stress as he might , not even seasoned U.S. television interviewer Charlie Rose could get Microsoft ’s CEO Steve Ballmer to unwrap whether the company continues to contemplate an acquisition of Yahoo .
“ If we were , I would n’t tell you , if I were n’t , I would n’t narrate you , ” Ballmer said Monday when asked decimal point - blank by Rose in a joint consultation with Cisco Systems ’ Chairman and CEO John Chambers if Microsoft was currently in talks with Yahoo to merge . The two industry heavyweights appeared together in New York to discuss the collaboration between Microsoft and Cisco , which have get down to impinge on each other ’s territory in the areas of unified communications and electronic web security infrastructure as well as merchandise for the digital home .
There was far-flung speculation that Microsoft and Yahoo were babble out about a potential softwood in the first place this year , surmise that was quieted by Microsoft ’s announcementit would buy digital sensitive and selling service firm aQuantivein May in a $ 6 billion deal to boost its on-line advertizing scheme . The deal , Microsoft ’s biggest to date , close last workweek , and the possible action of the companionship purchasing Yahoo seemed a moot point .
Ballmer initially appeared to reignite Yahoo acquisition suspicion during Rose ’s line of questioning about Yahoo — he corrected Rose by saying “ Why do n’t we buy Yahoo ? ” when asked by his interviewer why Microsoft “ did n’t ” purchase the companionship .
However , in an interview following his joint public coming into court with Chambers , Ballmer said Microsoft has no plans to do another massive deal like the aQuantive one to build up out its advertising strategy . alternatively , the company will focalize on a combination of making smaller acquisition and build young infrastructure where it is necessary to aid Microsoft compete with advertising and search jumbo Google .
“ We ’re going to buy more stuff and build more stuff … but we do n’t have a major subjection [ in the workings ] , ” he said . “ Sometimes we ’ll have to decide what ’s better — to buy or to build . ”
One affair Ballmer said was sealed Monday was that the top executive of Cisco and Microsoft were not sharing the stage to annunciate a mega - uniting between the two engineering powerhouses . A compounding of collaboration and competition was the order of the solar day , as the two companies distinguish area where they have refocus their efforts on working together to promote the vision both troupe have of the convergency of voice , datum , video recording and other forms of medium over IP ( net communications protocol ) networks .
Cisco and Microsoft have been partners for 10 year , but that alliance has become tighter in the last seven months , with the two chief executive officer regularly checking in with each other to discuss progression and ways to collaborate . This unexampled spirit of friendliness was not by the company ’ choice but because customer necessitate it , both executives enounce .
“ Companies do n’t want the number of competition to make them to interoperate ineffectively , ” Chambers said .
Microsoft and Cisco have identified seven unspecific areas of coaction and engineers are working together to ensure the product each companionship has in those areas will work together . Those areas of coaction are : IT computer architecture , security department , management , radio and wandering computing , unified communications , connect amusement and the demand of low and average - size business .
Microsoft ’s Senior Vice President Bob Muglia and Cisco ’s Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer Charlie Giancarlo demonstrated integration between a twist run Microsoft ’s Windows Mobile 6 and Cisco ’s Unified Personal Communicator ( UPC ) unite messaging user interface , the latter a direct competitor to Microsoft ’s Office Communicator ware . Like Office Communicator , UPC is an enterprise moment - messaging user interface that blend Web comportment , chat , VOIP ( voice over IP ) and video - conferencing functionality .
Another demonstration by Muglia showed how a next - generation Linksys wireless set - top boxwood from Cisco could communicate with a Windows Media Center PC to show photos on a gamy - definition display without the personal computer having to be in the way near the video display screen .
