Microsoft CEO Ballmer releases Windows 8.1 preview

Absrtact: June 26, how will Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer publish the Windows 8.1 preview after July 1, 2013? Microsoft executives are anxiously awaiting the day and are asking themselves. According to foreign media reports, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (Steve Ballmer) is expected to be in July

June 26, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer released Windows 8.1 preview

What will happen after July 1, 2013? Microsoft executives are anxiously awaiting the day and are asking themselves.

According to foreign media reports, Microsoft CEO Ballmer (Steve Ballmer) is expected to officially release his major restructuring plans for Microsoft on July 1. The report said Mr. Ballmer had not consulted other executives when he worked out his restructuring plan, and had just exchanged views with some of his cronies and board members, making the rest of the executives uneasy.

This reporter learned that the reorganization plan includes two aspects: first, the management team reorganization, the second is the reorganization of business structure. After the restructuring, the power of the Microsoft Empire will be redistributed, which is why the rest of the executives are upset.

This reporter then to Microsoft China to verify the above news, the relevant responsible person to our correspondent said: "There is no response to this message." ”

The reorganisation is seen as another effort by Ballmer to "save Microsoft". In fact, Ballmer has been working hard and the last redemption was Windows8 's launch. Windows8 's launch is actually a combination of boxing, first, WINDOWS8 is the world's largest trans-device (trans-PC, tablet) operating system, followed by supporting the arm instruction set architecture platform, no longer adhere to the Intel chip, and finally launched its own tablet computer surface (including surface RT and Surface Pro).

This effort backfired. Sun Yongjie, an independent IT analyst, says this has created "contradictions and conflicts" in the Wintel camp.

Microsoft, a three-person founder of Bill Gates, Allen and Ballmer, created the PC-era miracle and made a great company, but missed two times, the internet age and the mobile internet age.

The former may complain of Bill Gates, but the latter is all thanks to Mr Ballmer, whose business reorganization is the redemption and the last.

Windows8 The defeat of the force

Windows8 was once seen as Mr Ballmer's last blog, even with rumours of "if Windows8 fails, Ballmer will leave".

Windows8 did not succeed, the market research company NET applications recently released the global Computer operating system report shows that WINDOWS8 market growth is very slow, at present its share is not as recognized as the failure of Vista.

The report shows that as of the end of May, WINDOWS8 market share of 4.27%,windows 7 to 44.85%, leading the Windows version, Vista's share of the 4.51%,windows XP share of 37.74%, Ballmer placed great expectations of windows 8 ranked bottom.

The PC market has been Microsoft's main battlefield, but Microsoft's performance here is also unsatisfactory, in addition to product reasons, but also due to the big environment. IDC released the first quarter of 2013 Global PC market Statistics report, which unexpectedly set a year-on-year decline since 1994 the largest record, reached more than 14%, unexpectedly than the previous IDC forecast 7.7% faster than the 1 time times.

Sun Yongjie that Microsoft is not responsible for the decline in sales of the PC market. "Because Windows8 did not meet the expectations, heavy marketing super-Ben questioned the sound of four, some consumers chose cash, some consumers choose the ipad and other alternative products." ”

June 26, the Microsoft Build Developer conference, Microsoft officially released the Windows8.1 preview version. As planned, the official version of Windows8.1 will be available for download in November. Windows8.1 has modified a number of functions, including the consumer's controversial "Start" button feature regression.

Other changes include support for small flat-panel devices, improved application of multiple-screen display, full updating of Office software, new Outlook and touch-screen office, and built-in Xbox Music; Skype added lock-screen login, support for 3D printing through built-in APIs, new search capabilities, Web search, File search, and app search, Microsoft calls smart Search.

Sun Yongjie believes that this represents Microsoft's previous expectations in the mobile market (tablets and smartphones) a strong force of the strategy was corrected.

On the other hand, this also represents Ballmer's two failures, one is WINDOWS8 's failure, launched last October 26, launched only half a year, that is, announced the upgrade of the original version, which has never been in the history of Microsoft; Second, Microsoft's failure on the mobile Internet, Microsoft has great expectations for Windows 8, But Windows8 's performance was unsatisfactory, both for tablets and smartphones.

