| To: Eric L who wrote (146) | 7/15/2015 12:49:41 PM | | From: Eric L | | | | Nadella talks about Microsoft's Mobile Ambitions ...
... in the most exhaustive piece writen recently expanding on what was said by the horses mouth in his 'letter to emplyees.'
>> Exclusive: CEO Nadella talks Microsoft's mobile ambitions, Windows 10 strategy, HoloLens and more
Microsoft CEO talks about his thinking around product differentiation and being ahead of the curve in this Q&A with Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley.
Mary Jo Foley
ZDNet | All About Microsoft
July 14, 2015
zdnet.com
Minutes after he left the Worldwide Partner Conference stage after delivering a keynote for 14,000-plus resellers, integrators and other Microsoft partners on July 13, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sat down with me in the backstage green room for a 30-minute interview.
His appearance at the annual partner show followed by just a few days the latest of his "hard choices" kicking off Microsoft's fiscal 2016. Last week, Nadella announced Microsoft would be cutting 7,800 employees, most of which are in the hardware and devices unit. Despite the fact that he committed to continuing to make up to two new Lumia handsets in the value, flagship and business segments each year, moving forward, many company watchers considered last week's moves as signifying Microsoft's abandonment of Windows Phone and concession of the mobile market to its competitors.
I asked Nadella about his plans for continuing to compete in the phone/mobile markets; his expectations for Microsoft's HoloLens augmented-reality technology; and his partnership plans, in particular with regards to Microsoft's long-time nemesis, Google.
I've edited this transcript for clarity and length.
MJF: You just got off the stage. What do you hope partners take away from your keynote this morning?
SATYA NADELLA: I really mean this when I say I want us to be a very mission-driven company in the choices we make and the things that we do and how we do it, because the lesson learned for me has been to not conflate or mistake a particular goal with a particular technology and your mission.
When I joined the company in '92 it was about the PC in every home and on every desk. Guess what: We achieved that. And a company has to outlast any given technology paradigm and any ambitious goal. And so for me this going back to what is it that drove Bill (Gates) to build even the BASIC compiler or the interpreter to what we did in terms of inventing productivity or democratizing client-server computing.
That's where I come back to this notion of empowerment. When I even think about the three broad ecosystems out there in the world, we are the only ones who both (consumer and business). Because of what we do in our economic model, we are fundamentally focused on saying it's about our customer's product. IT can be a student writing a term paper or a big enterprise driving their own differentiation of productivity. Both of them are the things that we as an ecosystem care about. And that's what grounds me on what choices we make, what markets we participate in, how we do it.
In this world we have these three big ambitions (reinvention of productivity and business processes; building the intelligent cloud; more personal computing). Of course they're grounded in real product today, But it's also beyond what we're delivering today, beyond the brand names of today. Where are we going? That's where the morning's keynotes were all about and that's what I'm focused on.
MJF: That's a great jumping-off point to one of the things I want to talk about. After last week a lot of people I'm talking to -- partners and customers -- are really worried about your prospects in mobile. You just said not to conflate the technology with what you're going to do next. So, does Microsoft cutting back on the number of Windows Phones you make mean you are getting out of the mobile market?
NADELLA: Not at all. Quite frankly I think it's sort of about the lens through which you view what's happening. I view the mobile opportunity, even today in its broadest sense, and in the future, as being richer.
First, I want to be able to be present on every mobile endpoint. That's a very explicit core goal. It's not (just) the notion of having our application endpoints, Skype, Outlook, Wunderlist, Sunrise, on every one of the two billion devices. We want to have Microsoft experiences, because to me that's a platform play. It's not like, oh, they're just application endpoints. Guess what is behind those applications? It's One Cloud. It's Office 365, either for the consumer or for the enterprise. There's MSA (Microsoft Account) in there.
So to me it's very important to think of our operating system more broadly than some old definition of an operating system. So we want to be in every device, not only have our application endpoints on every device. I want the identity management. It's not MSA alone, it's Azure Active Directory. It is managing those devices, securing those devices in terms of data protection. These are all core capabilities that we have.
Then on top of that, to me, one of the great structural pieces is we don't have with Windows is this problem of Mac OS/iOS. I'm not in some quest to say let me try and replicate Mac OS and iOS or iOS and Mac OS. We don't have the Chrome versus Android. We are Windows, from Raspberry Pi to HoloLens. And when you saw the demo of HoloLens today, to me it's part of my mobility strategy. When the person was using Autodesk and Maya on the desktop and just moved to a 3D model and interacted, they weren't using their phone.
