Microsoft’s Reboot

As many know, I haven’t been a fan of Microsoft in recent years. This interesting article (from Vanity Fair, of all places, complete with an Annie Leibovitz photograph) puts the “financial model” angle more front and center in my thinking. Perhaps with Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft will move faster and transform themselves.

In the end, Microsoft’s pricing model that makes many of us wonder why we pay so much may be a key factor in allowing Microsoft to sustain the path to reinvention and stability that we need in this turbulent cloud environment. Will upstart cloud solution providers (Box.com, Salesforce, Workday, etc.) that are running at significant losses and depend on successive venture capital rounds (or very patient stockholders) be able to find a sustainable business model? Or will they succumb to being purchased and then be subject to a turbulent integration period? Alternatively, do we in the SMB space have the skill, patience, investment ability and lead-time to make our own “best of breed” decisions to have our own ecosystem of solutions?

Perhaps the recycled “IBM” mantra of the 70s and 80s goes something like, “Nobody ever got fired for waiting for Microsoft.”

Here is a more negative slant on Microsoft’s relevance.

See also my previous comments from April 2014  on Teaching Microsoft to Dance.