Mr Steve Ballmer, chief executive and president of Microsoft, responding to a question during the mastermind keynote interview at a Gartner Symposium at the Walt Disney Dolphin Resort in Orlando.

In Dublin this week Microsoft launched its .Net Enterprise servers, a comprehensive server family for quickly building and managing an integrated, Web-enabled enterprise in Dublin.

Microsoft has chosen the Republic to be its European, Middle Eastern and African hub for its new .Net strategy.