The man in charge of helping Microsoft Corp. decide how to spend the company's $7.5 billion cash and investment portfolio told venture capitalists and aspiring entrepreneurs Monday that further popularizing Windows and cementing the company's Internet presence are the key factors guiding acquisitions and strategic investments.

"We want the coolest technology. We want to build an environment that is favorable for our platform," said Gregory Maffei, Microsoft treasurer and vice president for corporate development. "The Internet is involved in everything we do and the Internet is part of everything we're attacking."

Speaking before attendees at the Venture Market West conference in Monterey, Calif., organized by Herring Communications, publishers of The Red Herring magazine, Maffei said Microsoft will continue to focus on conquering markets that yield big-volume business. "We're going to compete in the biggest markets," he said. "We're not interested in selling vertical market applications."

Though Microsoft has spent $2 billion on about 20 mergers and 27 strategic investments over the past three and half years, Maffei said the company does not consider itself a competitor to venture capitalists. "That's a relatively minor amount compared to our market capitalization," Maffei said. "I know it sounds funny to say $2 billion is a minor amount. It's all relative."

Asked whether Microsoft considered network computers, or NCs, a threat to its lucrative personal computer application business, Maffei emphasized the company's continued belief in a market for PCs. "We believe in PCs. That's where we came from. That's where we're going," he said. "We don't believe network computers are something the market will find hugely attractive. We find the specs on NCs looking more like PCs."

But he added that Microsoft's recent $425 million acquisition of WebTV Networks Inc., which allows users to browse the Web through their television, will help the company reach the audience of non-PC households with the Internet content it has been developing for The Microsoft Network. "About 37 percent of Americans own PCs. That tells you that 63 percent don't. How do you reach that market? Turns out that most have TVs."

Source: Inter@ctive Week