Nadella: Yes I can put 2 THINGS FIRST. I will say them at the same time – CLOUDOBILE You can have “mobile first, cloud first” and target business and consumer users at the same time, apparently. So says Microsoft’s recently installed chief executive Satya Nadella, who reckons there’s no contradiction in his big plan for Microsoft. Nadella was speaking this afternoon at Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner …
My cynicism is usually front and center, but I thought his presentation was good. I tried reading that 3300 word essay and lost the will to live midway through "Core". On stage, though, he had no script or even an outline and his pitch was better than any other PDC keynote. Even though all other presenters had notes handy, that was not a high bar to hurdle.
>I think he means 'Not just Office, but, like, life 'n shit.'
>Photos! Documents! Memories! Shiny people!
Except that MS don't do that stuff. Cloud is a vendor dream. Business customers only accept it because running server-software is too hard and decent load-balancing is too expensive. Personal customers don't really care and don't know how their data is being farmed.
Google's cloudiness works mostly because of google's high-speed network infrastructure. Apple's cloudiness works because they put the UI in people's hands and they have apps which do things for people. Look at their ad's - its all about how Apple stuff enables you to do cool stuff. What does MS do? They have no iLife and precious little mobile market share.
Mobile is not a great money-spinner. The apps are mostly trivial and fashion-driven or simply interfaces to (mostly web) servers. The prices are not that high either - you make money by becoming famous and selling for 99p.
MS are squeezed by Apple on the personal side and being pushed into a "business only" OS. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but you get no fashion purchases and in hard times businesses like to sweat the assets. Even in non-hard times, the telephone system rarely gets an upgrade, so Lync goes in and won't be replaced in two years time.
Then there is the whole, "what is an OS?" Does he mean Windows gains sensor-awareness? e.g. GPS, tilt, finger-print capabilities? "Human activity" sounds like Userland Apps, not OS territory. The OS is the application / hardware interface manager.
Microsoft wants to make trendy tablets like Apple.
Microsoft wants to make marvelous mobiles like Samsung.
Microsoft wants to make connoisseur consoles like Sony.
Microsoft wants to provide superior search [and advertising] like Google.
Microsoft wants to provide cloud computing like Amazon.
Microsoft wants to provide divine databases like Oracle.
Microsoft wants to provide software services like Adobe.
Microsoft wants to diversify away from [their slowly dying] cash cows like IBM.
Microsoft wants to be loved like the American Dream.
Microsoft wants to make lots of money like the good old days.
Microsoft wants to have happy customers like the good old days.
Microsoft wants to have ripping relationships with the spooks like the good old days.
But most of all:
ME-TO-Microsoft doesn’t want to be Microsoft anymore!
Can't blame them really...
New Normal .... Abby Normal....
100.000 lemmings can't be wrong.....just because marketing/trend-sheeple say it's so doesn't mean it is....
From the internet of things, to the internet of Bings, M$ want to control your everything....
And what happens when the network "notwork" .... yep, you don't either....
Same horse, new paint ... only ones benefitting from Internet 2.0 are the telcos and the backbone providers... those of us actually doing the work get neither a penny nor a pint....
Yes, spot on Trevor, customers should always come first...just like when HP wasn't just a sauce....
...the customer. ???
Maybe MS is way ahead of where we think they are, and they've already made the facebook-jump to their "customers" being the companies buying ads on Bing or selling software on XboxLive. We are the "product". That's what it sounds like from their "cloud first, mobile first" crap.
True, but I suspect Microsoft's collective decision making hasn't decided *which* customer(s) yet. Hence the blunderbus approach.
Ichan's idea of splitting into Enterprise/Consumer orgs looks increasingly sensible (yes I know he just wants the money)
“The goal for first party hardware is to create categories and markets, but we want to stimulate the entire ecosystem,” he said.
So by create they mean build a tablet several years too late.....
Buy a phone company that can only sale phones by cutting the price
Have a group of OS's rather than one, and 2 for tablets FFS......
Top that off with the old comments re windows 8 UI and loss of start button etc and boy are they going about it wrong.....
"Have a group of OS's rather than one, and 2 for tablets FFS......"
A couple of us at work were talking about that last week, and figure it's time for someone at MS to have the balls to do with Apple did with OSX - complete restart based on a *nix system.
We figured a nice Windows (7) style GUI on top of a popular distro, a few tweaks to various things that aren't quite there in Linux and it's basically done. As a bonus, they could then offer the same MS Office on Linux as they sell for Windows, the same IIS for Linux as Windows, etc. Imagine being able to whack Exchange onto a perfectly good Linux server!
We weren't 100% serious of course... But given how Windows 8 went, it could actually work out better.
Have to wonder why a software company bent on ever-shorter product refresh cycles would buy a hardware company that made phones known for their durability (and, at least earlier on, innovation). Could it be that they were just pulling the same stunt they did years ago buying software competitors just to kill them off?
The Lumias have some really nice hardware engineering and apps software (thinking photos here) that may well end up getting binned if M$ goes all Android....oh no...not the Borg of Redmond again...say it ain't so!!!
Honestly ... a CEO tossing around terms like his product ties together the "artifacts" of people's lives; the cloud becomes a "backplane" of identity management and security; the place we will truly shine will be around "insights”; and we want to "stimulate the entire ecosystem.”
Really? This is the shining future of America's largest software house? The cutting edge of computing brilliance? This ... this deluge of drivel? This bullshit?
Ever been inside a cloud? At ground level we call it fog!
Perhaps this mentality is the reason MS has insisted that Windows 8 truly does offer an enhanced user experience. They cannot perceive reality in the fog.
Seattle TV news last evening noted that as many as ten percent of the Microsofties could face layoffs, and the region is bracing for the impact. A video clip featured an MS executive promising the great opportunity facing the displaced workers: he assured the TV audience that the region will see a new wave of entrepreneurs, new business startups, new developers, and a whole new upsurge in individual opportunity and enterprise.
Fog. Wet and cold. Blind.
Many of those who get their Pink Slips will indeed startup new businesses.
They will find that once outside of the MS Ecosphere they will have the freedom to develop all sorts of stuff that they would never have been allowed to do inside the Ecosphere.
Some will strike it lucky and could even find that their startup is bought (for a huge was of cash) by the New Microsoft as if flails around trying to find a direction.
A good few will make stuff that will have a good chance of eating MS's lunch.
All around the future for MS is distinctly cloudy (no not that cloud) and without a clear direction the only way to go is down unless they learn some hard lessons from the likes of DEC, Compaq etc.
Yep, and with their stupid, all-pervasive, "backbone of identity management" combined with the internet of things, you'll have to log on to your fridge in order to grab a cold one, and suffer if M$ decides you can't have one....Clippy will be back, as Drippy..."You look like you've tied one on - I can't let you into the fridge now"....
or
"I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave".....
To all the soon-to-be-displaced workers: all the best, and may you land softly at a place where you can shine (that's not foggy....)...
I don't know why Microsoft wastes so much time and effort trying to be liked. They were much more successful when they took great price in their arrogance. All this trying to reach out to customers is having an impact on their credibility. People want the old Microsoft. Confident, arrogant and delivering products that everyone assumed that they had to have. It is like watching a tedious Hollywood role reversal movie as Apple and Microsoft swap corporate personalities.
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