Microsoft has a research and development budget of $9.5 billion for this year. And it plans to spend $14 billion in sales and marketing.

"That is so Microsoft for them to go that deep with analysis and plan their strategy not around gut feelings but around what has been successful for other companies and to do it so methodically," said Al Gillen, an analyst with IDC.

Gillen said Microsoft certainly understands the down side, but "they also see opportunity, Microsoft sees weakness in competitors, Microsoft sees opportunity to invest when others will pull back. They have the cash to do it. They can invest significantly over the next two years even if the market is soft. So I think we can expect that Microsoft will try to come out of this stronger and not weaker."

The tell tale sign of any Microsoft success will come over the next 12 to 18 months and beyond.

Ballmer outlined where the opportunities would be by focusing on Microsoft's "seven big businesses," and he provided strategies to grow share and build revenue through what he called "revenue realization," which, he said, isn't about pricing but about selling more things to the same customers, such as replacing pirated copies of Windows with licensed versions. But he also said Microsoft would try to move corporate users to newer and more powerful versions of Microsoft software.