Microsoft Corp's New Zealand chief financial officer Chris Liddell says the software giant will make frugality a new way of life to cope with its first drop in annual sales revenue.
"This is not a crash diet where you stop eating for a couple of quarters -- this is a new diet regime where you slim down and stay slim," said Mr Liddell, 51, told Bloomberg newsagency in an interview at Microsoft's Washington headquarters.
"It's actually about dialing up the importance of costs."
Microsoft, which slashed $US3 billion in operating expenses and cut about 5000 jobs this year, expects software industry sales to expand 5 percent to 10 percent annually after the recession ends, Mr Liddell said.
Its sales growth in 2008 was 18 percent.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer picked Mr Liddell -- a former chief executive of Carter Holt Harvey Ltd -- in 2005 while he was chief finance officer at International Paper Co.
According to Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's manager of investor relations, the company recruited the New Zealander because he wanted an outsider who wasn't afraid to chop expenses.
Also a former managing director of merchant bank CS First Boston NZ Ltd, and a former director of the New Zealand Rugby Union, Mr Liddell told the Wall Street Journal that there was a sense that the software sector had "hit bottom".
Mr Liddell told the newspaper the economy would remain weak for the rest of 2009 but that "there is some reason for optimism for the next calendar year".
Microsoft's revenue plummeted 17 percent last quarter, and revenue in its Windows division, which accounts for about a quarter of sales, dropped 29 percent. Sales in the business division, comprised mainly of the Office software, fell 13 percent.
