“Microsoft unveiled a long-awaited new strategy [yesterday] in a public document titled ‘Transforming Our Company’ and an all hands e-mail ‘One Microsoft.’ In what is supposed to be a forward-looking, clean-sheet approach, the software giant ironically opened its transformation memo by reminding everyone how old it is, a child of the ’80s,” Mark Rogowsky writes for Forbes. “In that context, it’s less surprising that the company’s plan took more than 3,000 words to lay out, is laden with contradictions and contains an old-school ‘reorganization.’ Oh and it has almost no chance to work.”
Rogowsky writes, “Microsoft admits that it isn’t there, but would like you to believe it can deliver: ‘One experience, one company, one set of learnings, one set of apps, and one personal library of entertainment, photos and information everywhere.’ What they mean here is that the new UI they don’t want you calling ‘Metro’ appears more or less everywhere, from Xbox, to phones, to Windows 8. What’s left unsaid is that apps don’t run across those platforms unless developers write them over and over — even the tablet OSes aren’t compatible. What’s ignored is that Windows users in corporations will be on Windows 7 for years to come (more than 1/3 still use XP [released in 2001]).”
“Perhaps more troubling than all this is to effect change, the company is reshuffling the executive chairs without really changing anything,” Rogowsky writes. “Everyone now needs to collaborate more, says CEO Steve Ballmer, and things will be organized more around function, less around product. In theory, this stuff helps; in practice, it will take a couple of years for it all to shake out. That’s time that could be spent building and innovating but will instead be spent ‘re-orging.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft had a chance to preserve one of their cash cows by making Office for iOS and Android. That window of opportunity is closing, if it hasn’t already.
The world has or soon will realize that, no, actually you do not need Microsoft Office to word process or create spreadsheets and presentations.
The failure to create Office for iOS and Android in a misguided push to sell tablets and phones running Microsoft OSes will be looked at as one of, if not the, biggest mistake Microsoft made during their ill-fated attempt to recover after being repeatedly, unmercifully steamrolled by Apple’s Steve Jobs with the iPhone, iPad, iCloud, App Store and the rest of the formidable iOS ecosystem.
Hoist! May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Thumper” for the heads up.]
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