Perspective: The Power of Microsoft's Transformation

Microsoft, born in 1975, is 37 years old this year, and it belongs to the elite year. Recalling that this company called Microsoft is full of legends, it has always occupied a leading position in the software industry, and even in some areas it can be described as dominating the world. If we look at the Windows and Office that we must have on everyone’s computer, we will know this. Virtual. When he used to be the boss, one day suddenly realized that the chaser was not far from himself, or even surpassed, and became a chaser. Industry joked: "Apple is too closed, Android is too open, Microsoft came too late." How was the life of the chaser?

Chaser's strategy

Microsoft is not a natural leader either. "Microsoft also likes to be a chaser," Xie Wei, Microsoft's vice president of Greater China and general manager of market strategy, and chief cloud computing strategy officer of Microsoft Greater China, said in an interview: "Microsoft's IE and VB products are all Zhu Yu is in the front and the latecomers are in the top position, and now Bing search is also a catcher. Microsoft is not always the boss, and the heights are overwhelming."

Microsoft, which is deeply branded by software, announced at the 2012 Teched Technology Conference that the company will be transformed into a device + service company. The service is well-understood, software-as-a-service, Microsoft’s three-screen and one-cloud strategy, and cloud-based The strategy defines itself as a platform software service provider and clearly defines itself as a device vendor for Microsoft for the first time. Although Microsoft had some successful hardware products in the past, the keyboard and mouse, and the Xbox360 and Kinect, the most popular somatosensory game consoles, have not been able to enter the Chinese market for some reason, but they are only found in China. So Microsoft's device can only bet on the Surface tablet just released in October, a Pad, not a Pad, a Pad product with a keyboard, equipped with Microsoft just released Windows 8, in addition to entertainment functions like the iPad Office is also installed to allow office applications to continue using the Pad scene to work. In addition, Microsoft's hot product Kinect also launched the Windows version. It does not need to be bundled with the Xbox and will soon be available in China. Fans will not have to travel back home from the United States and China Hong Kong for thousands of miles.

The worry is that, in addition to these hardware, Microsoft will not be the next server to do storage? Will it also become a hard-soft company? According to current Microsoft, there is no such consideration for the time being. Microsoft started with software. The core of the future is software. This is a very correct idea. Believe that Microsoft has such strength and software and hardware, but also has enough funds, but once implemented, it will destroy the previously established ecological circle, put the partners to the opposite, and it will be established as a public enemy.

Impact of transformation

2012 is still the year of the harvest of Microsoft products. It can be said that it reached a climax. Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Surface, Windows Server 2012, Windows Azure, Kinect for Windows and Bing are all released successively this year. Even Xie Enwei laughed and said, “Microsoft The sales of the products are considered to be easy to sell. This year, Microsoft has so many new products available for customers to choose from.” Whether or not the climax of products can be converted into commercial value, Microsoft’s sales staff must work harder.

Microsoft began to push the hardware to the front desk and also follow the market. After all, Apple's iPad is too crazy to sell. The cumulative sales volume in China has reached 10 million. After Apple brought the iPhone, iPad and iMac to China, it formed a closed apple. In the ecosystem of the Mac OS X operating system, you will find that after using one of Apple's products, it will gradually replace other products with Apple's. This is Microsoft's very reluctant to see, but also is suppressed hardware OEM manufacturers do not want to see. Therefore, the release of Windows 8 this year can be regarded as long-awaited, hardware manufacturers of ultra-pole to be hungry, the emergence of Windows8 to promote a new wave of replacement, can have a touch-screen laptop experience.

However, before Microsoft's Surface launch, there is also concern that after all, this product and OEM manufacturers have direct conflicts, but the market has no obvious discordant voice, in other words, Surface has not sold crazy like an iPad, and it is expected that the sales volume of the Surface RT version will be in the fourth quarter. More than 1 million units. Or Windows 8 allows notebook makers to see a new round of market growth, has been unable to attend to the iPad's oppressive tablet market.

The market changes rapidly. Microsoft demonstrated a product called Table PC more than a decade ago. It was actually the predecessor of Pad. However, Microsoft had no hardware products at that time. Even if there were extraordinary innovations, it would be difficult to promote notebooks at the time. The computer market has not yet been popularized. Maybe in the future, Microsoft will grasp this market opportunity earlier. In addition to holding the software as always, it also has a hardware channel that can be produced and sold.

Microsoft wants to concentrate on doing only software, and now it has to pay attention to the hardware, but the hand is not long, and can be attacked and retired.