If anything, one big mistake we made in our past was to think of the PC as the hub for everything for all time to come. And today, of course, the high volume device is the six-inch phone. I acknowledge that. But to think that that's what the future is for all time to come would be to make the same mistake we made in the past without even having the share position of the past. So that would be madness.
Therefore, we have to be on the hunt for what's the next bend in the curve. That's what, quite frankly, anyone has to do to be relevant in the future. In our case, we are doing that. We're doing that with our innovation in Windows. We're doing that with features like Continuum. Even the phone, I just don't want to build another phone, a copycat phone operating system, even.
So when I think about our Windows Phone, I want it to stand for something like Continuum. When I say, wow, that's an interesting approach where you can have a phone and that same phone, because of our universal platform with Continuum, and can, in fact, be a desktop. That is not something any other phone operating system or device can do. And that's what I want our devices and device innovation to stand for.
Last week's announcement was not about any change to our vision and strategy, but for sure it was a change to our operating approach. The way we're going to go about it. I'm not going to launch a phone a day. I'm going to focus on a few phones that actually grab share that, in fact, showcase our uniqueness. When you have three percent share of that (phone market), but you also have a billion desktops, you have Xbox, you have innovation in HoloLens; you have Band. It's a graph. It's not any one node. It is the entirety of the device family. And I want to be able to think about our strategy, our innovation, and progress as one.
If anything, the thing that I'm signaling most to the investors, to the employees is let's stop this thing about trying to atomically dissect any one. They will all have a temporal current position and a future ambition. But it is one thing that we need to move on.
MJF: It sounds like you're saying that right now when people talk about "Windows mobile," (lowercase m), they only think it's the phone operating system. But you are saying it's much more than that. You're saying Windows mobile, going forward, is bigger?
NADELLA: That's why whenever I talk about Windows 10, I talk about mobility broadly across all of those devices. For sure there is a form factor today which is the below six or seven inches, which is powered by a very specific operating system instance of Windows 10, which is Windows Mobile. But what do you call that (device) when you use Continuum and then you're using applications on a big screen with a mouse and keyboard? It's Windows 10.
That's why I like to think about Windows 10 as not being bound to any one form factor. What is Alex (Kipman) doing with a HoloLens? It was a Windows 10 UAP (Universal App Platform). I think is what we need to do a better job of communicating.
In my case I have a Band. I have my phone. I have my Surface. I have my Surface Hub and I'll have a HoloLens. And that to me is all Windows 10. And I'll seamlessly move between all of these. I want the notifications to flow between all of these. I want my data and apps to flow between all of these things.
MJF: I saw (COO) Kevin Turner's mail about the moves you made last week, and he made a Surface analogy. He said now what we're doing with phone is more like what you're doing with Surface. Your phones are going to be more of like showcase devices for what Windows mobile can look like on a phone.
NADELLA: Correct. There's a little bit of a distinction because, in some sense, in the world of PCs, we are trying to create new categories like Surface did. Now every OEM has a two-in-one, which I celebrate, which is great. Surface Hub -- I'm sure next year there will be many OEMs with Surface Hub like devices. We will do HoloLens, and then, since the holographic computing platform is right there in Windows, there will be people who will build holographic computers beyond HoloLens. So I want all of that to happen.
If no OEM stands up to build Windows devices we'll build them. There will be Lumia devices. So I'm not afraid of saying, okay, it's all about the OEMs, or it's all about the ecosystem. It's about Windows. It is about the overall health of Windows and being grounded in any given day's reality, but having ambition of where the market is going versus being bound by current definitions.
MJF: Does that Surface analogy break down, though? Microsoft built Surface but there were still many other OEMs building successful Windows devices. But with Windows Phones phones, that's not the case, right?
NADELLA: We will do everything we have to do to make sure we're making progress on phones. We have them. Even today Terry (Myerson, the head of Windows and Devices) reinforced, again, yes, we will have premium Lumias coming this year.
If there are a lot of OEMs, we'll have one strategy. If there are no OEMs, we'll have one strategy. We are committed to having the phones in these three segments. And I think the operational details will become clear to people as they see it. I want people to evaluate us on the phones that we produce, but not the inside baseball -- what are we doing to produce -- because that should not be relevant to our broad consumers. It may be relevant to people like you who are critiquing us. That's okay. But what matters to me is what customers care.
