It seems to be the time to talk about Microsoft and whether a changing of the guard really means things have changed. The key road signs for this question that have been widely reported already.
First, after having known only two masters in its existence, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, earlier this year Microsoft named its third CEO, Satya Nadella. From his official corporate curriculum vitae, Mr. Nadella certainly looks like a departure from his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.
Second, Microsoft officially has parted company with what one commentator has called "the last great operating system," the now aged "XP." On April 8, 2014, Microsoft officially stopped supporting XP. This milestone departure prompted some foreign governments to ramp up their own support operations for the beloved OS. Security analysis are left pondering the fate of practically all of the ATMs in the US, which operate on XP. XP also is the operating system for many commercial transaction systems used by large retailers; recently, Target had a significant loss of consumer credit card data from its aging XP based transactional network.
We certainly have reason to debate what information the NSA and other governmental agencies have collection on us, but we should be equally concerned with whether the United States can keep its computer systems, governmental and private, safe from increasingly prevalent hackers.
Third, while leaving behind a significant piece of Microsoft's past, Satya Nadella has embarked on a new direction for Microsoft software. Microsoft is still fundamentally a software company. It has built commercial success on its widely used Windows operating systems for consumers and businesses and its suite of application software, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and it accompanying web browser Explorer and Bing search engine. By contrast, Microsoft's most tenacious rival, Apple primarily manufactures hardware (Macs, iPads, iPods, etc.) that runs native Apple software.
From time to time, Microsoft has dabbled with the idea of moving into the hardware side of the technology world. The results have been fitful. In earlier columns, I have discussed that fact that Microsoft was an earlier pioneer in the field of software for tablet computing, but it drifted out of that picture and let Apple and Google realize the success of both tablet hardware and tablet software. Microsoft tried to enter the market for portable music players that Apple created with the iPod. Remember the Zune? Again, Microsoft failed to stay the course.
Through the success of its hardware devices, Apple has established a significant presence for its software. Apple software like iTunes and its Safari browser now run on other devices. iTunes has become ubiquitous on computers otherwise using Microsoft software.
Until Nadella's ascendancy, Microsoft has steadfastly resisted the idea of letting its prized office software package (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) reside on anything other than a Microsoft operating system. Unfortunately, Microsoft is not dominant in the hardware world of portable devices made by others.
Mobile devices are the future, not only for personal computing, but for business and professional work. Although Microsoft still has a strong presence in the business and professional world of desktop computing, the business and office workers increasingly want to take their computing outside the office and the desktop, out on the road and at home. Once upon a time, that happened through laptop computing, with native Microsoft software. Now, increasingly, business and consumers are migrating to Apple and Android devices and using work-around software to access their Microsoft Word and Excel files. I do this on my iPad with an application called QuickOffice.
Trying to contain this migration, Microsoft launched its own very promising tablet computer, the Surface, packaged with Microsoft software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and tried to make the Surface its flagship hardware product to win back customers. This was the right move and one which I hope Microsoft does not abandon (as it abandoned tablet computing once before in its infancy), because the competition from the Surface will cause all mobile devices to improve. Microsoft has a fundamental advantage by putting its integrated Office software package on a mobile device, because it will retain many users whose in-office or in-home computing is done on Microsoft Office software.
Nadella's predecessor, Steve Ballmer resisted a wider distribution of Microsoft software beyond Microsoft operating systems. Somewhere in the transition, strategists at Microsoft seemed finally to have realized that there is a much bigger market out there for software than the pure office and business core purchasers. Within days of becoming CEO, Nadella first significant announcement was that Microsoft's Office software suite would be available on other platforms.
As I wrote this (in mid-April, 2014), I went to the iTunes App store on my iPad and downloading, for free, Microsoft Word for iPad. It enables you to read Word documents in their native format. Microsoft wants you to buy a full version of Word, however, if you want to edit those documents and perform other functions of Word. It will be interesting to see how sales of the Word (and Excel and other Microsoft software) application go. If you are an office user of Microsoft software, you may know that Microsoft has made great strides in integrating its Office software suite. Microsoft's email and calendar program, Outlook, in particularly is now a center piece for other applications in the Microsoft suite.
We certainly have reason to debate what information the NSA and other governmental agencies have collection on us, but we should be equally concerned with whether the United States can keep its computer systems, governmental and private, safe from increasingly prevalent hackers.
Third, while leaving behind a significant piece of Microsoft's past, Satya Nadella has embarked on a new direction for Microsoft software. Microsoft is still fundamentally a software company. It has built commercial success on its widely used Windows operating systems for consumers and businesses and its suite of application software, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and it accompanying web browser Explorer and Bing search engine. By contrast, Microsoft's most tenacious rival, Apple primarily manufactures hardware (Macs, iPads, iPods, etc.) that runs native Apple software.
From time to time, Microsoft has dabbled with the idea of moving into the hardware side of the technology world. The results have been fitful. In earlier columns, I have discussed that fact that Microsoft was an earlier pioneer in the field of software for tablet computing, but it drifted out of that picture and let Apple and Google realize the success of both tablet hardware and tablet software. Microsoft tried to enter the market for portable music players that Apple created with the iPod. Remember the Zune? Again, Microsoft failed to stay the course.
Through the success of its hardware devices, Apple has established a significant presence for its software. Apple software like iTunes and its Safari browser now run on other devices. iTunes has become ubiquitous on computers otherwise using Microsoft software.
