Microsoft's enterprise software is really, really good. Active Directory, SQL Server, Azure, C# and Visual Studio are all amazing. They also make tons of money, and MS is really good at managing them as cash cows over time.<p>Not coincidentally, they just put the Cloud and Enterprise guy in charge of the company.
The article misses a very important thing Microsoft still does very well: makes money [0]. Irrespective of one's opinion on the quality of their products, they still produce software the provides value for real people. They employ a ton of people, all across the world [1]. Microsoft may have lost a decade in the visible consumer segment (mobile phones, tablets), but they still make <i>boring, profitable, enterprise</i> software that helps them on their way to $22B in annual profit. They're not shrinking either, according to their fast facts page [1]. Microsoft still does business <i>very, very well</i>. Even though I personally don't like most of their products, I'm genuinely excited by the change of CEO, because Microsoft has the resources (perhaps not the culture) to build awesome new technology in the next few years.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/msft" rel="nofollow">http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/msft</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx</a>
It's time to stop joking about IE like that. IE 11 is a fine Web browser these days. Yes, it took them a while to catch back up, but they have and they're a genuinely modern browser today. Firefox is still a better browser, for a good number of reasons, not the least of which is Mozilla's mission to put users and the health of the Internet first, but Microsoft engineers working on IE for the last few years deserve more credit than they're getting. Shouldn't we be cheering for them to build the best they can instead of insulting them?
Yes, the Xbox 360 has been a success in the US (beating the PS3), but in <i>every</i> other market than the US, the PS3 has beaten the Xbox 360.[1] And the article in question is very US-centric on that regard. I am not saying the Xbox is necessarily bad, but is it better than the PlayStation? I think that's rather subjective.<p>Although I hear that neither Sony nor Microsoft has made a lot of money from their console adventures.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_%28seventh_generation%29#Sales_standings" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_...</a>
I guess this is consumer focused as it missed some of the real MS Gold - Azure, MSSQL, Visual Studio, C#.<p>However, on the consumer path this interested me:<p>>As the console gaming industry evolves (dies?), Nadella needs to convince America that the Xbox is truly a living room feature, not simply a gaming device. If he can sell that concept, Microsoft will leapfrog Sony and recapture the lead.<p>Despite the claims of the "living room console" being made for years, I really can't find any evidence for it. I can't see why a $499 console will beat out an $99 Apple TV for OTT entertainment in the larger consumer market. I still think this idea that the gaming console will become "the box" is an idea that has roots in the early 2000s, where people only have 1, maybe 2 televisions at home. If "John Jr." is playing video games for 4 hrs/day, I commonly see he does it in his room, not in the living room where he can impede on "John Sr."'s decision to watch the Netflix. Sure they could buy 2 Xbox Ones, but John Sr. doesn't really need all that gaming power.
Microsoft might be /okay/ at doing a Mobile OS; they are, however, at the mercy of the platform drivers, and this recently drove me away from my perfectly-fine-except-for-one-killer-bug Nokia 920.<p>Something deep in the Nokia 920 was turning on and spinning the CPU like mad; the unit would heat up and drain the battery by mid day. Nothing I could do fixed it; I waited through two system updates and it was never fully addressed. (AT&T was never very quick about releasing updates, either; separate problem). I finally downgraded to an iPhone a few weeks ago. I can use the iPhone all day without worrying about the battery, but the mail client (which I use constantly) is a <i>lot</i> more clumsy to use than the one on the Windows phone.<p>Microsoft is at the mercy of bad little code monkeys who write drivers at the BSP (Board Support Package) level, which are usually done at contract houses like BSquare. The code I've seen some out of these places has been . . . marginal. In the cases I've had to use it, I've usually wound up rewriting a lot of it. You get code that passes tests, but that's about the only bar for acceptance; internally the code is usually badly organized spaghetti whose mission is to pass the tests, and that's it.<p>You want the driver-level code in your system to be ROCK SOLID. If you contract this work out, you're going to need a great acceptance system [code and design reviews, because automated systems like WHQL are inadequate and get gamed anyway], a way to update drivers in the field so that mistakes can be corrected quickly [phone releases seem to happen every 9 months or so, so <i>nope</i>], and you want to be able to get good feedback from customers [looks at AT&T . . . sighs].<p>A phone is a top-to-bottom thing; blow one level and you've got a bad product. Microsoft hasn't really figured this out yet; maybe with the Nokia purchase they'll have a full stack and finally do everything right.
This article mixes two things - things that Microsoft does well from a UX perspective (like Windows phone 8) and things it does well in terms of sales and profitability, like Microsoft Office (which arguably is not very well designed in terms of UX).<p>This is true of other large software comapnies too: Adobe with their Creative Suite and Google with Android - both successful in terms of sales, but arguably very uneven in their usability (in my opinion).
It's a good article, but I'm not sure about one line used in describing Microsoft Office users:<p>"extremely loyal user base"<p>Is it really loyalty? Or is it inertia (people learned it once upon a time) combined with lock-in (everyone else is sharing documents in this proprietary format)?