MJF: I'm curious if you see last week's decisions around Windows Phone affecting your universal app strategy. Some believe that if Microsoft makes fewer Lumias -- and Microsoft is making more than 95 percent of all the Windows Phones in the market -- doesn't that kill, or at least weaken, your universal apps play, which is key to Windows 10? Why as a developer do I now want to build an app that runs on Windows Phone if there's going to be even fewer Windows Phones?
NADELLA: Universal Windows apps are going to be written because you want to have those apps used on the desktop. The reason why anybody would want to write universal apps is not because of our three percent share in phones. It's because a billion consumers are going to have a Start Menu, which is going to have your app. You start the journey there and take them to multiple places. Their app can go to the phone. They can go to HoloLens. They can go to Xbox. You talk to somebody like Airbnb. It might be more attractive, given our three percent share on phone, for them to actually build something for the desktop and for the Xbox.
And by the way, when we hook them on that, we have a phone app. This strategy is path dependent, which is a term I use that means where you start is not where you end up. And therein lies a lot of the nuance. The fundamental truth for developers is they will build if there are users. And in our case the truth is we have users on desktop.
Why then make all these changes to the Start Menu with Windows 10? It's not because I just want to bring back the old. It's because that's the best way to improve the liquidity our store. Windows 8 was great except that nobody discovered the store. In Windows 10, the store is right there and done in a tasteful way.
I want that to translate into success for our developers. That's what's going to get them to write to the phone. If anything, the free upgrade for Windows 10 is meant to improve our phone position. That is the reason why I made that decision. If somebody wants to know whether I'm committed to Windows Phone, they should think about what I just did with the free upgrade to Windows, rather than -- hey, I making four more phone models of value smart phones.
MJF: How does making Windows 10 free show that you're committed to Windows Phone? I'm not quite following that.
NADELLA: Because all of this comes down to how are you going to get developers to come to Windows. If you come to Windows, you are going to be on the phone, too. Even if you want to come to Windows because of HoloLens, you want to come to it because of Xbox, you want to come to the desktop, all those get you to the phone. It's not about let's do head-on competition. That will never work. You have to have a differentiated point of view.
MJF: I have a HoloLens question. I've heard that when you first saw HoloLens -- back when it was Project Fortaleza -- you said we need to expand this beyond just gaming. Where do you think the initial demand for HoloLens is going to be? Is it going to be more in gaming, or is it going to be more in business and research?
NADELLA: For sure in the first version, it's going to be more about developers and enterprise scenarios
I did buy Minecraft to create a new genre of gaming for mixed reality. We bought Minecraft for many reasons: because it's the number one PC app; it's the number one console app; it's the number one paid mobile app on iOS and Android. I wanted a hit game even for the new medium of mixed reality. And we will have that. Gaming will always be a scenario and there will be other entertainment broadly. But, with the V.1 of HoloLens, I want us to push a lot more of the enterprise usage.
In general Microsoft's approach will be always this dual-use focus, or this multi-focus. What we can uniquely do is bridge consumer to enterprise. That's in our DNA. That's why it's even in our mission statement of empowering people and organizations. I want every technology of ours to seek that out. In the HoloLens case, when I look at the interest, it's amazing how many are in hospitals, healthcare, retail. That's where I'm seeing the interest and we'll definitely go after it.
MJF: A question on partnerships. Since you've been the CEO, it feels like Microsoft is very different in how it's approaching partnerships. If you look at how (former CEO Steve) Ballmer dealt with companies like Salesforce and Adobe, and how you're dealing with them, it's very different. What is the difference in your philosophy here?
NADELLA: Microsoft, even during Steve's time and Bill's time, was a platform company. Rhetoric aside, and stylistic approaches aside, at the core I'm just doing what we have always done well. How many multi-billion-dollar software companies got built on top of Windows? Google wouldn't exist if they couldn't have built a browser for Windows, they couldn't have put toolbars on IE. We were the most open ecosystem on the planet ever.
We were always a platform company. I want us to be able to live that in our approach. That means Salesforce should extend Office, they should integrate, they should use Azure. Same thing with Dropbox, Box, Adobe. They should build great applications. It makes all the sense in the world for us to think about the construct fundamentally as non-zero sum. We may compete with many of these folks in some categories, but at the core we are a platform vendor. In fact, we have three platforms I like to talk about: Windows, Azure and Office. I like to think all three of these will be open for others to extend and, of course, we will construct them together.
MJF: In that vein and you're thinking about partnerships, do you think there's any hope you're going to have a partnership with Google where they build apps for Windows 10?
NADELLA: I would love to. It's for them to decide. I would love for them to have YouTube on Windows Phones. I would love for them to do their best work like they have with Chrome on Windows.
