14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has made it ample clear that it will continue steadfast with its investments in innovations. The company's Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer revealed at the start of 2009 that Microsoft planned to spend in excess of $9 billion on Research and Development by the end of this year alone. Now, Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, emphasizes that keeping Microsoft in the cutting edge with a flow of constant financial resources invested in R&D is part of the company's strategy to survive the current global financial crisis. Mundie, along with Ray Ozzie, now chief software architect, divide between them Bill Gates' responsibilities following the pseudo-retirement of the company's co-founder in mid-2008.
“We've always believed that being able to sustain our long-term investments alongside our current product investments is critically important to our success. First, we want to keep making improvements to all of our existing products. Clearly we need to do that because competition continues to get stronger, even in these difficult times,” Mundie stated. “Second, we can't anticipate everything that people do. Research supplies us with a shock-absorbing capability to react to the unexpected. And sometimes economic downturns are a good time to disrupt the market ourselves. For example, we're building a whole new business in healthcare, which has drawn a great deal from our research groups.”
In this regard, all top Microsoft executives have a similar discourse. Companies that continued pouring money into research and development during the Great Depression of the past century, found themselves in a position to take advantage of innovations developed at the end of the crisis. The Redmond company plans a similar tactic. Mundie used the Radio Corporation of America as an example, indicating that investment in the future permitted RCA to pioneer television and subsequently to become a top player on the market.
“If you look back, the companies that excelled during previous economic downturns, including the Great Depression, were those that quickly made adjustments to their cost base, found ways to continue investing in the future, and invented new products while they were actually in the downturn,” Mundie stated. “So if we want to excel, rather than just survive, we need to keep developing advanced new products, and bring them to market as we exit the economic downturn.”