Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has defended
his company's record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders' meeting on Wednesday.
He, however, conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by Apple Inc's iPad.
"We're innovating on the seam between software and hardware,"
a Reuters report quoted Ballmer as saying, asked why his company had fallen behind rival Apple. "Maybe we should have done that earlier."
A month ago, Microsoft launched the Surface tablet - its first own-brand computer - but has not revealed sales figures.
In
the tablet market, "we see nothing but a sea of upside," Ballmer said, an acknowledgement that until now Microsoft has effectively had zero presence in the tablet market.
"I feel pretty good about our level of innovation," he added.
Microsoft Founder and Chairman Bill Gates during the company's annual meeting of shareholders in Washington on November 28, 2012.
Bill Gates, co-founder and now chairman of the world's largest software company, was one of the first to champion tablet-sized devices more than 10 years ago, but Microsoft failed to come up with a product that worked as well as the iPad.
Ballmer said smartphones running
Microsoft's new Windows software were selling
four times as much as they did at this time last year. Microsoft has never given sales numbers of Windows phones, primarily made by Nokia, Samsung and HTC.
Flanked by Gates and Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein, Ballmer was also asked by several shareholders to explain Microsoft's lackluster share price, which has been stuck for a decade, and has been outperformed by Apple and Google Inc stock in recent years.
"I understand your comment," he told one shareholder. He went on to explain that Microsoft had "done a phenomenal job of driving product volumes" and was focusing on profiting from that growth.
He suggested that whether investors recognised that value at any given time was out of his hands.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (left) answers a question from a shareholder, as he sits next to Microsoft Founder and Chairman Bill Gates during the annual meeting of shareholders
"The stock market's kind of a funny thing," he said, adding that Microsoft had handed back $10 billion in dividends and share buybacks to investors in the last financial year.
Microsoft's shares rose almost 18 per cent during fiscal 2012, which ended in June of this year, compared with a 3 per cent rise in the Standard & Poor's 500.
Despite such fluctuations, Microsoft's shares stand around the same level they did 10 years ago.
With inputs from agencies
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer during the annual meeting of shareholders on November 28, 2012. PHOTOS: AP 
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