SharePoint part of MS arsenal to help economy: Ballmer

Microsoft CEO says collaboration platform is at the centre of innovation

Amidst hailing the launch last week of its SharePoint 2010 collaboration platform, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the IT industry can help propel economic recovery.

Ballmer, appearing at the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas, stressed IT as an economic booster.

"I'm going to remind you of one thing and one thing alone: That at the end of the day, the only thing that's going to enable growth and prosperity is advances in productivity and innovation, and the IT industry is going to propel a lot of that," Ballmer said.

The world is moving from PCs connected to a datacentre or the internet to information being available on multiple devices ranging from phones to PCs and television sets, with the enterprise, datacentre, and internet uniting in cloud computing, said Ballmer. "That's a major transformation," he said.

SharePoint, Ballmer said, "is one of my favourite products at Microsoft" and is at the centre of innovation at the company, he said.

"A lot of what people want to do is about sharing information, finding information, getting insight out of information," and acting on information, Ballmer said, announcing the availability of the public beta of SharePoint 2010 technology. SharePoint Server 2010 is due next year.

Ballmer and other Microsoft officials appearing onstage cited capabilities in the 2010 platform including a new UI, business intelligence and intentions to make SharePoint accessible from multiple browsers and phones.

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