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Thứ Tư, 1 tháng 1, 2014
Thứ Hai, 16 tháng 12, 2013
Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?
The rumors floating out of Microsoft these days are remarkable:
—Microsoft’s Nokia business is working on an Android phone, and Microsoft might let them sell it (link).
—Contrary to its entire business history, Microsoft may give away Windows phone and Windows RT for free (link)
—The Start menu will be restored in at least some versions of Windows 8.1, and it will be possible to run Metro apps in floating windows inside the traditional Windows interface (link)
Those are just rumors, of course, but they’re coming from multiple reporters who have strong ties to Microsoft, which means they’re probably genuine plans or at least serious trial balloons. Taken together, the reports give a picture of a company that’s laudably willing to revisit its assumptions, but that also seems to have lost track of what it’s trying to accomplish. Specifically:
—Making Windows Phone free is a nice idea and would have been a clever response to Android six years ago. Back then, the idea of a free mobile OS was appealing to handset companies, which are at heart surpassingly cheap. Faced with rampant iPhone sales and no good alternative, the phone companies were very willing at that time to give a try to the low-cost Google-backed approach.
But today, Android has huge market momentum, so a phone vendor switching off it would be abandoning most of the available customers, something they are extremely reluctant to do. Besides, getting a free OS is not currently the main concern for most handset companies – the big worry is finding a way not to be crushed by the dominant Android vendor, Samsung. Windows Phone has its own dominant vendor, Nokia, so it has all the negative aspects of Android without the customer base.
Nice idea, Microsoft, but you’re closing the barn door not only after the horses left, but after the barn burned down.
—I think a more interesting licensing strategy for Microsoft would be forking Android: Take an open source version of it and add your own services on top. That’s apparently the idea behind Nokia’s OS plan, in which Nokia would supposedly replace its low-end phone OS, Series 40, with a modified version of Android. Those phones could then tap into the Android app base, making them more attractive to low-end customers. (Heck, they might even be more attractive to high-end customers as well.)
But if that’s the right strategy for the Nokia business unit, it’s also the right strategy for Microsoft’s OS licensing. If you’re giving away Windows Phone for free, the only way you’ll make money from it is through bundled services. You could just as easily bundle those services on a forked version of Android, save the expense of creating and maintaining all the low-level OS plumbing, and get access to the Android customer and app base. That sounds like a much more appealing licensed OS than Windows Phone, even though you still have the problem of Nokia competing with your other licensees.
But that’s not the roadmap we’re hearing from the Microsoft OS team. Instead, they’re talking about creating a single Windows code base that runs across all types of devices, something that’s technically appealing if you’re a Microsoft engineer but thoroughly uninteresting to customers.
So the various parts of Microsoft appear to be working at cross-purposes. The Nokia unit has a nicer mobile OS plan but no intent to license it, and the OS group has a licensed mobile OS with almost no customers. Something’s got to give.
—Meanwhile, the rumored changes to Windows 8 are, to me, a mix of sensible ideas and bizarre improvisation. The word is that Microsoft’s going to offer three versions of Windows (link):
A phone/tablet version that runs Metro-style apps. Although I’m sure Microsoft will save money by unifying development, customers don’t care about that. They care about features. Unless there’s some dramatic change in functionality that we haven’t been told about, I think this new product will have as much appeal to licensees and customers as the current version of Windows Phone. So you can think of this as the version of Windows that no one wants.
A “consumer PC” version, which may or may not be able to run existing Windows 32 applications. If it can’t, I think it will sell as well as Windows RT did.
An “enterprise PC” version, which would run today’s Windows 32 applications in addition to “modern” (Metro-style) touch apps. The Start menu would apparently be restored in Win32 compatibility mode, and you’d be able to run Metro-style touch apps in windows inside the Win32 interface.
The only configurations likely to sell in volume are the ones that let customers run their familiar Win32 apps. I think reviving the Start menu in these configurations is smart; it makes it easier for current Windows users to move up to the new OS. That’s such a no-brainer that Microsoft should have done it in the first version of Windows 8. The question is not why they’re doing it but what took them so long.