Microsoft's Windows Phone handset has almost zero market share in nearly a year, according to the latest report by comscore, the US market research firm. While Windows phone phone has zero growth, partners Nokia Symbian Market is plunging. Symbian's market share has fallen 13.9% in the Italian market, Symbian has slipped 19.7% in the Mexican market and Symbian has slipped 7% in the German market, according to a new report released by Kantar, a market research firm.

Where did Nokia's Symbian market go? It was acquired by two rival Apple iOS and Google Android. Nokia is working with Microsoft to give up Symbian, the Windows Phone patch. Reality and ideal are far apart.

In tablet computing, the surface in the first quarter of less than 1 million sales, rival Apple ipad sales of 19.5 million; Surface achieves revenue less than 700 million dollars, the ipad achieves revenue of 8.746 billion dollars.

According to Strategy Analytics, the latest survey data show that in the first quarter of 2013, Windows tablet shipments reached 3 million units (including surface), accounting for only 7.4% of global flat shipments, and Apple's ipad shipments of 48.2%, Android is 43.4%.

PC, smartphone, tablet computer and other three intelligent terminal areas, Windows8 finished.

Resistance to loss of confidence

Although Windows8 was unsuccessful as "Ballmer's last Redemption", Ballmer did not "resign" but began a new movement, the reorganization of the company. The direction of reorganization is to become a "equipment and services" company in the future.

Microsoft used to be a software-oriented company, with two big profit pillars, windows and office. Last June, Microsoft unexpectedly launched the surface into the PC hardware field, in addition to surface, Microsoft has another traditional hardware products Xbox.

In addition to these two products, Microsoft also has a number of products, including wearable equipment, computer peripherals and other products, in the past these products are Microsoft "experimental" products, only to explore the new direction of industry, not to profit for the purpose. Microsoft wants to transform itself into a "device and service" company, with surface and Xbox clearly inadequate, and more experimental products to be marketed as formal products, such as wearable equipment.

The reorganization of Microsoft's business structure will adapt to the strategic direction of "equipment and services", which corresponds to the new power distribution. Overseas media forecasts that 3 people will be given a chance to help Mr. Ballmer transform into a "equipment and services" company.

The first was Steya de la Satya Nadella, the president of Microsoft's Services and Tools division, whose annual revenue was $19 billion trillion, and just 11% quarter-on-quarter growth in the latest quarter.

The second is Tony Betz (Tony Bates), who is currently president of the Skype business. Tony Betz was previously the head of Cisco's 20 billion dollar corporate division, with experience in "equipment and services". When he jumped to Skype as CEO in 2010, Microsoft spent 8.5 billion dollars on Skype, and Tony joined Microsoft.

The third is Don Mattrick (Don Mattrick), the current president of Microsoft Interactive Entertainment, which is mainly responsible for Microsoft's Xbox business, and under his leadership, the Xbox business has become Microsoft's best practice in "equipment and services".

The final power pattern, which will be seen on July 1, is causing concern inside Microsoft. Another concern within the company is that, in the era of internet and mobile Internet, Mr Ballmer has repeatedly miscalculated, making Microsoft miss out on a comeback.

Even in Microsoft's most powerful PC field, Mr Ballmer's approach was unsuccessful. After Microsoft launched its Windows8 last year, it focused on the super market, hoping to launch a PC revolution through PC innovation by implanting tablet applications into PCs.

When Microsoft released WINDOWS8, the industry had placed high expectations, after all, this is the industry's first cross-equipment, cross-experience fusion operating system. But to get user approval, there must be two prerequisites: one is that this fusion experience (such as touch and traditional PCs) cannot be too far from the experience of a single product form, and the second is based on WINDOWS8 or flat-panel prices that are not too high, at least for mainstream tablets or traditional notebooks.

But in fact, neither Microsoft (nor Intel) has been able to do this: the touch experience is not as competitive as the ipad, and the PC experience is no more than a traditional PC, especially if it's radical, such as removing the Start button.

