Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s moves to prepare for the upcoming head-to-head battle with Apple and Google have prompted a number of media comments and industry analysis. Most of them have been very critical, both of Microsoft and Ballmer personally.
Yet few of them show signs of a real strategic analysis of Microsoft’s position, or even having gasped at the nature of the battle ahead. Some analysts have even preferred to “wait and see”, although they are paid to make market predictions.
Commentators like Computer Weekly have reduced Microsoft’s problems to relatively trivial product problems. Others, like the Financial Times and the Telegraph, have emphasized what they see as Microsoft’s failure to adapt to changing market circumstances, such as the recent sharp drop in PC sales. What none of them have done is assess how Microsoft’s current global dominance influences the future evolution of smartphones and how this will affect the desktop.
Events in the Microsoft world are currently being determined by four key market forces. They are the impact of touch screen technology; the adoption of free cloud services like Skydrive; security concerns surrounding the emergence of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in the business world; and the impact of mobile work on office practices.
Touch screen technology
Rob Epstein, Microsoft’s UK Windows manager, recently recounted how his company ran a booth at The Gadget Show, showcasing a range of traditional PCs and some touchscreen devices. It was, he says, the kids who went straight to the touchscreen devices and the adults who grabbed a mouse.
Picking up a mouse is a surprisingly easy habit to break – all you need is a touchscreen smartphone. It was Apple who broke the habit first, followed by Google with Android. By doing this, they were taking an early position of dominance on smartphones. But unknowingly, they were doing something with an even bigger impact in the long run: freeing us from the desktop entirely by making the classic home screen redundant.
Anyone seriously using a touchscreen ‘will get’ Windows 8. Anyone who doesn’t (and this seems to include many of the commenters mentioned above) doesn’t get it, and joins the chorus of howler monkeys of those who describe Windows 8 as a technological failure, and Steve Ballmer as a leader without vision.
The crucial point here is that, whether they want it or not, everyone who uses a digital device, in the near future, will find themselves using a touch screen, simply because the next device they buy will be based on that interface technology. Trying to buy a PC with a mouse will be like trying to buy a typewriter.
Everyone on the planet who buys a smartphone or any other device with a screen in the future will be taking the essential first step in wanting a smarter and more responsive interface, just like that of their smartphone.
It is also crucial that everyone will want the interface of their phone to be the same as the interface of their PC or laptop and their laptop or tablet. There is one and only one established technology that responds to this demand and it is called Windows.
Cloud technology
Having discovered that they want the same interface on all their digital devices, users will take an inevitable second step in the same direction. They will want complete and immediate synchronization of their applications and data files across all of their devices.
We are currently emerging from a brief period where commercial providers tried to monetize cloud syncing and entering an era where cloud services are universally available for free. Microsoft’s Skydrive, for example, currently has 250 million users (and, by the way, its subsidiary Skype has 633 million users, making it the second largest social network after Facebook).
It is not necessary to look very deeply to discover the reasons for this success. Skydrive and Skype are free for Windows users and integrated with Windows devices. And, most important of all, you can set all Windows 8 devices to sync automatically using a single account sign-in.
As I type these words, they are available simultaneously on my laptop, my Windows Phone, and my Windows tablet. Now I can walk out my office door, board a train, and continue typing where I left off on another device, without taking a single action. It is not possible to do this on anything other than Windows devices.
Bring your own device
The third major market driver is the emerging practice of bring your own device (BYOD). There are many issues for corporate IT departments related to BYOD practices, but none more pressing than the security of corporate business data.
In the past, large corporations provided secure laptops to their senior staff or provided secure software downloads for approved laptops. Now anyone can access your business email account on their own smartphone or tablet. The problem for companies is that some of these devices have serious security problems.
However, there is an operating system that is already very familiar to corporate IT departments, which has been exposed to all kinds of security threats and has already formed a defense in depth, and which is available on all kinds of digital devices, from phone to PC: Windows. .