On the other hand, running Metro apps in a traditional Windows frame is...I don’t even know what word to use. Bizarre? Crazy? I’d even say frightening, because it implies that Microsoft has lost track of why it did Windows 8 in the first place. The idea behind Windows 8 was to build a full-function PC that could also switch to work as a no-compromises tablet. I don’t think a lot of customers actually want that, but at least it’s a clear direction.
Mixing the two metaphors on the same screen completely undercuts Microsoft’s basic idea. Instead of switching between tablet and PC mode, you’re mixing two totally different usage paradigms on the same screen. How does the user know when to touch and when to click? It’s like driving a car that has both a steering wheel and a joystick. Instead of giving users a tablet and a PC that you can jump between, Microsoft is at risk of giving users an awkward combination of the worst of both worlds.
It feels like the people who were responsible for the original Windows 8 vision and strategy have left the scene, replaced by folks who are tactically tweaking the products they inherited, with no sense of where they’re going long term.
The focus on rationalizing code bases feels symptomatic of this. It’s a sensible thing to do and will cut Microsoft’s costs, but it does nothing to increase demand. In the tech industry we overuse the phrase “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” but in this case it really seems to fit.
What it means
New CEO needed. It’s important to remember that Microsoft is in the middle of its biggest business transition ever. It’s simultaneously getting ready to merge with an enormous Finnish phone company, and hiring its first CEO who wasn’t a cofounder. That sort of situation typically encourages bizarre behavior. For example, groups will try to lobby for their favorite projects by leaking information about them, trying to build up public support that will influence the new CEO.
Think about it, why would Nokia possibly want to leak the news that it’s replacing the OS in its low-end phones? That’s very likely to stall sales of the current phones, driving down revenues. Nokia just made that mistake with Symbian, and now it’s repeating it? Somebody in the Nokia business apparently feels it’s more important to lobby for its OS vision than to protect current sales. It’s a triumph of business politics over short-term business sense.
Another behavior we should expect to see is business managers pushing forward aggressively with their plans, looking to prove that they’re dynamic leaders who don’t need to be replaced. It doesn’t matter if those plans contradict company strategy; the point is to look dynamic. The strategy’s going to change anyway. And what’s Ballmer going to do, fire you?
We should expect to see more odd behavior until MS picks a new CEO. Then it’ll be several months of strategic reviews, followed by ritual bloodletting and reorganization. So Microsoft is likely to continue to be confused for at least the first half of 2014, and that’s assuming they can choose a new CEO quickly, something they may not be able to do to do (link).
Windows Metro = OS/2. The big bet in Windows 8 was that Microsoft could re-ignite sales growth for Windows by tapping into the tablet market. A PC that could also work as a tablet, Microsoft reasoned, would be more attractive to customers than either product alone. I think it’s pretty clear that the Windows 8 bet is failing. Windows 8 is being pre-installed on a lot of PCs, but that’s because Microsoft is pushing it through the OEMs. Microsoft could ship a hamster wrapped in duct tape, label it Windows, and a lot of OEMs would bundle it. What hasn’t happened is Microsoft’s promised explosion in user demand for convertible Windows computers, followed by an explosion in developer activity that might drive future demand.
I think it’s increasingly likely that the tablet interface formerly known as Metro will be more or less stillborn as a development platform. It will linger for a long time as Microsoft’s software for touchscreen devices, but I don’t see it being embraced by the leading-edge developers who can drive new demand to a platform. Instead, it’s kind of the third option for developers who have already built for iOS and Android.
I think most PC users will stick with the traditional Windows interface, most Windows developers will follow them, and most people who want tablets will get iPad or Android or Kindle.
So the challenge for Microsoft’s new CEO is the same one Steve Ballmer has tried and failed to answer for years: Demand for Windows is declining because the platform hasn’t done anything new for a decade, while Microsoft doesn’t control the fast-growing segments in tablets and smartphones. Microsoft tried to use Windows 8 to take over tablets. That failed. What do you do now?
The traditional answer would be to break up the company and try to salvage parts of the business that can grow on their own. It’s the kind of big deal that consulting companies love to recommend and investment firms love to broker. Besides, it looks bold, even though it’s actually the path of least resistance. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the new CEO chose that path.