MJF: Is Microsoft actively talking with them about these things?
NADELLA: We'll talk to every developer. Some of these relationships with large players require a level of maturity, which I'm sure we will achieve with all players. I'm hopeful that there are more applications. After all, we now have our apps on Android, and that's good. And then we just hope that it's reciprocated and our users mutually benefit.
MJF: You just announced here at the show a new service and app called GigJam that seemingly creates a whole new application category. It crosses a lot of boundaries. I've heard you talk about Microsoft making fewer, bigger bets. So how does something like GigJam fit in here? Aren't you going off in a whole other non-established category?
NADELLA: It is about the core. It's one category. It's about productivity and business process. Think of it as a new module of Office 365. It's not bound to today's definitions of categories. It's not just a creation tool. It's not just a communications tool. It's not just a development tool. It's all of that. And it spans all devices. It's not bound to one device.
The notion is to be able to generate applications on the fly to adjust to the work that you're doing versus sending you off to five different apps, five different devices, and five different communications sessions. We brought all of that. That's a very revolutionary concept. If you think about the first time you saw Outlook, up to that point I had a contact management app, I had e-mail, and I had a calendar. Outlook took those three categories, came up with a new scaffolding, and since then, nobody has thought about these three things as separate on the desktop. So it's fewer, but big bets with growing addressable markets, not looking back.
MJF: We've heard stories about your decision that the Surface Mini -- that small, ARM-based tablet that nearly came to market last year -- was not differentiated enough, so you axed it. How do you decide what's differentiated enough when it comes to new devices?
NADELLA: What I want us to stand for is not have envy for somebody else's success. I want us to stand for what is it that we've done that customers actually care about. Why is this important for us to take to market? I actually don't even care as much about initial grand success in terms of volume or share. Does it meet a specific scenario that we have done very well for some set of plans? It's a shorthand for doing customer scenarios that are differentiated.
I want to be more customer-led. When we say customer-led, that doesn't mean just listen to customers about X and then do the same feature. It's about being able to anticipate what we can do to really differentiate their own lives. GigJam wouldn't have come from the thinking of let's look out there and see who is doing something.
That is how we created Microsoft. Nobody had done Visual Basic. Nobody had done Access. Nobody had done Outlook. We created categories or democratized categories. We either took something very complex and made it simple so that everyone in the world could adopt it, or created something where it didn't already exist -- where nobody came to us and said, this is what we want. Once we did it, everybody wanted it. That's the bar for devices and our software and services.
MJF: So back to phone, then. You've said one of the three categories of phones you want to make are "business phones." What's the differentiator for you there?
NADELLA: Businesses are actually the place where we're growing fastest among all our phone ones. Think about it. Some of the real (attraction) of Windows devices is management and security. The fact that your latest soccer app is not available, or some social networking app is not available is not much of an issue (in business scenarios). What matters to you is identity management, security, protection.
The other thing that matters is rapid application development. In our case, we take a Lumia device, you power up Azure App Services, and out come Universal Apps that automate workflows. I think that's unbeatable in terms of a value proposition. That's why we have something unique to contribute.
Those three segments, I picked them because we have something unique to contribute. For people who love Windows, we'll have a flagship device. It's not just a flagship device, but it also supports things like Continuum. For business customers, it's about custom apps they want to deploy onto those endpoints with management and security. For the value smart phone segment, I want to focus on where we can put Office and our communications and Skype, so it's more like a Skype and Office phone for the first time smart phone buyer. Those are places where I feel like, yes, that's a kind of uniqueness. Let's grow from there.
You've got to remember even the Apple regeneration started with colorful iMacs. So let us first get the colorful iMacs. I think with what we're doing with Lumia, we're at that stage. I want to do good devices that people like, and then we will go on to doing the next thing and the next thing.
MJF: Are you using a Windows Phone yourself?
NADELLA: Absolutely I do.
ZDNET: I heard you might use Talkman (one of the next expected premium Windows Phones) pretty soon.
NADELLA: I don't think I said that.
MJF: Not publicly, at least :)
NADELLA: This is the 830. Of course I'm using a Windows Phone, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to make sure that everyone I see with an iPhone here, I'm going to get them to download one of our apps. And that's our goal.
We had a CEO conference recently and I did a demo of all the things that we have on the iPhone so that they could all walk out with Wunderlist, and OneNote, and Outlook. By the way, Outlook client on the iPhone is the best Gmail client and the Exchange client on iOS. Now that to me also signals our mobility strategy.
MJF: So bottom line -- your mobility strategy is not just about phones.
