Microsoft’s Ballmer Points to Its ‘Shoot-the-Moon’ Power; “I believe in the company as an investor. I’m Microsoft all over—it’s in my blood and in my heart.”

Updated September 19, 2013, 9:11 p.m. ET

Microsoft’s Ballmer Points to Its ‘Shoot-the-Moon’ Power

DON CLARK

Microsoft Corp. MSFT -2.52% Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, in what may be a final appeal to financial analysts, made an impassioned argument that the company is one of few that can shape technology in the years ahead. Noting that he will soon become just a shareholder in the company, Mr. Ballmer asserted that the company’s massive investments, financial resources and talent will allow Microsoft to anticipate and catch the next big wave in technology—whatever that may be. “I believe in the company as an investor,” said Mr. Ballmer, who holds about 4% of Microsoft’s shares. “I’m Microsoft all over—it’s in my blood and in my heart.”Microsoft last month announced that Mr. Ballmer would retire as soon as a successor can be found, the month after announcing a reorganization that appeared to solidify his place in the company’s organization. Though a surprise, the announcement came after years of criticism that Microsoft hadn’t successfully jumped on trends such as smartphones and tablets after years of success selling personal computer software.

The company, at its first meeting with analysts in two years, didn’t provide new information about the CEO search. But Mr. Ballmer fired back at criticisms of the company, asserting it has generated more profits than Apple Inc., AAPL -1.04%Google Inc. GOOG +0.53% and other rivals.

And it is poised to generate a lot more, Mr. Ballmer added, because of its recent investments, including its $7 billion deal to buy Nokia Corp. NOK1V.HE +1.07%

Despite short-term headwinds in the PC software business, Microsoft has unique capability to “shoot the moon” to exploit any future tech trends that could generate as much as $100 billion of new economic value, he said.

He traced his arguments, in part, on his experience over the past three years in evaluating other companies and their leaders—an initiative that began when he began thinking about succession planning at the company. “I will take our team hands down against anybody in the business,” Mr. Ballmer said.

Mr. Ballmer and his lieutenants addressed a series of questions raised by investors, including how Microsoft will more effectively compete against Google. He and other executives noted, among other things, that Microsoft’s Bing search service continues to improve and said it had won 440 enterprise customers back from Google online software.

Microsoft, once a prominent target of U.S. antitrust regulators, continues to argue there are aspects of Google’s business practices that are questionable. “I do believe that Google’s practices are worthy of discussion with competition authorities,” Mr. Ballmer said. “We certainly have discussed them with competition authorities.”

Google representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

On another topic, analysts asked a series of questions of whether Microsoft will make its more of its important software applications and services work with hardware that doesn’t run its Windows operating system—a shift in a historic pattern of emphasizing ties to Windows.

Microsoft managers insisted that it is doing so already in many areas. Mr. Ballmer hinted it is likely to do more, in such areas as making Office applications work on Apple Inc. smartphones and tablets.

“We are working away on all the things you think we should be working away on,” he said.

Mr. Ballmer reiterated one major regret in his 13-year tenure as CEO—that the company poured so much money and programming work into the troubled Windows Vista project and not more into mobile devices. “I wish we had had our resources slightly differently deployed in the early 2000s,” he said.

Among other topics at the event, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood described a new financial reporting structure reflects its recent reorganization.

The new structure is based on five reporting segments clustered into two major groupings—one reflecting commercial customers and another representing devices and consumer businesses, she said.

Microsoft’s financial analyst meeting—held in Bellevue, Wash., near its headquarters—began after stock markets closed. Microsoft shares traded at $33.64, down one cent, in after-hours trading.