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By editorial@silicon.com, 9 March 2001 18:00

COMMENT Its court case with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) seems to be tilting marginally in its favour, adding to the generally optimistic outlook for the company. But, taking a leaf out of Intel's bible that only the paranoid survive, it's not taking anything for granted. This week, Microsoft's head honchos laid out their roadmap for the future. Steve Ballmer admitted that the company will be affected by the worldwide slowdown in PC shipments - but claimed that the market was still sufficiently bouyant to protect its revenues. "Let's say the PC market grows eight per cent this year. That's still 12 million units of growth," he said. "That's bigger than most other markets in the world. So even a slowed down PC market is still an excellent market." He'd better hope he's right, because Microsoft seems to have remembered that it was the PC which made it great in the first place. In fact, Ballmer said there was a "high" risk that the company could spread itself too thinly as it chased new customers in markets outside its traditional PC domain. All well and good. But there's a suspicion here that these calming words were being directed at investors and legislators, not customers. "We're not abandoning the PC" - welcome news to investors. "We're not going to rule the world" - surely not the words of a monopolist? But don't be fooled. Microsoft's ambition remains unfettered. It's developing software for non-PC devices, such as wireless phones and TV sets. Its working hard to put XML at the heart of its .NET intiative, which is more about servers than desktops. XP hits the streets later this year, which is again as much about server-side technology as the kit you'll use at home. It's also determined to - in Ballmer's words - "demonstrate once and for all that we have the abilities to scale up and handle the biggest problems of any enterprise". In other words, nothing has changed. It is still trying to get into every conceivable market, and whether an explicit acknowledgement that this is a high-risk strategy is enough to keep it on track remains to be seen. But perhaps more worryingly, that old arrogance remains. Ballmer was asked about the court case, and said: "The issue is not 'being a monopoly or not being a monopoly'. That's some sort of sideshow. The real question is can this company... add value?" He may yet live to eat those words.