NADELLA: It's about phones. It is about our apps on other end points. It is about EMS (Enterprise Mobility Suite). It is about new categories like HoloLens. In the full arc of time, that's what people really value. It's not about one mobile device that rules them all. That would be like saying there's one PC that's going to rule all as a hub. # # #
- Eric L. - |
| | Microsoft: The Devices and Consumer Segment | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
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| To: Eric L who wrote (144) | 7/15/2015 12:56:59 PM | | From: Eric L | | | | James Kendrick view of The Windows Phone (Windows 10 Mobile) Future ...
>> Yes, Windows Phone is well and truly dead
James Kendrick
kOnTheRun
jkontherun.com
In spite of Windows Phone apologists, er, enthusiasts claiming that the phones from Microsoft aren’t going away, they might as well. The hardware, and thus the platform, is on life support.
The situation with Windows Phone reminds me of a space movie where the lone remaining crew member is walking on a barren landscape in some distant galaxy. A glance at the remaining oxygen level in the HUD shows it nearly in the critical red zone.
He gazes at the stars above and wonders how it would be if everything had gone according to plan, far-fetched though it was. Doesn’t matter anyway, the plan tanked and the end is drawing near. The sound of his breathing in the helmet reminds him that there’s not many breaths left to be drawn. He feels so cold and alone.
That’s how the situation with Windows Phone appears to me. The phones and soon after the platform will be going away, as there’s no reason for Microsoft to keep them around. Once it wrote off the Nokia purchase and laid off the thousands of remaining Nokia employees the writing was clearly on the wall.
“Windows Phone is not going anywhere!”
“Windows 10 Mobile will change everything!”
These are the reactions on enthusiast web sites to the Microsoft announcements about the phone business. You’ll also find the company’s claims to change tactics and aim Windows Phones at business, which hasn’t wanted them so far, and at enthusiasts, who are already its best (and only) customers.
Developers who continue working on Windows Phone apps, Windows 10 Mobile included, are crazy in my view. Who will buy your apps, not even Microsoft is behind your efforts.
Yes, Windows Phones are dead and Windows 10 Mobile will quietly fade away soon. The only thing you’ll hear in the helmet is the rasp of the final breath going in and out # # #
- Eric L. - |
| | Microsoft: The Devices and Consumer Segment | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
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| To: zax who wrote (145) | 7/15/2015 4:53:20 PM | | From: Eric L | | | | Mike James view of the 'Windows 10 Mobile- future ..
Zax: 'Microsoft Scales Down Windows Phone,' Mike James article for I-Programmer you referenced and linked is indeed worth a read. I paericularly agree with the last two paragraphs ...
>> We will have to wait and see how it turns out when the software is actually finished, but even then it is difficult to see how the availability of desktop apps running on all devices is going to be a force to encourage users to buy premium Windows phones.
Then there is the small matter of the "bridges" which Microsoft is working on to allow iOS, Android and web app programmers to move their creations to Windows Phone. With almost no phones to run on it is difficult to see why this is at all attractive. It is probably a better idea to just drop the bridges idea and work on finding ways of getting Microsoft technologies onto iOS and Android. <<
We'll so 1 or 2 new hero machines shortly and perhaps another later but while rhe 'Windows 10 Mobile' software platform will survive and hopefully be well implemented on ARM architected iOS and particularly Android OS devices I don't hold out much hope for the hardaware platform although I'd enjoy being wrong.
Cheers, - Eric L. - |
| | Microsoft: The Devices and Consumer Segment | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
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| To: zax who wrote (145) | 7/16/2015 12:08:54 PM | | From: Eric L | | | | A Must Listen: AAWP Insight #146: job losses, focussed portfolio, Windows 10 Mobile ...
Rafe Blandford and Steve Litchfield, partners of 'All About Windows Phone' who follow Windows Phone and the overall smartphone industry closer, more objectively and more sensibly than most other joutnalists discuss, speculate and opine about the future of Microsoft Windows Mobile in a 45 minute podcast.
Listen here: allaboutwindowsphone.com
# # #
- Eric L. - |
| | Microsoft: The Devices and Consumer Segment | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Eric L | 7/16/2015 3:02:36 PM | | | | | | Another view of Microsoft and the Mobile Future (Ron Miller & Alex Wilhelm)
... intelligently written. [underlines mine]
>> Microsoft Will Never Give Up On Mobile
Ron Miller & Alex Wilhelm
Telecrunch
July 16, 2014
techcrunch.com
When Microsoft announced its wrenching $7.6 billion write-down last week, it was easy to presume that the company was giving up on mobile. At the very least, the financial avalanche sent a strong signal that Windows phone in its current guise has failed in a major way.
