In his speech at Microsoft's annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, the company’s CEO Steve Ballmer said that the initial reception of Microsoft’s October 22-released Windows 7 operating system was “fantastic,” and the new OS had surpassed the sales rate of the earlier Windows releases.

Microsoft Corp's Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer laughed off the challenge that Google Inc's planned operating system has posed to the software giant.

Google is developing two client operating systems, one is Android, an OS for smartphones and the second is Chrome OS, which is expected to challenge Microsoft's Windows 7.

People heard Steve Ballmer speaking at the Executives' Club of Chicago about the arrival of successor to the Xbox 360 next year. 

But it seems as if other executives are not aware of that. Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft’s another big shot said that the new system was not coming in 2010. This has led to confusion among gamers and technology experts.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO informed that his company is all set to spend 5 to10 % of its operating income on developing its search business.

Steve, speaking at the Executives' Club of Chicago, said that Microsoft should have entered the online search-engine market sooner and it could not be dissuaded by initial setbacks against rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

The famed outspoken, loud-mouthed Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, Steve Ballmer once again hit the headlines for making some peculiar comments on Thursday at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit in New York during a webcast interview with the BusinessWeek Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler.