David Vaskevitch, Microsoft's CTO, is the man responsible for the long term vision of the Company with the greatest impact on the world of computing * In an interview with Globes, he talks about the Company's plans for enterprise computing ("to become everyone's platform"), about the competitors ("a world with three options is a good one"), and about the center in Israel ("We want to be part of the passion you have here") An interview with a vision  Shmulik Shelah



David Vaskevitch, Microsoft's CTO, began working at the company in 1986, when times were different. Windows was still a nice application that resided on DOS. Applications such as email, automatic Internet access, search engines and the term .net were very far from the planning schedules of the Company's leadership. However, time has passed. Vaskevitch, at that time marketing manager the young company in the United States became Microsoft's visionary on all matters pertaining to the Company's future and the roadmap to getting there.

Vaskevitch's big vision involves enterprise software. In 1993, not long after having entered the Company, he wrote a book on strategies for managing client/server architecture (the technological trend (at the beginning and during the mid 1990's, about the way to access enterprise data located on a central server through enterprise networks) and became the general manager of enterprise computing at Microsoft. Looking back, it is difficult to believe that in those days Microsoft was "ostracized" by most large organizations. However, Vaskevitch's vision, which looked ahead 10 years to penetration of the enterprise market, succeeded rather well, and today the picture is different. But for Vaskevitch, this is only the base, his vision is completely different.

"We wrote the plan for penetrating the enterprise arena in three parts," Vaskevitch recounts in the Globes interview, "The first phase was to enter the game, that is, ? to recruit the people with the expertise, develop a strategy, sales force, and the like. The second phase was to become a serious player in the market. Many people thought that we would never manage to enter the market because we were competing with IBM, Oracle, and the like, and what's more, this market is relatively conservative. Today, we have a $10 billion business from enterprise software, and that is very profitable and it can definitely be said that most big companies around the world today use our products.

"So that everyone says that we are in the game today. But we are still not number one. And for me, to be number one is to enter as a partner and not only as a supplier into company giants, such as China Telecom, for example. It has 300 million users, that is more than the number of people in the United States, and it still has opportunities for growth several times that in the market. I was told there that Microsoft is currently 'only suppliers', that is, China Telecom does not run its core infrastructures with our platforms. In the coming century, most companies will have obsolete equipment that they will want to replace. Our opportunity is to build applications that will be much easier to develop and replace. And if we succeed, we will enter the third phase of our enterprise plan. We will know that we have completed the third phase, not when we are the biggest in terms of revenues or customers, but when customers say "you are not only a supplier, but a partner".

*That is to say, you want to get to every platform in the big companies? When will that happen?

"No. I want Microsoft to be the platform that the big companies run on, and that includes replacing the mainframes. While this might take us a bit of time, it is something that will keep us busy in the meantime," he says, laughing.

Indeed, long term visions are Vaskevitch's department, which at the moment he reports to Bill Gates ("He has not left the Company, but is simply changing focus; that will happen next summer"). And it is here that Microsoft's past is problematic, for example: its entry to the Internet, which many think was late.

"The answer to the question is not yes or no," he responds to the question whether Microsoft is in a position to utilize all its enterprise software capabilities. "We are almost never first on the market, but when we enter the market, we build a system that offers a solution for everyone, not only a closed system. So, that when we have addressed a system, it is really usable, as was the case with the Internet, for example. When we entered the arena, we made the Internet connection transparent to users. If you look at Windows 95, which many describe as our biggest success, there was no Internet for consumers at the time, so that it did not have an Internet connection. On the other hand, when Windows XP came along six years later, people could buy Windows and connect it to the wall and get Internet access. In this way, we could take a market, that we were said to be nonexistent in, and make it available to everyone in a totally transparent manner."

When will Microsoft enable access to Office applications as a service?

"Ah, we are already doing that in a certain sense. The question is how you define a service. Let's assume I run mail on Exchange. If I do it through a communications device, there must be a service executing it. Anywhere I have access to a browser, I can run OWA (Outlook Web Access - Microsoft's remote access interface to mail servers) and then I have all the functions. Thus, that every Exchange server also has services that it has provided for several years now. This is not a new concept for us. Hotmail, too, is a service that enables customers to access email even when they do not have a regular computer. True, there are competitors, but Hotmail has the largest number of customers today.

?How do you see the position of Microsoft vis-?-vis Google in the long term when Google exploits the advantages of its access to network-based applications?

"Microsoft is a bit paranoid and hence it takes the threat seriously. Office has 95% of the market, and every two or three years there is a new trend from someone new on the block. Had we met a few years ago, you would have asked me about open source [software]. What I will say is two things: over time, Office has developed into something accessible in a new way too; it can be accessed both via a mobile phone; and in the new version, you will be able to access Office applications via the web. But when I am on the road, I use a mobile device to read mail, because that is the only possible way. If I am in the office, I will use a computer to access my mail. The interesting thing about OWA, and you will find that in apps such as Excel or Word for the Web, is that when you use it for the first time it is fantastic, but when used over time, people find that it is not the same thing as [having] the actual software. So, when I want to write a note several lines long, I need email; I don't need Google's application for it. If I need to write several pages, I might use Microsoft, Google or other applications. But if I need to write something really long, like a book, I think people will use Office. And I think that a world in which all three options exist is a good world."

Eleven months ago, Microsoft launched Windows Vista after five years of work on it. According to Vaskevitch, the system has met with success. Vista marked a big change in the life of Microsoft' and is not considered a follow-on version, but as a new point of view in some areas, including security, Internet access, integration of web applications, entertainment, etc.

?What do you see as the next stage in the version of Windows?

"The challenge is to make Windows evermore central in people's lives. What you will find is that the definition of Windows is developing. It will become what runs on a telephone, in the living room, in the car; and wherever you work with information in any way, Windows will be there. It will become the new way of listening to music or relating to memory, or to social connections.

?Where do you find threats to Microsoft in the long run?

"Our real challenge is not from our competitors, but to really understand what users want and to build that for them. In every market: in the car, in the home, in enterprises; everywhere we see computers more and more relevant to our lives. Once upon a time, had you taken a computer away from someone, they would not even have noticed. Today, that person cannot do without it. So our biggest competitor is the day you get all you want from your telephone, camera, computer, etc. I think that there is still plenty the computer can do and improve."

About US: * Where do you see the fitting in with your vision?

"There are two reasons for the center's existence: one is talent and passion, the other is expertise. I spend time in many countries, and then I visit Israel and I am aware that it is different. People visiting China, for example, notice the high energy levels. People visiting Israel find the same energy levels, but with fewer people, and we want to connect with the energies here. ; It has become clear to us that if you have an R&D center you want a subject area that will be a center of excellence for the whole world. Such as the subject of unified communications. And we believe that Israelis can produce something of a very high standard.