Software giant Microsoft's lost: its own advantages are forgotten

Satia Nadra successor Microsoft CEO has been six months, its proposed "mobile first, cloud first" strategy to support the slow transformation of Microsoft. Two days ago, Microsoft's former CEO, Ballmer, announced his exit from the board and wrote to Nadra, affirming his new strategy and 6 months of performance, and encouraging it to continue working hard. The incident was identified by the industry as the official end of the Ballmer era of Microsoft and the full opening of the era of Barnard.

Microsoft was once a formidable it giant for all its rivals, and in 1999 it created 661.6 billion of billions of dollars in human history, the highest market value of publicly traded companies (equivalent to 913 billion dollars in inflation after 2012 years), despite the loss of opportunities in the mobile-Internet sector over the years, with Apple in the past and Google chasing But it still dominates one of the big three in the industry. Today's Microsoft is still strong, but the face of the situation can not be ignored, in order to recover in the Web2.0 era and mobile intelligence field lost position, Microsoft has undergone a restructuring, "equipment and services" strategic transformation and today's "mobile first, cloud first" strategic positioning. From the earnings of the last quarter of each event, Microsoft's changes have been minimal and sluggish, and Microsoft's main revenue margins remain focused on business and consumer licensing (including licensing fees for Android), while Nokia's hardware business continues to lose money; from the market share of mobile operating systems, Android and iOS have accounted for 96.4% of the global market, while the WP system has fallen from 3.4% to 2.5%.

Microsoft's current condition, like a giant in its prime, is unsatisfactory, and it is confused about its own future, including its strategy of moving cloud. Microsoft has had a certain success in cloud computing and search advertising in the last two quarter, but has not yet changed its industry's upstream passive pattern. Some people in the industry have likened Microsoft to a slow-moving carrier, which is not unreasonable. We may have been too excited about Microsoft and given too little time, and we still don't know whether Nadra can lead Microsoft out of the trap, but the only certainty is that Microsoft is losing itself, even forgetting its past, and forgetting the essence of the name "Microsoft".

Software is still the core of the industry

Since the beginning, software has been the core of the industry, it's soul, the past is, now, and in the future. Microsoft, once the only software giant on Earth, has forgotten its own advantages, and this is the biggest lost.

What caused Microsoft to get lost? We know that in the DOS era, the Windows ERA, the improved software technology and the continuous change of products are the foundation of Microsoft's wealth accumulation, monopoly and success, but after the wild reclamation, this has increased the opportunity cost. The mobile internet era has become more profitable, and Google and Apple have opened the market in new areas to make Microsoft covet. In an effort to scramble for emerging markets, Microsoft is spending too much energy on its immature areas (such as search and mobile hardware), which, while losing some of its gains, has seriously weakened software development and neglected software innovation in the mobile internet era. In other words, both the soft and hard took all, but also want to platform-only, it is Microsoft's greed caused today's predicament.

But it turns out that the software is not obsolete. Why is windows still firmly in the PC World with 90% market share because there are no other desktop operating systems comparable to Windows in software compatibility issues, even if programmers have the ability to develop a large number of Linux based software, but in the end the opportunity cost is too high, This is the main factor.

Similarly, when iOS and Android are all the rage around the world, few people notice the software that makes up the mobile operating system, not the operating system itself. Android has accounted for 85% of the global mobile operating system's market share, and its large and quarterly market share is inextricably linked to the number of software that can be run on Android, according to the latest reliable data. So why does a lot of software apps choose android over WP? This and Android enter the market time and its open source characteristics, the author no longer repeat.

Quality knowledge assets are idle, software advantages forgotten

The term "organizational process assets (organizational processes Assets)" refers to the intangible assets that a company's organization accumulates in the course of a project's operation. General product managers are not unfamiliar with it, but few companies really pay attention to it. Windows operating system from the beginning of the creation of 29 years, involving more than 30 release versions (including WP), during the investment of a large number of excellent programmers, engineers, the size of the project, the continuous development of a long time in the software history of the entire unprecedented. So Microsoft has roots, and Microsoft's roots lie in the accumulated intellectual assets of its 29-year continuous software development process, which is Microsoft's biggest advantage as a software giant.

However, Microsoft has not utilized this advantage, but lost in the Internet era of search and platform competition. Microsoft's Online services business has lost more than $10 billion trillion since its launch in 09, and Bing has become a money-burning prop, 2014q4 shows that Nokia's hardware business has also brought 700 million of billions of dollars in losses and negative effects, according to the latest reliable data. Google, by contrast, cut Motorola's equipment business earlier this year, and Microsoft has been unusually obsessed with a grand unified strategy for the platform.

Over the years, Microsoft has invested too much energy in areas that have not been good at it, leading to the loss of the original premium knowledge assets and the wastage of some of the best talent, while significantly weakening Windows ' influence in the software industry and even the impact of Microsoft's overall brand. In other words, Microsoft has long been in the immature field with its own disadvantage to counter the advantages of others, not only a little effect, but also outweigh the gains.

Microsoft's "positive" and "odd"

While Microsoft is paying too much for the search and platform battles, today's mindless cuts in Bing and hardware will lead to a sinking cost of new quality intellectual assets, and new changes have taken place in the industry's direction today.

The Art of war has a cloud: to the positive, to the singular victory, good and strange, infinite as heaven and earth, inexhaustible, such as Jianghai. With the normal product management positive game, and then the penetration of the advantages of products has become the industry game players have been the law. So what is Microsoft's "positive"? What is Microsoft's "odd"?

After Nadra took office, Microsoft's share price continued to rise and was once close to a 14-year high, indicating that "move first, Cloud first" new strategy to meet the investors ' intention. The latest results show that the recent Bing advertising business and Office360 have a good performance, Nadra has repeatedly stated in public, and do not care if users choose iOS, Android or WP system, it is important to let Office360 and Bing stationed in these systems, so that more users to use Microsoft's products. The change in Microsoft's attitude seems to herald the contention that it has put down its operating system platform, instead creating the ecological context of its various products on all platforms, so that the future of Microsoft will be "everywhere". From this we can think that Microsoft under the guidance of the new strategy to Office360, Bing, Azure and other normal products for the conventional positive game is for Microsoft's "positive."

If Nadra's new strategy is just to get Microsoft's "positive", then Microsoft still lacks a new product to surprise, and Microsoft's upstream Giants must maintain its position in a new field that can lead the industry's future. What is the new field that leads the future of the industry? I can only list such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality technology and so on, but there is a point worth noting, but also the author in a number of articles mentioned in the Open source enlightenment, or to open source model for reference. In the era of Internet development, the advantage of "market" mode of sharing, borrowing and mutual assistance has obviously surpassed the relatively closed "cathedral" model, and the latter must consider the appropriate "market" adjustment to deal with the threat from Google and the open source community.

End

Now Microsoft is still not out of the way, and its investors and consumers want Microsoft to return to the leadership of the software era, which is a long way to go. In fact, it is imperative for Microsoft to re-examine the product development model in the era of mobile interconnection, to maximize the historical accumulation of software research and development advantages to be able to lead the future of the industry in new areas. Then the old-age software giants will be reborn.

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)