Microsoft has always had a contradictory "PC complex" for tablets, and the end of more consumer content (including applications) is considered a PC terminal for production and processing, and the advantage of the Windows tablet is that it can produce and process information. But consumers do not understand this, surface added to the above features, so that most people who want to choose a tablet computer confused.

Lost the Internet, mobile Internet, now is losing the ability to innovate PC. As Microsoft's CEO, Microsoft's in-house staff, shareholders, and external partners (such as OEM partners), the company is likely to be the biggest drag on Mr Ballmer's waning patience, which has left outsiders sceptical about the success of the butcher's change.

PO old, still can rice? This is a question that many people are now asking Ballmer.

Microsoft's new Redemption

Has the "King" really lost any ability to resist? Sun Yongjie that Microsoft has a chance to redeem itself, "like winows Phone for free".

Sun Yongjie that Microsoft would not lose a fraction of that, but would take food from Android, the largest market share, and eventually create "IOS, Android, and Windows" at the mobile end of the world.

Geoff Duncan, from DigitalTrends, estimates that it can earn nearly 430 million dollars a year if it gets 1 dollars per license from Microsoft. And now, according to a deal between Microsoft and Android, Microsoft has nearly $8 trillion in its revenue pocket for each of its licensed Android devices.

With this budget, Microsoft will be able to get 3.4 billion of dollars in Android-related royalties this year alone. Microsoft Windows Phone's revenue for Microsoft in the 2012 fiscal year of 2012 was $736 million, well below the royalties charged to Android manufacturers.

Technology Blog website Bi recently wrote that patent licensing is expected to become Microsoft's next annual revenue of billions of U.S. dollars of business, with the global Android device sales growth, by 2017, Microsoft from the patent licensing revenue of up to 6.3 billion U.S. dollars.

Sun Yongjie that Microsoft could then continue to charge royalties to manufacturers that produce Android smartphones and Android tablets, while winows phone is licensed to hardware partners for free, so that the original Android faction would collectively go to Microsoft, Microsoft lost only 736 million dollars of winows phone licensing fees, which is bucket to Microsoft, not to mention that there are 3.4 billion of dollars in Android-related patent licensing fees to continue to receive.

But smart as Ballmer did not think of this step of good chess, or worry that all the Android manufacturers have defected to Microsoft, Microsoft Winows Phone and free, Microsoft won the world, but half of the children can not receive. Yunting, a partner of Shanghai Big Bang law firm, said in an interview that this is not the reason, the internet era has been a lot of successful "free business model", such as advertising mode.

Yunting that the real reason is legal issues. If Microsoft makes such a policy for OEM devices, that is, Winows phone is free, and Android charges a corresponding patent fee, then it will create a patent price discrimination and violate the law.

A case being investigated by the United States FTC is instructive, with a patent for Motorola, a 2 dollar charge for other companies, and 4 dollars for Microsoft, which is sued for patent price discrimination.

The case is currently being heard in the state of Washington, where Microsoft is located. On the "patent price discrimination" is still a vague zone, yunting recently asked the FTC when asked how the case will be the verdict, the FTC related officials said: "The United States did not have relevant jurisprudence, the final Judgment, the current also said not good." ”

To save Microsoft, Ballmer is not a good-for-nothing. Sun Yongjie said: "In the tablet and Xbox business two areas, there are punctuate." ”

In the first quarter of this year, Microsoft Surface flat sales of less than 1 million units, but it contributed nearly 700 million U.S. dollars to Microsoft revenue, while the profits far higher ipad, become a profitable product, this is Microsoft's profits in the quarter to maintain a year-on-year growth.

Another business is the long-awaited Xbox One, compared with the main competitor, Sony's PS4, configuration and performance are almost the same, but Sony's PS4 only emphasis on the game, and Microsoft's Xbox One emphasis is integration, is a combination of television, mobile phones, PCs, tablet equipment, and multi-screen integration is the future direction of industry.

Surface and Xbox one made Ballmer see the way to redeem Microsoft. As a result, Ballmer changed Microsoft's direction to "equipment and services". The question is: how long will the time be? Whether the company inside or outside gave him enough time to change.