Q&A: Ballmer aims for broader customer connection

Computerworld - REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer spoke this week with Computerworld editors about the impetus for the memo on core values he issued earlier this month to the software maker's 50,000 employees.
Part 1 of the interview, which follows here, focuses on the memo. In Part 2 (see story), Ballmer shares his thoughts on a wide range of topics, including the merger of Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. and his desire not to limit his company's potential for expansion into new business areas.

Q: In your memo, you talk about the need for great people, great values, excellence, trustworthy computing, broad customer connection -- wonderful things to aspire to. What are you going to do to make sure that happens?
A: You reinforce things through the management process. That's all you can do. Every time you sit down with people, you ask them, "How are you doing?" and "What are your plans?" And then, six months later, "Did you get accomplished what you said you were going to get accomplished? Is it ambitious enough relative to what customer expectations are? Is it ambitious enough relative to competition?"
At the end of the day, it's the same kinds of things that determine success. You know -- broad customer connection. ... We could be better connected with our customers without a doubt. We need to raise up our game.
And when I say that, I mean a lot of stuff -- customer understanding, selling, marketing, training, support. And the word broad has to be underlined. This isn't "Are we talking to enough enterprises?" This is "Are we reaching the mass of people who use, who develop with and who administer our products in some systematic way?" You ask every team, "What's your plan for broad customer connection?"
All the VPs, we were all at the same retreat. We were all talking about this in context. Some guys have some pretty interesting plans, and some guys have some pretty dull plans. We take the guys with interesting plans, we set them up and have them talk at management forums about their plans, and the guys who have dull plans, you don't have them talk about their plans. ... And you share the best practices.
There's a technology that we pioneered in Office and MSN for really getting error reports back out of our software. ... The technology in that is really a form of broad customer connection -- getting those error reports, parsing them -- and then that best practice is