How Microsoft plans to weather the economic storm

Microsoft is projecting lower revenues and earnings for 2009, but has a plan to weather the current economic storm. Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said on a conference call last week that the software giant will focus on lowering customers' total cost of ownership, tighten its own spending, and choose its investments carefully in the near term.

"There's a high degree of uncertainty in outlook based on the state of the economy," Liddell said. "We can't control the economy, but we can control our overall performance in regard to [it]."

The company said it is concerned PC spending may be lower than expected and will negatively affect its Windows client business. Along with its Business Division, which includes Microsoft Office, the company derives the bulk of its revenue from its client business. To attract and keep customers, Liddell said Microsoft will focus on providing "high-value products at a low total ownership cost as a competitive advantage."

He cited products such as its Hyper-V virtualization software for Windows Server and its unified communications software as ways companies can use IT infrastructure to reduce business costs.

For more on Microsoft's plan:
- see this Computerworld.com article

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