular companies, manufacturing businesses looking to change the way things look up and down.

We've had, in addition to the 10 million people who've profiled themselves, we've had a total of about 60 -- almost 60 million different visitors -- as AMAZING as that seems, 60 million different visitors, at some time or another to microsoft.com.

The UNIX workstation market, AMAZINGly, has actually declined, actually declined in 1996 versus 1995.

And for those of you who have seen the demonstration from Citrix or Prologue, it's not going to be that AMAZING to you.

That was really AMAZINGly interesting, as usual.

I guess you weren't AMAZED, but I was AMAZED to see cable company values, across the board, even those of my own employer, Time-Warner, go up a considerable percentage, simply because Microsoft invested a relatively small amount of money in the industry.

SURPRISE

No secret, no SURPRISE about that.

If you look at what's happened with PCs in the consumer market over the last three, four, five years, it should come as no SURPRISE to anybody, that the big surge in what people are doing with PCs, where they're in the home, where they're spending money has come on the Internet, where they spend their time is on the Internet, because people are increasingly turning to the Internet as a place not only to communicate but to get service, to learn, to educate themselves, and to buy.

That comes as no SURPRISE to anybody in this room.

STEVE BALLMER: Well, I guess I do know about it, and it doesn't SURPRISE me.

Information technology, I'm sure it's no SURPRISE to the people in this room, is one of the most rapidly growing industries in the world.

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