The alternative to a breakup is to actually fix the product problem: to offer new functionality for Windows that’s more attractive than the competition. That would mean new mobile software that’s substantially better than iOS and Android, and/or new PC features that will give people a compelling reason to recommit to personal computing. There are plenty of opportunities to create that sort of innovation (link), but Microsoft doesn’t have a great record as that kind of product leader.
So if Microsoft is to stay together, the new CEO needs to be either a product visionary or know where to find one. I wish them luck.
—Microsoft’s Nokia business is working on an Android phone, and Microsoft might let them sell it (link).
—Contrary to its entire business history, Microsoft may give away Windows phone and Windows RT for free (link)
—The Start menu will be restored in at least some versions of Windows 8.1, and it will be possible to run Metro apps in floating windows inside the traditional Windows interface (link)
Those are just rumors, of course, but they’re coming from multiple reporters who have strong ties to Microsoft, which means they’re probably genuine plans or at least serious trial balloons. Taken together, the reports give a picture of a company that’s laudably willing to revisit its assumptions, but that also seems to have lost track of what it’s trying to accomplish. Specifically:
—Making Windows Phone free is a nice idea and would have been a clever response to Android six years ago. Back then, the idea of a free mobile OS was appealing to handset companies, which are at heart surpassingly cheap. Faced with rampant iPhone sales and no good alternative, the phone companies were very willing at that time to give a try to the low-cost Google-backed approach.
But today, Android has huge market momentum, so a phone vendor switching off it would be abandoning most of the available customers, something they are extremely reluctant to do. Besides, getting a free OS is not currently the main concern for most handset companies – the big worry is finding a way not to be crushed by the dominant Android vendor, Samsung. Windows Phone has its own dominant vendor, Nokia, so it has all the negative aspects of Android without the customer base.
Nice idea, Microsoft, but you’re closing the barn door not only after the horses left, but after the barn burned down.
—I think a more interesting licensing strategy for Microsoft would be forking Android: Take an open source version of it and add your own services on top. That’s apparently the idea behind Nokia’s OS plan, in which Nokia would supposedly replace its low-end phone OS, Series 40, with a modified version of Android. Those phones could then tap into the Android app base, making them more attractive to low-end customers. (Heck, they might even be more attractive to high-end customers as well.)
But if that’s the right strategy for the Nokia business unit, it’s also the right strategy for Microsoft’s OS licensing. If you’re giving away Windows Phone for free, the only way you’ll make money from it is through bundled services. You could just as easily bundle those services on a forked version of Android, save the expense of creating and maintaining all the low-level OS plumbing, and get access to the Android customer and app base. That sounds like a much more appealing licensed OS than Windows Phone, even though you still have the problem of Nokia competing with your other licensees.
But that’s not the roadmap we’re hearing from the Microsoft OS team. Instead, they’re talking about creating a single Windows code base that runs across all types of devices, something that’s technically appealing if you’re a Microsoft engineer but thoroughly uninteresting to customers.
So the various parts of Microsoft appear to be working at cross-purposes. The Nokia unit has a nicer mobile OS plan but no intent to license it, and the OS group has a licensed mobile OS with almost no customers. Something’s got to give.
—Meanwhile, the rumored changes to Windows 8 are, to me, a mix of sensible ideas and bizarre improvisation. The word is that Microsoft’s going to offer three versions of Windows (link):
A phone/tablet version that runs Metro-style apps. Although I’m sure Microsoft will save money by unifying development, customers don’t care about that. They care about features. Unless there’s some dramatic change in functionality that we haven’t been told about, I think this new product will have as much appeal to licensees and customers as the current version of Windows Phone. So you can think of this as the version of Windows that no one wants.
A “consumer PC” version, which may or may not be able to run existing Windows 32 applications. If it can’t, I think it will sell as well as Windows RT did.
An “enterprise PC” version, which would run today’s Windows 32 applications in addition to “modern” (Metro-style) touch apps. The Start menu would apparently be restored in Win32 compatibility mode, and you’d be able to run Metro-style touch apps in windows inside the Win32 interface.
