Steve Ballmer’s Memo To Microsoft Staff: “We Must Move At Cloud Speed”

Earlier today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a speech at the University of Washington where he said that the company was going "all in" with its strategy to move Microsoft products to the cloud. We've gotten our hands on an all-staff email sent out by Ballmer (printed below), which appears to be legitimate. The email reiterates many of the points Ballmer said during his speech this morning, urging employees to embrace the cloud. It also notes that Microsoft will launch an ad campaign today focused on its commercial and government businesses, which stand to benefit from cloud services. Today, I spoke to a group of students and faculty at the University of Washington to discuss how cloud computing will change the way people and businesses use technology. My goal was to challenge people to look at the cloud more broadly and understand the multidimensional nature of the cloud transformation happening today. Other companies have defined the cloud in a narrow, one-dimensional way. Although these companies provide some interesting components, Microsoft is uniquely delivering on a wide range of cloud capabilities that bring increasingly more value to our customers.