The 7,800 people sacked in the process, the majority of whom came from the Windows phone division, simply accentuated that point.
Microsoft has badly wanted to be a player in the handset wars, but its market share numbers tell a consistently wretched tale. In the US, it has never managed more than a crawl, and is currently stuck at around the 3 percent mark. The company has seen somewhat higher numbers in some European markets, but there has been evidence that even those relative cratonic bastions have eroded in recent quarters.
Luckily or smartly, Microsoft has placed more than one mobile bet and it doesn’t intend to live and die with handsets. It has other bullets left in the chamber including Windows 10 and the cross-platform mobile apps too.
Whatever happens, Microsoft can ultimately never walk away from mobile because giving up would essentially be ceding a massive portion of the future of computing, and it simply can’t afford to do that.
The Current World View
After some time in the soup, Microsoft has finally detailed its Windows mobile strategy well enough in the last week that we can understand it — whether that’s referring to the operating system level, hardware or cross-platform apps. Leaning on Mary Jo Foley’s excellent interview with CEO Satya Nadella, and the write-down, we can come to the following conclusions:
The company made a large wager through Windows 10’s pricing to bolster Windows mobile.
Here’s the CEO:
“[T]he free upgrade for Windows 10 is meant to improve our phone position. That is the reason why I made that decision. If somebody wants to know whether I’m committed to Windows Phone, they should think about what I just did with the free upgrade to Windows, rather than — hey, I[‘m] making four more phone models of value smart phones.”
That’s quite plain: Microsoft wanted to go after phone market share in the long term, and selling Windows at its old price points would limit broader Windows 10 adoption, eroding at the company’s larger value proposition of having one platform across all your devices. Put another way, the company is foregoing some identifiable revenue to prop up Windows mobile.
The company is more than willing to build its own phones — still.
Satya, again:
“If no OEM stands up to build Windows devices we’ll build them. There will be Lumia devices. So I’m not afraid of saying, okay, it’s all about the OEMs, or it’s all about the ecosystem. It’s about Windows. It is about the overall health of Windows and being grounded in any given day’s reality, but having ambition of where the market is going versus being bound by current definitions.”
Again, that’s simple enough. Microsoft has made new noise about picking up OEM partners to help it in its Windows mobile quest, but at the same time, the firm is willing to do its own heavy lifting if that’s what it takes.
The suspicion that Microsoft wants to get out of the phone game entirely, from a holistic or narrow hardware sense, are, for now, bunk. That fact is backed up by the following:
The company will build new phones that it hopes will accrete market share.
The CEO:
“Last week’s announcement was not about any change to our vision and strategy, but for sure it was a change to our operating approach. The way we’re going to go about it. I’m not going to launch a phone a day. I’m going to focus on a few phones that actually grab share[.]”
All of the above came out of the same interview, meaning the ideas mark a single mote of time in Microsoft’s strategic arc; things may change.
In the age of a $7.6 billion write-down, it can be difficult to understand why Microsoft would keep at the mobile game. When is enough enough? Yet, it has indicated it hasn’t nearly reached that point yet.
Never Give Up, Never Surrender
Whatever happens they fight on. They keep trying. The company didn’t give up when the Kin blew up on them, and neither will they give up after the $7.6B write down. They have cash and they can afford to keep going back to the drawing board — again and again. Perhaps they subject themselves to some ridicule when they fail, but they will keep trying because they understand the importance of mobile.
Satya’s pitch at the Worldwide Partner’s Conference was clear. If the company can’t get at you today with handsets, it will continue to try to push from the applications angle. When Nadella says there is no clear line between the consumer world and work, he’s clearly onto something, and perhaps Microsoft’s best shot at capturing mobile mindshare is via work where it has the strongest presence today.
As people shift to mobile devices controlled by Android and iOS, Microsoft will have a hard time, gaining market share for Windows on the phone or tablet — Surface sales not withstanding. For now that still remains a blip and a pipe dream. What Microsoft can hope to do is build on apps like Outlook and Gigjam and try to force its way into mobile via applications that work across platforms.
This really speaks to the Microsoft three-pronged strategy around mobile. On one point is the lethargic hardware, on another is Windows 10 and its multi-platform delivery model and on the final is the cross-platform application approach, where Microsoft appears to be faring much better. It has to be hoping that if you like Microsoft applications and you’re using Windows 10 at work (as many people will be), at some point in the future, you might also like Windows phones to make your work and personal lives play nicely together.