Android, in particular, has experienced some very public glitches in the security department. Bluebox Security CTO Jeff Forristal recently said: “This vulnerability … could affect any Android phone released in the last four years, or nearly 900 million devices.” This is 99 percent of Android phones in use.
Until now, Apple has relied heavily on the fact that so few people use Apple machines that hackers are hardly worth worrying about currency malware.
Office and remote work practices
Journalists like myself have been writing about remote work for many years and there have been encouraging signs of early adoption with many different kinds of benefits for both companies and their staff. But now all the elements for this remote work to become a universal reality have finally been fully integrated.
At least they have been fully integrated for Windows device users. The vast majority of corporate users share most of their data through Microsoft Office products such as Word, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, etc. Office documents can be read and edited directly on all Windows 8 devices, including smartphones, because Office is an integral part of these devices. For many (perhaps most) companies, this will be a no-brainer, once you’ve thought about it.
Windows Legacy Market
The market in which these changes are taking place is one that is already dominated by Windows.
There are 1.2 billion Windows users, about one sixth of the world’s population. Most of them also use Office applications. About 60 percent of corporate users have already upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7. The rest are wandering through PC World, scratching their heads and wondering what to do next. 100 million of them have purchased Windows 8 licenses. Windows Phone 8 has already surpassed Windows Phone 7 in global market share.
The next phase of the corporate Windows migration will also be an organic process, like the last two, taking perhaps five years. But it’s almost unbelievable that anyone could seriously think that mainstream corporate computer users might even consider Android or iOS as an operating system on which to base any part of their business operations. Try imagining Exxon or Walmart or Barclays or Volkswagen running their companies on Android screens and it quickly becomes obvious that thinking of anything other than Windows is insane.
The panorama
None of these important market indicators are hidden or hard to find, which begs the question; Why exactly did so many media experts and market analysts miss the mark or close their eyes to the obvious?
One explanation is that many of those who have written on this topic are (literally) out of touch with the technologies they describe. Unless you use touch screen technology on a daily basis, you are unlikely to “get” Windows 8. Another is that many do not get their work done using mobile technology and therefore experience little impact from not having mobile apps. Office available on the move.
When faced with the need to edit their presentation on the way to the conference or to edit and email a PDF, they simply shrug in resignation and console themselves with the idea that it has always been impossible. This, of course, is the classic default position of people and companies that are about to be relegated to the oblivion of the market by smarter and more agile competitors.
One way to get a direct appreciation for the way things are changing (as I recently did) is to make a personal Skype video call on a Windows Phone to a friend or family member, phone to phone, in a remote country. When you’ve sat on a train and talked face-to-face with your partner in front of the White House, you “understand” what the world of Windows is transforming into. SF’s beloved video phone has become a reality by an unexpected route: its reach is global and it is free.
Another reason for not seeing what the future holds in the medium term is the inability of many Western critics, especially in Europe, to appreciate the enormous production capacity and rapid response of Eastern manufacturers, such as Samsung, HTC, LG and especially Huawei. . the largest telecommunications manufacturer in the world. They all have Windows 8 licensed and all have dipped a toe in water with low-end devices, or expressed interest in doing so.
Nokia is propping up the Windows phone market virtually single-handed today, for the same strategic reasons as Microsoft. When sales figures show Windows Phone take off, these manufacturers will simply hit the “Push” button on their incredible manufacturing resources, just as they did with Windows PCs and laptops when the market was there. The exact timing depends on whether you are pessimistic or optimistic. Canalys says Windows Phone will catch up with iPhone in 2017. Other analysts believe Windows Phone will reach parity with Apple sooner.
In many respects, there is not much difference between Microsoft, Google, and Apple. But there is one. They all sell tech-related products for profit. All of them have identified smartphones as the most lucrative consumer toy. They all have formidable design and manufacturing powers. But only Microsoft has a strategy that integrates what it does with what companies and people need for business, as opposed to what they want for Christmas.
They all make toys for children. Microsoft also makes toys for adults.