REDMOND (WASHINGTON): Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on Thursday defended the company's need to make steep investments in its Internet business in order to compete with Google Inc and said such moves could boost its value in time.

Speaking to Wall Street analysts at the company's annual analyst meeting at its Redmond headquarters, Ballmer said its online businesses could eventually generate a majority of the economic value created by the world's largest software maker.

"We have the opportunity to create, by pursuing this world in which everything goes digital, is certainly at least 40, 50, 60 percent or more of our total economic value today," Ballmer told analysts.