Good Luck Microsoft

Microsoft have appointed Satya Nadella as their new CEO. He’s an internal hire, but from the services bit which includes Azure.

Microsoft have appointed Satya Nadella as their new CEO. He’s an internal hire, but from the services bit which includes Azure. Although everybody is playing catch up to Amazon Web Services, Azure has a number of features that are interesting: getting that cloud computing isn’t just about easy access to disposable servers.

Microsoft today is like the uncle who’s was great when you were a kid, got you interested in stuff, and has now fallen on hard times.

Maybe I’m just biased because I like Office (which makes me a minority I know), but I don’t want a world where there isn’t Microsoft. Google Docs is great for sharing or collaboration documents, Apples iWork is great for simple documents, and well I’m sure OpenOffice is good for something.

Microsoft Research produces so many good ideas, or clever ideas, or just the plain “hey we had a random idea” ideas. They don’t many to use that many of these, so many of them are impractical with current tech. But the ideas are there, at some level the company still tries to innovate.

That innovation doesn’t come easily however, as Windows 8 and attempts for a converged desktop/mobile/tablet interface have shown. The company doesn’t have that Apple confidence of “this is the way we scroll now”. Appeasing the fans of the legacy will not help them move on. Perhaps when the company has a better idea of what the “new” Microsoft is, selling those ideas will be a bit easier.

I may well be a Mac and iOS user now, but I think if I was going to switch phones, it would be for a Windows Phone. A bit like the Palm Pre, or Blackberry’s ultimately doomed Blackberry 10 operating system, Windows Phone didn’t feel like it started off with the requirement “be like iOS”. Android and iOS are really converging in many ways, features hopping from one to the other.

For that reason alone, I would like Microsoft to do well in the future: much like the Shuttle’s fifth computer, I think we need a strong third platform in the mobile market.