Microsoft CEO Steven A Ballmer and his counterpart in Apple, Steve Jobs

Washington, Oct. 18: Ray Ozzie, the chief software architect at Microsoft, bristles when asked whether people think that new versions of his company’s flagship software — like Windows and Office — are exciting.

“It’s tremendously exciting,” he exclaims defensively, wheeling back from an office table and allowing his hands to flail. “Are you kidding?”

Normally subdued and cerebral, Ozzie inhabits a spacious office at Microsoft’s headquarters. His shelves and desks are uncluttered, and one of the first IBM personal computers ever made sits centred like an artifact atop a long, squat bookcase.

If only the world — or at least the business world — were so immaculate and neatly organised. But Ozzie and his colleagues at Microsoft recognise, of course, that very little in the technology universe ever stays the same.

“What’s the old movie line from Annie Hall? Relationships are like sharks; they move forward, or they die,” says Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive. “Well, technology companies either move forward, too, or they die. They become less relevant.”

And according to Ozzie, we have entered an age that’s a far cry from that of the PC enshrined on his altar to beige-box antiquity. Consumers and workers have been gripped, he says, by a “gizmo revolution”.

But gizmos are only half the battle for Microsoft. True, fashionistas obsess over whether a new laptop will fit into their purses and what type of fashion statement the device will make. Corporate road warriors exude pride as they whip ultrathin computers with exotic finishes out of their satchels. Yet the most desirable devices these days are those that also allow information addicts on the move to untether themselves from the desktop PC and communicate through the so-called “cloud”.

With the arrival of Windows 7 and a host of slick computers, Microsoft intends to undermine those Apple ads that mock PCs and their users as stumbling bores.

Ozzie, who plays the role of visionary and strategist at Microsoft, says Windows 7 will let PCs keep pace with other computing devices and, in short, finally make them sexy.

In a play for its piece of the cloud, Microsoft plans to release a software platform, Windows Azure, next month that represents its bid to lure businesses with online services. While late to cloud computing in spots and a lackluster participant in the mobile market, Microsoft, Ozzie says, has a shot at reinventing itself and moving beyond the desktop.

“This gives us an opportunity as a software vendor to refresh our value proposition,” he says. “I just think it’s an exciting time for Microsoft.”

For many years, Microsoft and its leaders could make sweeping statements like this with little public pushback. Microsoft embodied the technology industry and was the grand arbiter of the tools people used to conduct business and navigate the digital era.

These days, however, Microsoft has legions of doubters. While it still commands a prominent and profitable position in computing, brand experts say consumers stumble when trying to define what the company stands for and whether it can create a grander technological future.

“Microsoft sort of disappeared from the scene,” said Regis McKenna, a Silicon Valley marketing expert. “Every once in a while, they have a delayed Windows release or something like that. I think the marketplace is focused on what Google and Apple are up to.”