Microsoft can afford to be patient, but while it hopes that the Windows handset market will wake up, how will it affect financial markets perception of the company?
Financial Pain
Microsoft has more than enough cash to keep the Windows mobile furnaces stoked for long into the future. It is worth noting that supporting rival platforms, while doing so has costs, is likely a far cheaper enterprise than running factories and global distribution channels. (The old joke about sales being easy, and supply chaining being hard does work applies here.)
However, given that the group’s phone businesses’ cost profile has been whacked so badly, it is reasonable to assume that Microsoft isn’t losing too much on the efforts on a quarterly basis. So while the company won’t give up on mobile, it also won’t have to give up too much on its profits. The current quarter with the massive write-down, of course, on a GAAP basis, is screwed. But that’s for investors to handicap.
Also, assuming that piggy-backing on rival platforms feeds directly into its Office 365 engine, it would make the costs of supporting third-party platforms more than palatable.
If Microsoft was willing to spend as much as it has, and keep going, it’s hard to imagine an expense that could crop up and undermine its mobile will. In for $7.6 billion, in for a pound.
Conclusion
Nobody could argue after that mammoth write-down that Microsoft’s mobile future is looking bright, but at the same time, it would be a huge mistake to underestimate Redmond. Microsoft clearly recognizes the strategic importance of mobile, and it’s going to continue to try to find a way to succeed, come hell or high water. That means it’s going to attack by app, by OS and by phone and see what works — and it’s going to keep investing until one shoe or another drops because it has no choice. # # #
- Eric L. - |
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| From: Eric L | 7/16/2015 3:47:35 PM | | | | | | Qualcomm/Microsoft/Windows 10 Mobile ...
Caveat: The source of the article below is DigiTimes. Sometimes they get it right but often they are in the right church but wrong pew, and sometimes no gold pans from their nuggets.
Note: Allwinner Technology is here allwinner.com and overview here: allwinner.com
>> Qualcomm, Inc. Partnering With Microsoft Corporation To Push Affordable Windows Phones
Qualcomm is planning to launch an ecosystem of entry-level smartphones next quarter
Martin Blanc
Bidness Etc
July 15, 2015
Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) has had a disappointing year in the mobile market, with overheating issues in the high-end market and tough competition from MediaTek and Spreadtrum in the entry-level and mid-range chip segments. The ailing fortune of the chip supplier has caused inventory to stack up.
So, to prevent the sales malaise and maintain its market share, the company is planning to release a consortium of smartphones for $80 or under with Microsoft Corporation next quarter. According to Digitimes, Qualcomm has been cooperating closely with the software giant, while also aggressively pursuing a partnership with China-based Allwinner Technology to push affordable devices over the Windows Mobile 10 platform.
The move will be aimed at reinvigorating Qualcomm’s market share for entry-level handsets and tablets with phone functionality, where the latter is seen as the perfect way to widen its market base over other platforms. Qualcomm is planning to use Snapdragon 210 solution for the Windows Mobile 10 devices, which hugely benefits the chip giant since Microsoft doesn’t demand licensing fees for its operating system.
This could serve to reduce the overall price of executing a range of entry-level Windows phones, making them more price-competitive against modest Android-based smartphones. However, Qualcomm has been able to dominate the segment in the country, in light of an exponentially growing 4G LTE market in China since 2014.
The company’s premium designed solutions and effective planning reeled in various vendors from the country, subsequently giving the chip maker an upto 80% share in China’s 4G market. Allwinner on the other hand will implement Qualcomm’s 3G and 4G solutions to roll out numerous tablets with phone capabilities. Its high-end 4G processors will target Europe and the US, with a view to enter mass production by the third quarter.
The 3G solutions will target emerging markets where 4G is still catching on and consumers turn to 3G or 2G networks. Allwinner left the cellphone-tablet market after losing out on orders from MediaTek, and will take some time to rebuild the client partnerships and supply chain links to emerge as a long-term consumer electronics mainstay.
More importantly, Qualcomm will now be faced with the challenge of avoiding competition between its clients and Allwinner’s clients (which fall in the same product category), while competing against MediaTek’s surge in the space. For Qualcomm, another major problem surfaces in its bid to ease inventory, which is how well the market will react to a maverick OS like Windows Mobile.