The only configurations likely to sell in volume are the ones that let customers run their familiar Win32 apps. I think reviving the Start menu in these configurations is smart; it makes it easier for current Windows users to move up to the new OS. That’s such a no-brainer that Microsoft should have done it in the first version of Windows 8. The question is not why they’re doing it but what took them so long.
On the other hand, running Metro apps in a traditional Windows frame is...I don’t even know what word to use. Bizarre? Crazy? I’d even say frightening, because it implies that Microsoft has lost track of why it did Windows 8 in the first place. The idea behind Windows 8 was to build a full-function PC that could also switch to work as a no-compromises tablet. I don’t think a lot of customers actually want that, but at least it’s a clear direction.
Mixing the two metaphors on the same screen completely undercuts Microsoft’s basic idea. Instead of switching between tablet and PC mode, you’re mixing two totally different usage paradigms on the same screen. How does the user know when to touch and when to click? It’s like driving a car that has both a steering wheel and a joystick. Instead of giving users a tablet and a PC that you can jump between, Microsoft is at risk of giving users an awkward combination of the worst of both worlds.
It feels like the people who were responsible for the original Windows 8 vision and strategy have left the scene, replaced by folks who are tactically tweaking the products they inherited, with no sense of where they’re going long term.
The focus on rationalizing code bases feels symptomatic of this. It’s a sensible thing to do and will cut Microsoft’s costs, but it does nothing to increase demand. In the tech industry we overuse the phrase “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” but in this case it really seems to fit.
What it means
New CEO needed. It’s important to remember that Microsoft is in the middle of its biggest business transition ever. It’s simultaneously getting ready to merge with an enormous Finnish phone company, and hiring its first CEO who wasn’t a cofounder. That sort of situation typically encourages bizarre behavior. For example, groups will try to lobby for their favorite projects by leaking information about them, trying to build up public support that will influence the new CEO.
Think about it, why would Nokia possibly want to leak the news that it’s replacing the OS in its low-end phones? That’s very likely to stall sales of the current phones, driving down revenues. Nokia just made that mistake with Symbian, and now it’s repeating it? Somebody in the Nokia business apparently feels it’s more important to lobby for its OS vision than to protect current sales. It’s a triumph of business politics over short-term business sense.
Another behavior we should expect to see is business managers pushing forward aggressively with their plans, looking to prove that they’re dynamic leaders who don’t need to be replaced. It doesn’t matter if those plans contradict company strategy; the point is to look dynamic. The strategy’s going to change anyway. And what’s Ballmer going to do, fire you?
We should expect to see more odd behavior until MS picks a new CEO. Then it’ll be several months of strategic reviews, followed by ritual bloodletting and reorganization. So Microsoft is likely to continue to be confused for at least the first half of 2014, and that’s assuming they can choose a new CEO quickly, something they may not be able to do to do (link).
Windows Metro = OS/2. The big bet in Windows 8 was that Microsoft could re-ignite sales growth for Windows by tapping into the tablet market. A PC that could also work as a tablet, Microsoft reasoned, would be more attractive to customers than either product alone. I think it’s pretty clear that the Windows 8 bet is failing. Windows 8 is being pre-installed on a lot of PCs, but that’s because Microsoft is pushing it through the OEMs. Microsoft could ship a hamster wrapped in duct tape, label it Windows, and a lot of OEMs would bundle it. What hasn’t happened is Microsoft’s promised explosion in user demand for convertible Windows computers, followed by an explosion in developer activity that might drive future demand.
I think it’s increasingly likely that the tablet interface formerly known as Metro will be more or less stillborn as a development platform. It will linger for a long time as Microsoft’s software for touchscreen devices, but I don’t see it being embraced by the leading-edge developers who can drive new demand to a platform. Instead, it’s kind of the third option for developers who have already built for iOS and Android.
I think most PC users will stick with the traditional Windows interface, most Windows developers will follow them, and most people who want tablets will get iPad or Android or Kindle.
