Remarks by Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft Corporation
Summit on the 21st Century Workforce, June 20, 2001
MCI Center, Washington, DC

P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. BALLMER: Well, it's my great pleasure to have an opportunity to be here today. I certainly want to thank Secretary Chao and all of the folks in the Department of Labor for this great opportunity I want to thank all of you for giving me the chance.

I've been at Microsoft 21 years, and in some senses I think I can say I've lived through at least three psychological revolutions, but we've also seen quite a pervasive impact on these changes in technology in not only our own industry but in the workplace overall and the economy overall. When I sort of was active selling our software day to day during the course of the early '90s and the mid-90s, I spent a lot of time out with customers, trying to convince them that one of the most important things they could was give tools to their workers that would put information at their disposal right there, right time, right place. And I would say there was a lot of skepticism. People said, "Well, maybe this worker needs information, but this worker doesn't need information." That's not the case any more. There's a very broad understanding that giving all workers inside the businesses and governmental organizations of the world, the information and the tools to do their job is a very, very important source of productivity, enhancement, and gain, and overall business success. And the issue now that we face is an issue which we need to make sure that the entire workforce is really prepared to be able to use the tools which are at this stage I would say undeniably essential for people's performance.

The environment and make-up of the workforce is changing, and the degree to which everybody can participate and take advantage of the technological revolution is in question. The workforce is more diverse. The state of technology today is in some senses not where it needs to be in terms of accessibility to technology, starting at very young ages, amongst the broadest part of our population. And if you look specifically at people who enter the technology industry, there's certainly a lot of work we need to do to encourage more people and a more diverse group of people to get involved and excited about computers and computing technologies very, very early.

The business of tomorrow will be much more global than the business of today. The tools allow it. The ways in which people interact with suppliers and customers and constituents will keep requiring more global awareness and the ability of technology to be a tool even at a very young age for really participating in global society is amazing. Think of the child who's using a computer in a boys and girls club someplace, who's online, who's maybe playing chess online with a young person in Italy, in China, in Russia. The degree to which people can be socialized for the increasing globalization in our economy is tremendous, with the way technology really lets the world sort of melt away, if you will, at our fingertips.

There's a lot that we need to all be concerned about in terms of the workforce and its readiness for this transformation. I think the starting point is education, education, education, education. And all of the excitement and stimulation in that area, putting more resource, more effort into education, whether it's in rural areas, in inner-city schools, wherever, is very, very essential. You know, if we take a look today about 60 percent of U.S. households have access to a PC, something like 40 or 50 percent have access to the Internet. That's still only 40 or 50 percent. And we certainly have been very active as a company, but we all need to be very active as a society in making sure, whether it's in schools, in public buildings, in churches, that people get access, and get a chance to experiment, become excited, become familiar, with these technologies early in life.

There's also a set of issues around making sure that this technology can reach a broad set of people who have a range of disabilities, and we certainly think it's important not only for our company but for our industry to put the energy and investment in technologies which allow computers and allow the Internet to be accessible by the broadest set of population, independent of any physical disabilities that people may have. We're proud of what our company and our industry has done, but we're also daunted by the need for ongoing innovation and investment in this area. It's very, very important.

Today it is my privilege to have a chance to announce the extension of a program that's been important for us in terms of our contribution to workplace development. We've had a program with the National Association of Community Colleges, in which we've invested over $45 million to help community colleges be able to do ongoing workplace development of people in the technology area. Today we're announcing a new $5 million grant in conjunction with the Los Rios Community Colleges in Sacramento and this will bring opportunities at four community colleges in the Sacramento area to provide ongoing training and development for people who need computer skills in order to succeed in the workplace. For those of you who may be interested to understand how this kind of job training and job development works here in the Washington, D.C., area we have a program in place with the Charles County Community Colleges, where they're doing similar kinds of workplace development and computer skills. This is just one of a number of things that we're doing.

We have a major program that we call Club Tech with the Boys and Girls Clubs, to try to put computers and software in to those organizations so kids can get started. We've had programs in place with a number of nonprofits to try to make sure that the nonprofits themselves are leaders in using computer technologies in an environment that is always tough financially. We made a set of investments in the Women in Engineering Programs, with the UNCF - again, all designed to encourage the broadest cross-segment of our population to get involved with computers, and the pioneering efforts we've done with accessibility -- in some senses, as I said, we've only scratched the surface, and there's just much, much more to do.

I envision a world in which technology continues to fundamentally transform, in a very positive and rich sense, the productivity with which people work, the ways in which people learn, and it's very important that that be a process that is involving to all in our workplace, and I encourage us all to think about the need in that area and invest appropriately in the education that is required to allow our full workforce to take part in the technology revolution.

It's been my pleasure to have a chance to make these remarks, and with that I'd like to join - if you would like to join us, folks from the Dayton Ohio Job Force Center, who will be joining us via satellite to pose questions.