Until Nadella's ascendancy, Microsoft has steadfastly resisted the idea of letting its prized office software package (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) reside on anything other than a Microsoft operating system. Unfortunately, Microsoft is not dominant in the hardware world of portable devices made by others.
Mobile devices are the future, not only for personal computing, but for business and professional work. Although Microsoft still has a strong presence in the business and professional world of desktop computing, the business and office workers increasingly want to take their computing outside the office and the desktop, out on the road and at home. Once upon a time, that happened through laptop computing, with native Microsoft software. Now, increasingly, business and consumers are migrating to Apple and Android devices and using work-around software to access their Microsoft Word and Excel files. I do this on my iPad with an application called QuickOffice.
Trying to contain this migration, Microsoft launched its own very promising tablet computer, the Surface, packaged with Microsoft software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and tried to make the Surface its flagship hardware product to win back customers. This was the right move and one which I hope Microsoft does not abandon (as it abandoned tablet computing once before in its infancy), because the competition from the Surface will cause all mobile devices to improve. Microsoft has a fundamental advantage by putting its integrated Office software package on a mobile device, because it will retain many users whose in-office or in-home computing is done on Microsoft Office software.
Nadella's predecessor, Steve Ballmer resisted a wider distribution of Microsoft software beyond Microsoft operating systems. Somewhere in the transition, strategists at Microsoft seemed finally to have realized that there is a much bigger market out there for software than the pure office and business core purchasers. Within days of becoming CEO, Nadella first significant announcement was that Microsoft's Office software suite would be available on other platforms.
As I wrote this (in mid-April, 2014), I went to the iTunes App store on my iPad and downloading, for free, Microsoft Word for iPad. It enables you to read Word documents in their native format. Microsoft wants you to buy a full version of Word, however, if you want to edit those documents and perform other functions of Word. It will be interesting to see how sales of the Word (and Excel and other Microsoft software) application go. If you are an office user of Microsoft software, you may know that Microsoft has made great strides in integrating its Office software suite. Microsoft's email and calendar program, Outlook, in particularly is now a center piece for other applications in the Microsoft suite.
As Microsoft moves these programs onto more mobile platforms, a particularly interesting synergy to watch will be whether the Office suite becomes even more integrated. Last year, with a new version of Outlook and the rest of the Office suite on my desktop, I experimented with a lesser known part of the Office suite, OneNote. This is a program that allows you to take notes or otherwise save information in files, organized like a file cabinet in your office. It is pretty easy to use and has advantages in its integration with other Office programs like Word. In addition, OneNote was already available free on mobile devices like my iPad.
I was comparing OneNote to a non-Microsoft application that I was already using on my iPad, Evernote. I like Evernote because it allows you to do a wide variety of things in the office or on the road: take notes at meetings and conferences, receive email as a note (whether to save the text of the email for future reference or to attach documents that you wanted to send to your mobile device), and handle both work and personal chores. As a web-based program, the app on my iPad and my desktop at work could access the same files, allowing for editing and revision back and forth, inside or outside the office.
I found OneNote very competitive with Evernote in many ways, but lacking a true advantage that would lead me to replace Evernote. Now, with the availability of other Microsoft applications on mobile devices, Microsoft does have a potential advantage that it can exploit: if it can develop true integration among it desktop software applications and their mobile counterparts, that synergy may bring together many users who want such integration. Instead of looking for Microsoft work-around applications like QuickOffice on mobile devices, as users, whether for professional purposes, we can have a more seamless option.
Nadella's initiative in make in making the Microsoft Office suite available on all mobile platforms is groundbreaking and hopefully a signal the Microsoft intends to develop, improve, and market its software for mobile consumers. This too will be good for all consumers, because it will bring more competition to the mobile device market. Another key indication that Microsoft is going to take mobile devices more seriously can be seen in its acquisition of mobile phone maker Nokia. This seems to foreshadow an announcement that Microsoft software soon will have a native cellular device to compete with the iPhone and Android cellphones.
Only time will tell, but these may be a clear signals that things have changed at Microsoft.
Postscript: As I finish this post and work on another about the Heartbleed vulnerability, Microsoft announced a major vulnerability in its Explorer browser that could result in hackers gaining access to your computer, a so-called zero-day bug. The wide spread use of Explorer makes this a major issue. Microsoft even goes so far as to suggest that Explorer users may want to use another browser until a patch for Explorer closes this vulnerability.
This news also is significant to anyone still using the XP operating system, as Microsoft's discontinuation of support for its XP operating system means that there will be not a fix for this bug for those who continue to use XP.
Nadella's initiative in make in making the Microsoft Office suite available on all mobile platforms is groundbreaking and hopefully a signal the Microsoft intends to develop, improve, and market its software for mobile consumers. This too will be good for all consumers, because it will bring more competition to the mobile device market. Another key indication that Microsoft is going to take mobile devices more seriously can be seen in its acquisition of mobile phone maker Nokia. This seems to foreshadow an announcement that Microsoft software soon will have a native cellular device to compete with the iPhone and Android cellphones.
Only time will tell, but these may be a clear signals that things have changed at Microsoft.
Postscript: As I finish this post and work on another about the Heartbleed vulnerability, Microsoft announced a major vulnerability in its Explorer browser that could result in hackers gaining access to your computer, a so-called zero-day bug. The wide spread use of Explorer makes this a major issue. Microsoft even goes so far as to suggest that Explorer users may want to use another browser until a patch for Explorer closes this vulnerability.
This news also is significant to anyone still using the XP operating system, as Microsoft's discontinuation of support for its XP operating system means that there will be not a fix for this bug for those who continue to use XP.
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