So the challenge for Microsoft’s new CEO is the same one Steve Ballmer has tried and failed to answer for years: Demand for Windows is declining because the platform hasn’t done anything new for a decade, while Microsoft doesn’t control the fast-growing segments in tablets and smartphones. Microsoft tried to use Windows 8 to take over tablets. That failed. What do you do now?
The traditional answer would be to break up the company and try to salvage parts of the business that can grow on their own. It’s the kind of big deal that consulting companies love to recommend and investment firms love to broker. Besides, it looks bold, even though it’s actually the path of least resistance. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the new CEO chose that path.
The alternative to a breakup is to actually fix the product problem: to offer new functionality for Windows that’s more attractive than the competition. That would mean new mobile software that’s substantially better than iOS and Android, and/or new PC features that will give people a compelling reason to recommit to personal computing. There are plenty of opportunities to create that sort of innovation (link), but Microsoft doesn’t have a great record as that kind of product leader.
So if Microsoft is to stay together, the new CEO needs to be either a product visionary or know where to find one. I wish them luck.
Thứ Hai, 2 tháng 9, 2013
Microsoft + Nokia: Now We’re All Like Apple
Ten years ago, everybody in the tech industry — and I mean everybody — was convinced that the best way to dominate a technology market was to create an operating system and license it to a bunch of other companies. “The key to success is creating a standard,” said the experts. “If you write software for only your own hardware, you’ll never achieve the economies of scale of a licensed OS, and you’ll never be able to dominate the market without a wide range of licensees selling your hardware.”
The case for licensing seemed obvious because of the success of Windows. Apple had kept MacOS to itself, while Microsoft had licensed Windows. Microsoft won. Therefore licensing was the best way to go.
But then Apple transformed the phone market with the iPhone, and created the tablet mass market from scratch with the iPad. Suddenly the proprietary approach started to look a lot better.
Ten years later, the idea of an independent operating system licensed to all comers is a fading ideal. The two leading operating system licensors in mobile have now bought major hardware companies: Google with Motorola and Microsoft with Nokia. Both companies continue to license their software, of course, but clearly they don’t feel that’s enough. They need to also create hardware.
When you look at it in terms of tech history, this is a stunning change. I’m having trouble thinking of another industry that changed its basic assumptions so thoroughly in such a short period of time. I’m still trying to sort out what this all means for the rest of us, but here are some preliminary ideas:
Are they fighting the wrong war? Since the experts were supposedly all wrong about licensed OS ten years ago, we should ask whether they might all be wrong again today. The standard assumption behind buying a hardware company is that by combining hardware and software you can produce the sort of fantastic user experiences (and fantastic margins) that Apple does. There are a couple of potential problems with that reasoning:
1. There already is an Apple. You can make a good argument that Cupertino has already used up most of the customers who are willing to pay extra for a value-added smartphone or tablet, and that the remaining customers are mostly buying on price. That creates the possibility that Microsoft (and the Motorola part of Google) will end up with the worst of both worlds: an Apple-like expense structure but with commodity margins. Google can afford that since it has the web advertising business to subsidize it. Microsoft, with restless shareholders and all of its cash cows under threat, has much less room to maneuver.
2. Does combining hardware and software really work? Other than Apple, how many integrated hardware-software companies have succeeded wildly in mobile? Let’s see, there’s Palm, BlackBerry, Danger... Apple starts to look like the exception rather than the rule. I start to think the real lesson is that no strategy will work if you execute it poorly. Perhaps Microsoft would have been better off fixing the flaws in its licensing model rather than totally changing strategy. But it’s too later for that, so we should ask why Apple succeeded where so many other companies failed.
Maybe it’s because Apple has a culture in which product managers, rather than engineers, take the lead in defining products. If that’s the case, Microsoft will need major cultural changes, and Google, well, forget about it.
Or maybe you just need to have a supernaturally brilliant CEO leading the whole thing. Which brings me to my next point...
Microsoft’s next CEO will need to be Superman. Here’s the mess Steve Ballmer will leave for his successor:
–Windows 8 has failed to produce a turnaround in Microsoft’s gradual decline.
–The Surface tablets have more or less died in the market.