The consumers especially are unaware of what Windows 10 will bring to the table. Despite a recently announced feature that will let users fire up Android-based apps for a limited time period, only time can tell whether Windows Mobile 10 can satiate consumer demands, and if it really is “the best thing to happen to Windows." # # #
>> Digitimes Research: Qualcomm to push inexpensive mobile device market with Microsoft and Allwinner solutions
Eric Lin
DIGITIMES Research: Taipei
14 July 2015
digitimes.com
According to Digitimes Research's findings, Qualcomm's development in the high-end market is not stable in 2015 and facing MediaTek and Spreadtrum's fierce competition in the mid-range and entry-level segments, the chip supplier's shipment performance in China has been weakening, causing some of its application processors (APs) to see inventory buildup.
To digest the inventory and maintain its market share, Qualcomm has cooperated with Microsoft closely over the Windows Mobile 10 platform and is planning to release a solution for the fourth quarter, designed specifically for US$80 or even cheaper smartphones. Qualcomm also partnered with China-based Allwinner Technology to release a solution for the tablet with phone functionality, targeting Europe, the US and emerging markets and to enter mass production in the third quarter, Digitimes Research's findings showed.
China's 4G LTE market had surging growth in 2014. Qualcomm's solutions, thanks to their maturity and the company's well-managed roadmap, had strong demand from China vendors in the year and acquired close to 80% share in China's 4G market at the peak.
However, MediaTek and Spreadtrum's competitive 4G solutions plus the company's misoperation in the mid-range and high-end product lines have both caused Qualcomm to see declining market share since the beginning of 2015 despite the company's aggressive promotions on its advanced technologies such as carrier aggregation.
To maintain its market share, Qualcomm has aggressively cooperated with Allwinner to push Windows Mobile 10-based entry-level smartphones and tablets with phone functionality, looking to improve its shipment performance by expanding its market base via more broad partnerships over platforms.
Qualcomm is planning to use its MSM8909 entry-level solution for the Windows Mobile 10 platform and since vendors do not need to pay any licensing fees to Microsoft for using the operating system, the overall costs for the combination will be much more competitive compared to Android-based entry-level solutions and for the entry-level smartphone market that is gradually seeing less profitability, such a solution is rather attractive to vendors.
As for Qualcomm's partnership with Allwinner, Allwinner has currently decided to release several tablet with phone functionality solutions using Qualcomm's 4G/3G products. The high-end 4G solutions will target Europe and the US markets and in addition to white-box orders, the China-based player will also look to sell its solutions to telecom carriers.
The 3G solutions will target emerging markets. Since most emerging markets were still slow in establishing 4G stations, most consumers in the markets still mainly use 3G or even 2G networks. Allwinner is planning to compete against MediaTek and Spreadtrum for these markets with help from Qualcomm's products.
However, Qualcomm's strategies still have some potential risks. Windows Mobile 10 is a brand new operating system and consumers have no knowledge about it. Although the operating system features a runtime allowing it to operate Android-based apps, whether the system's interface is able to satisfy consumers' demand is still uncertain and need more time to observe.
As for Allwinner, since the China-based chip supplier had left the tablet with phone functionality market for a while after losing to MediaTek, the company will need to re-nurture its partnerships with clients and supply chain players in order to return to the market. Since Qualcomm also has some clients using its solutions for their tablet with phone functionality products, how to avoid competition between its clients and Allwinner's clients and jointly compete against MediaTek is also a major task for the two. # # # |
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| From: Sr K | 2/5/2016 6:52:10 PM | | | | | | In news article about GoPro:
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said Friday that it has struck a patent-licensing deal with GoPro Inc.(GPRO) that will cover file-storage technology.
GoPro (GPRO) shares, which have been battered this week and in recent months, added 6.2% in after-hours trading to $10.58 a share. Microsoft (MSFT) shares ticked up 0.2%.
The patent-licensing agreement comes just days after GoPro (GPRO) reported weak fourth-quarter earnings, fueling concerns about the health of its core business selling wearable cameras.
The deal with Microsoft (MSFT) will cover certain file-storage and system technologies.
Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft's (MSFT) patent business, said the company is seeing strong demand from the wearable technologies it has already licensed. Microsoft (MSFT) didn't provide further detail on the agreement. |
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| From: zax | 2/24/2016 9:15:17 PM | | | | | | | Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin, a leading platform provider for mobile app development. In conjunction with Visual Studio, Xamarin provides a rich mobile development offering that enables developers to build mobile apps using C# and deliver fully native mobile app experiences to all major devices, including iOS, Android, and Windows. Xamarin's approach enables developers to take advantage of the productivity and power of .NET to build mobile apps, and to use C# to write to the full set of native APIs and mobile capabilities provided by each device platform. |
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