Microsoft goal: Help businesses 'realize potential'

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, in an e-mail to the software giant's 50,000-plus workers around the world, has urged them to rally around the company's latest mission of enabling "people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential."

Ballmer outlined the company's priorities as it tries to move past its Justice Department antitrust battles toward a future in which Microsoft will deliver both software and Web-based software services.

The e-mail, obtained by The Associated Press, emerged after the company's executive staff spent several days at a retreat.

"The events of the last four years and the changes in our industry make this a good point to take stock of ourselves and our mission, to understand how others perceive us, and to think about how we can do a better job explaining who we are and what matters to us," Ballmer wrote Thursday.

"Many of us feel a disconnect in the way we see ourselves and our mission and motives, and the way we are portrayed, and only we can change that," he said.

Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said the e-mail was Ballmer's way of "making explicit what has been an implicit and intrinsic mission, values and priorities at Microsoft for some time."

The message carries a healthy dose of the ambition that has long characterized Microsoft -- and earned it considerable enmity from competitors.

"Helping change the world in the way we aspire to isn't easy," Ballmer wrote.

He noted Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' original vision of "a PC on every desktop and in every home," which evolved three years ago into "empowering people through great software."

While computers have become ever more ubiquitous in people's daily lives, Ballmer told his employees there is still untapped opportunity to transform business processes and personal entertainment into richer experiences.

He urged employees to put customers first and take responsibility for helping to realize improvements around the globe, regardless of geography or economic means.

Microsoft must focus on improving the security and privacy of its products, he said.

Numerous security flaws reported in recent months in the company's Internet Explorer browser and Windows XP operating system software have forced developers to come up with quick fixes for consumers to download.

Microsoft is betting heavily on the rollout of its .NET strategy, in which businesses and consumers will rely increasingly on Web services to conduct routine business transactions.

The success of that strategy will depend on customers' confidence that business and personal information is being kept safe, analysts have said.

"Customers must see that we take our commitments seriously, that we have clear, established business practices, that we are predictable, and that we genuinely understand and respect the issues they face when there is change," he wrote.

"Even if these are not contractual commitments, they represent the 'deal' we must have with customers if they are to depend on Microsoft and place their full trust in our products."

Microsoft is now focusing on ironing out the details of its "trustworthy computing" approach, customer connection and finding new growth opportunities.

Ballmer urged his employees to share their thoughts with him by Aug. 15 and pledged to read each e-mail and ensure that a response is sent back.

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