–The company’s just been through a massive top-level organizational change. Those things typically take a year to trickle down through the organization, as the lower levels of management get resorted and reassigned. That process will be disrupted while everyone waits to see if the new structure will stick with the new CEO (unlikely; new CEOs almost always want to change things).
–And now Microsoft needs to mesh the Nokia and Microsoft businesses. There’s a cultural challenge: Nokia’s is a collectivist Finnish hardware company while Microsoft is a dog-eat-dog hypercompetitive software business. There are also operational challenges. As I learned when I worked at Palm, it’s incredibly difficult to manage an operating system to please both your in-house hardware team and your licensees. They always want conflicting things. Microsoft claims it can both license Windows Phone and run Nokia. I hope that’s just bluster, because I don’t think it will work in practice.
It’s an almost ridiculously complex situation. Who could make all of it work? Who has an ego big enough to even try? To me, it feels like a job for a mad cartoon genius rather than a human being. Megamind would be perfect, or maybe Gru from Despicable Me.
Either one could do the job
I’m only joking a little bit. The CEO hire at Microsoft is going to be pivotal, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone who has the qualifications to make it all work.
Microsoft needs to find a new measure of success. In its presentation on the deal, Microsoft bragged about how it’s “outselling BlackBerry in 34 markets” (link). This is not the first time I’ve seen Microsoft use BlackBerry as its measure of success, and it needs to stop. It’s like bragging that you outran a dead guy in a marathon.
The conspiracy theorists will love this. Even before the purchase of Nokia’s phone assets, some Symbian die-hards had muttered that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was a Trojan horse: a Microsoft exec sent to Finland with the hidden agenda of destroying the company’s value, so it could be snapped up by Microsoft. That’s certainly the outcome we got, so I’m sure the conspiracy buffs are boiling today. But for the record, I don’t think Elop was a Trojan horse — Nokia’s management was doing a very good job of destroying its value long before he arrived.
What happens next? There are some interesting shoes that might drop next. Now that we have three big hardware + software players, will the other mobile hardware makers feel pressure to copy them? In particular, will Samsung decide that it needs a different operating system? Samsung already has Bada OS, which it reportedly plans to merge with the Tizen project it's driving with Intel. Maybe it’ll feel that's enough. Will the Chinese vendors feel pressure to act? If they do, there aren’t many other operating systems they could buy. Maybe BlackBerry? Would the Canadian government allow that?
That’s my quick take, but it’s a complicated situation and there’s a lot more to think about. What do you think it means? I’d love to see your comments.
[Thanks to Adalbert for the correction on Bada.]
The case for licensing seemed obvious because of the success of Windows. Apple had kept MacOS to itself, while Microsoft had licensed Windows. Microsoft won. Therefore licensing was the best way to go.
But then Apple transformed the phone market with the iPhone, and created the tablet mass market from scratch with the iPad. Suddenly the proprietary approach started to look a lot better.
Ten years later, the idea of an independent operating system licensed to all comers is a fading ideal. The two leading operating system licensors in mobile have now bought major hardware companies: Google with Motorola and Microsoft with Nokia. Both companies continue to license their software, of course, but clearly they don’t feel that’s enough. They need to also create hardware.
When you look at it in terms of tech history, this is a stunning change. I’m having trouble thinking of another industry that changed its basic assumptions so thoroughly in such a short period of time. I’m still trying to sort out what this all means for the rest of us, but here are some preliminary ideas:
Are they fighting the wrong war? Since the experts were supposedly all wrong about licensed OS ten years ago, we should ask whether they might all be wrong again today. The standard assumption behind buying a hardware company is that by combining hardware and software you can produce the sort of fantastic user experiences (and fantastic margins) that Apple does. There are a couple of potential problems with that reasoning:
1. There already is an Apple. You can make a good argument that Cupertino has already used up most of the customers who are willing to pay extra for a value-added smartphone or tablet, and that the remaining customers are mostly buying on price. That creates the possibility that Microsoft (and the Motorola part of Google) will end up with the worst of both worlds: an Apple-like expense structure but with commodity margins. Google can afford that since it has the web advertising business to subsidize it. Microsoft, with restless shareholders and all of its cash cows under threat, has much less room to maneuver.
