Mary Jo Foley

, Microsoft watcher

Biography

Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 20 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning “At The Evil Empire” column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Presentation

The New Decade: 10 Products and Strategies Likely to Make (or Break) Microsoft

Keynote, Conference Day #2, Thursday May 6th, 2.30 pm - 3.30 pm

Microsoft has been relying on Windows and Office preloaded on PCs to fuel the company’s growth for the two decades. But the computing world is changing and Microsoft is having to change, too.

Markets where Microsoft hasn’t been as strong – or, in some cases, nonexistent – are gaining steam. That’s why Microsoft has been stepping up its involvement in new businesses, like cloud-computing, mobile phones, search/online advertising and Web development platforms past year-plus. In the coming decade, Microsoft is going to find itself facing off against companies with which it hasn’t competed directly before. The monopolies that the Redmondians have built up are still going to provide the company with a strong base in the near term, but may not be much of a bulwark within a few years.

Going into the new decade, Microsoft has a lot of balls in the air.  A new version of Office and SharePoint Server (plus a Webified Office complement), a brand-new mobile operating system, new releases of its enterprise security and system management products, a new gaming controller – all of these deliverables are due to ship before the end of this calendar year. Beyond that, Microsoft has lots more in the pipeline, as the company attempts to launch more new initiatives which it hopes it can morph into its next billion-dollar businesses.

Join Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley as she puts Microsoft’s big bets for the new decade in perspective.

See slides online

Philadelphia 2010: What lies ahead for Microsoft?