TECH SPENDING
The use of Microsoft’s tools surged during the pandemic, said Mr Nadella, giving the example of Microsoft Teams going from “basically existing to really an at-scale platform”.
But Microsoft last month posted its lowest quarterly revenue growth in five years and projected second-quarter revenue below Wall Street targets across its business units.
“Cycles happen everywhere,” said Mr. Nadella when asked about the slower pace of post-pandemic growth. “But the most interesting thing for me though is if you think about tech spending as a percentage of GDP, it’s going to go up.
“I can’t imagine a next-generation retailer who is not going to be great at omni-channel, or a next-generation financial company that’s not going to think about fintech as core to their business, or a manufacturer who doesn’t think about industrial metaverse and digital twins as a core part of how they drive efficiency. So if you buy that, then tech spend as a percentage of GDP goes up.
“But the question in the immediate term though, is to be there for our customers to help them do more with less because right now, every customer is facing the same macroeconomic headwinds,” he said.
On Thursday, Microsoft Singapore also announced two new partnerships with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) focusing on sustainability and talent development respectively.
More than 86,000 new jobs in Singapore will be created by Microsoft, its ecosystem of partners and customers in Singapore by 2026, of which more than 50,000 will be skilled IT jobs, the company said.
Addressing the tech talent that Microsoft wants, Mr Nadella said: “Particularly, I want people to join Microsoft not to be cool, but to make others cool. That’s kind of my calling card for hiring anybody.”
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