MICROSOFT CEO, SATYA NADELLA
Posted on 11/10/2014 8:50:35 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Over the last few years, it’s been tough to pinpoint what Microsoft’s focus is.
In 2012, then-CEO Steve Ballmer wrote an open letter to shareholders labeling Microsoft as a “devices and services” company. It was a signal that Microsoft would not only make the software that people use, but the devices that software runs on. That’s a very Apple-like philosophy, but one that hasn’t paid off for Microsoft as we’ve seen with its Surface line of tablets and acquisition of Nokia.
The narrative shifted when Satya Nadella took over as CEO in April. Hardware took a backseat to what he repeatedly called a “mobile first, cloud first” vision of computing, a vague mantra implying that he wanted Microsoft’s software and services to power everything, even competing products. The launch of Office on iPad in the spring was perhaps the biggest gesture signifying a new openness at Microsoft.
But despite the flood of new products from Microsoft in recent months — the Surface Pro 3, Office for iPhone, iPad, and Android, even a fitness band — Nadella has focused his vision for the company even further. In fact, he only sees three key parts of Microsoft’s business.
“The core products of this company are Windows, Office 365, and Azure,” Nadella told a small gathering of journalists and analysts at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA last week. “From a business model, those are the three big things we are very focused on. We ask how our effort is accruing to those things.”
In other words, everything else beyond Windows, Office, and the Azure cloud business is just gravy, hooks to pull those who may not use Windows devices into the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s the most definitive vision for Microsoft we’ve heard in years, perhaps even decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
As much as I am an apple fanboy due to Microsoft’s unmatched awfulness through the years, I’ll be ready to go back to MS if they concentrate on giving the customer good sw and hw and get out of giving money to the gubmit for graft and corruption.
Oh, and keep their opinions about the sexual preferences of their staff and company to themselves, unlike a certain competitor.
MS has done some research into using formal methods to create an OS [paper] — granted it's limited, but it's a good first-step to getting a full general-purpose OS built with formal methods — using such formal methods would eliminate whole classes of bugs and bring a much more stable and secure system.
I think the first company to make a full formally verified OS will have a huge edge on competitors. (I think the same holds true for word-processing/office-suites, to a lesser degree.)
Their culture is not one of change. There's a way things are done and that's it.
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