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London - Microsoft needs to achieve a bigger presence in the consumer market in developing countries, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told the Financial Times.
In an interview published on Friday on the FT's website, Ballmer said piracy and affordability issues are holding back sales in regions ranging from Asia to Eastern Europe to Latin America.
Initiatives such as XP StarterEdition, a Windows software package with reduced features, and Flexgo, a pay-as-you-go PC, have yet to significantly penetrate the middle-income markets in countries such as India and China, he told the FT.
"On a percent basis, it (emerging markets) is the most rapidly growing part of our business, but it's still a relatively small percentage," the newspaper quoted Ballmer as saying.
He said emerging markets globally account for roughly 20% of Microsoft's total business, excluding software sales to hardware vendors, Xbox and other revenue streams such as advertising, the FT reported.
Microsoft is working on new initiatives to "re-engineer" the computing experience, Ballmer said.
One proposal is a plan to connect mobile phones that had their own micro-processors to keyboards and screens, using them as a computing platform, he told the FT.
Ballmer declined to go into detail on other proposals, the newspaper said.