2. Does combining hardware and software really work? Other than Apple, how many integrated hardware-software companies have succeeded wildly in mobile? Let’s see, there’s Palm, BlackBerry, Danger... Apple starts to look like the exception rather than the rule. I start to think the real lesson is that no strategy will work if you execute it poorly. Perhaps Microsoft would have been better off fixing the flaws in its licensing model rather than totally changing strategy. But it’s too later for that, so we should ask why Apple succeeded where so many other companies failed.
Maybe it’s because Apple has a culture in which product managers, rather than engineers, take the lead in defining products. If that’s the case, Microsoft will need major cultural changes, and Google, well, forget about it.
Or maybe you just need to have a supernaturally brilliant CEO leading the whole thing. Which brings me to my next point...
Microsoft’s next CEO will need to be Superman. Here’s the mess Steve Ballmer will leave for his successor:
–Windows 8 has failed to produce a turnaround in Microsoft’s gradual decline.
–The Surface tablets have more or less died in the market.
–The company’s just been through a massive top-level organizational change. Those things typically take a year to trickle down through the organization, as the lower levels of management get resorted and reassigned. That process will be disrupted while everyone waits to see if the new structure will stick with the new CEO (unlikely; new CEOs almost always want to change things).
–And now Microsoft needs to mesh the Nokia and Microsoft businesses. There’s a cultural challenge: Nokia’s is a collectivist Finnish hardware company while Microsoft is a dog-eat-dog hypercompetitive software business. There are also operational challenges. As I learned when I worked at Palm, it’s incredibly difficult to manage an operating system to please both your in-house hardware team and your licensees. They always want conflicting things. Microsoft claims it can both license Windows Phone and run Nokia. I hope that’s just bluster, because I don’t think it will work in practice.
It’s an almost ridiculously complex situation. Who could make all of it work? Who has an ego big enough to even try? To me, it feels like a job for a mad cartoon genius rather than a human being. Megamind would be perfect, or maybe Gru from Despicable Me.
I’m only joking a little bit. The CEO hire at Microsoft is going to be pivotal, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone who has the qualifications to make it all work.
Microsoft needs to find a new measure of success. In its presentation on the deal, Microsoft bragged about how it’s “outselling BlackBerry in 34 markets” (link). This is not the first time I’ve seen Microsoft use BlackBerry as its measure of success, and it needs to stop. It’s like bragging that you outran a dead guy in a marathon.
The conspiracy theorists will love this. Even before the purchase of Nokia’s phone assets, some Symbian die-hards had muttered that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was a Trojan horse: a Microsoft exec sent to Finland with the hidden agenda of destroying the company’s value, so it could be snapped up by Microsoft. That’s certainly the outcome we got, so I’m sure the conspiracy buffs are boiling today. But for the record, I don’t think Elop was a Trojan horse — Nokia’s management was doing a very good job of destroying its value long before he arrived.
What happens next? There are some interesting shoes that might drop next. Now that we have three big hardware + software players, will the other mobile hardware makers feel pressure to copy them? In particular, will Samsung decide that it needs a different operating system? Samsung already has Bada OS, which it reportedly plans to merge with the Tizen project it's driving with Intel. Maybe it’ll feel that's enough. Will the Chinese vendors feel pressure to act? If they do, there aren’t many other operating systems they could buy. Maybe BlackBerry? Would the Canadian government allow that?
That’s my quick take, but it’s a complicated situation and there’s a lot more to think about. What do you think it means? I’d love to see your comments.
[Thanks to Adalbert for the correction on Bada.]
Chủ Nhật, 1 tháng 9, 2013
Download Minecraft Pocket Edition 0.7.5 APK
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FANGZ HD v1.11 APK+DATA Fangz is Touch Arcade's forum Game Of The Week! The final undead shooter arrived. 99% rejoice! Here's your chance to make the 1% pay for their sins. Shoot, slash and smash lawyers, bankers and other vampires, in beautifully hand drawn worlds, made by world renowned artist Alex Gallego. - Incredible 2d art. Watch bloodsuckers suffer in superb detail. - Amazingly
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