"Our interests overwhelmingly are the same interests that are the interests of the shareholders," he said.
The company also said on Thursday that it expects to do better in the market for mobile wireless devices than it has done in the cable business, where its software efforts have been largely ignored.
Although its cellular data phones are just now becoming available commercially, Microsoft now has 31 companies manufacturing portable hardware based on Microsoft's software, and the company has made public announcements with 12 service operators in the cellular phone business.
Microsoft's mobile-phone products have been criticized by industry analysts because of their relatively high cost and short battery life.
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