Two Microsofts
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Two Microsofts
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Re: Two Microsofts
#2More like the opposite. They should be more tightly integrated.
Re: Two Microsofts
#3I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Office on iOS and Android is (in my opinion) geared at being able to read and maybe edit Office documents. While these apps can certainly create Office documents, they're not really suited to it. One would ideally do that using a laptop or PC. And that then simply makes mobile a way of further entrenching Office - people who use it at work can now use it on their devices. People who use it at work and on the road are (again, my opinion) more likely to use it at home. Win for Microsoft.
On the devices side? Sure, Surface and Lumia are nowhere near as successful as the iPhone, iPad and Android. That was Microsoft coming late to the party. But come to the party they must. Before Windows Phone shareholders screamed for an iPhone competitor from Microsoft. After Windows Phone shareholders screamed for an iPad competitor from Microsoft. Windows Phone is good, and has some loyal fans. Windows 8 didn't do much for Surface, or Microsoft. Surface hardware is however also good, but new.
Ultimately the devices strategy strikes me as being sound - it's a platform to showcase the services side of Microsoft, and in time may be profitable to a point where the critics are satisfied.
Re: Two Microsofts
#4>he problem, though, is that not only could this limitation manifest itself as incremental annoyance
Eh I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of mobile office users don't need unlimited cloud storage (especially with 15GB free anyway) or advanced editing capabilities. Both of those features would be well served in an enterprise environment, but there are Office 365 Enterprise subscriptions for that. Maybe no dropbox integration is an annoyance, but I question whether that would be enough to push out existing office users.
Re: Two Microsofts
#5> I don’t think any company should have both horizontal (i.e. services) and vertical (i.e. devices) businesses.
I find it curious that Microsoft is the target of this criticism, and I am further curious what the author thinks about Apple.
Re: Two Microsofts
#6> I don’t think any company should have both horizontal (i.e. services) and vertical (i.e. devices) businesses. I find it curious that Microsoft is the target of this criticism, and I am further curious what the author thinks about Apple.
What services is Apple is?
Re: Two Microsofts
#7> I don’t think any company should have both horizontal (i.e. services) and vertical (i.e. devices) businesses. I find it curious that Microsoft is the target of this criticism, and I am further curious what the author thinks about Apple.
What services is Apple is?
ITunes, AppStore, iCloud, to name a few.
Re: Two Microsofts
#8> I don’t think any company should have both horizontal (i.e. services) and vertical (i.e. devices) businesses. I find it curious that Microsoft is the target of this criticism, and I am further curious what the author thinks about Apple.
What services is Apple is?
Apple is a service company. You buy Apple hardware to get access to their services, which are usually exclusive to the platform.
Re: Two Microsofts
#9Re: Two Microsofts
#10> I don’t think any company should have both horizontal (i.e. services) and vertical (i.e. devices) businesses. I find it curious that Microsoft is the target of this criticism, and I am further curious what the author thinks about Apple.
NextStep was built with enterprise in mind but became wholly consumer in its next life as OS X and then iOS. The massive consumer success of the iPhone led to employers giving in to employees who wanted iOS devices instead of Blackberry devices, a phenomenon called BYOD, "bring your own device". BYOD has given rise to an entirely new Apple presence in enterprise which I think Apple is just getting started with. Prior to this Macs were used by designers and engineers, creators, but hardly the stuff of serious enterprise.
Right now the services Apple provides are all about fulfilling features that consumers want: email, cloud storage, being able to buy content, and apps. They're meant to augment and also perhaps cynically lock consumers into Apple's sphere. The hardware devices sold at high margins make the money. This may change, and we might also see a two Apples where apple starts selling its services with higher margins for enterprise.
Incidentally long ago Apple really dominated in education. Most of the 80's Apple IIes and macs were popular in K-12, but that went away in the later 90's. Now iOS, in the form of iPads, are making inroads in education once again, competing with Chromebooks. Education isn't enterprise, and I don't see any services Apple would offer schools, but it's related.
Almost every where you look though, Microsoft is under assault. I think the last remaining stronghold is the Windows PC workstation. I don't think Apple, Linux or Android have made any inroads here. I can see Chromebooks becoming more relevant in the future, but for now workstations are dominated by Windows and probably will be for the next decade. The enterprise level services Microsoft provides here with ActiveDirectory and sharepoint, and the sophisticated controls for deploying Windows workstations across big organizations is pretty unrivaled. Maybe RedHat is also in this space, but not at the level of Microsoft.