Q: The third competition area is the Windows Live; it has been growing continuously, the services have improved considerably as far as competition is concerned. How do you see this, six months from now?

A: I think the way we think about it is Windows Live is a set of core experiences that we are going to make available to users. We are going to integrate it with MSN.

We are going to integrate it with a set of Office experiences and people should be drawn to Windows Live because it permits him to do in the areas of search, management of their own personal information, email, messaging, communications.

In some of the areas, we are the world leaders and in some of these areas, we are very close  and in some of the areas like search we have got a lot of innovating to do and a lot of convincing of consumers to do. But I think we are up to the challenge.

Q: On top of that, all of this is going to be tying into Windows Vista mor. You are talking about Windows Search, that is going to be the default search. But there are few issues around that which are anti-trust issues, legal issues. So a greater tie-up between these services is something which is but natural. How do you see the anti-trust issue and everything else effecting that tie-up?

A: The way you have characterized things isn’t exactly correct. We have made a firm line between Windows and Windows Live. And frankly, third parties can participate with Windows the same way the Windows Live can. So we haven’t created some firm connection between those two.

Q: It is more of perception, I am aware that it is not the real thing?

A: We have certainly been through with what we are doing with the anti-trust authorities. We feel confident based upon our dialogue with the Department of Justice, the European Commission that they understand that these things are available separately.

Q: Now we are talking about growth strategy. In the years to come, Microsoft has to expand into a lot of areas. What strategy do you see Microsoft taking as far as that is concerned? Are we going to see more acquisitions or self-development and more innovation etc?

A: I would say yes to all of the above. We did more acquisitions in the last 12 months than any other period. We have done more of our own product development like Office 2007, new performance point product, new forefront product. So a lot of things are coming to the market. We think whether it is online, in entertainment, in mobility, the enterprise or in personal productivity, it has lot of opportunities for growth.

Q: From a national stand point of view, how much of this development is in India now?

A: We are still a relatively small piece, we have got a good size group but we have a lot of engineers. It is probably 18% of engineering staff in United States is Indian and so if you want to take credit for it you can.

Q: We are talking about the competition perspective. If you look at the competition that has come and gone by be it yahoo, be it google, be it Sun, be it Oracle everybody is calm, everybody is tried compete with Microsoft but they have actually not made a single dent in Microsoft’s bottomline or topline or for that matter the fact that Microsoft’s market share is still dominant in quite a lot of those areas and Linux has also tried hard but it hasn’t really made any impact. Do you see a single company trying to be another Microsoft? Do you see a single company that can compete with you on all of these levels?

A: I think we are quite unique in both our ability, proven track record and desire to compete from the desktop to the server, from business to entertainment, from online to traditional software, we are quite unique in that. Some businesses were strong and other guys have come after us but we stayed strong. In some businesses we started out weaker and we just continued to gain the way we have with our Sequel database, the way we have with window server. In some businesses we are coming in and other guys were bigger and we are trying to grow in developed position. We don’t have a business though really where we have been strong and somebody else has managed to seriously impact us atleast not yet. We are going to have to work hard, we have to be innovative, creative but so far so good.

Q: Do you think it is wise to make sure that you make it difficult to pirate Windows when other competitors like Linux could come in and take the market share because of people not being able to buy a copy of Windows?

A: If we didn’t think our products had value. We shouldn’t make them nor should we try to sell them. We take the products' share value, we are making them, selling them, we are going to try to protect them. We are going to be a little bit better in the Windows Vista generation and I think that is a wise thing to do.

Q: You have been in Microsoft for a very long time. You have been leading Microsoft now for the last 6.5 years almost and the way I see it is that you have held fort for a lot of difficult battles that have come and you have actually won almost all of them and in the future. How do you see yourself evolving at Microsoft now that Bill Gates is moving out and the next generation is coming in, where do you see yourself going 5 years from now?

A: We have a great team, we have got a great set of opportunities. We have got some good competitors and have got a lot of energy to make sure that our great people do a great job seizing great opportunities and delivering products to market that people choose over great competitive alternatives. I have got at least another decade or so of doing that.