IMO Microsoft has made progress, but has clearly not turned the corner. Nadella made a good start, it just isn't enough.<p>Let's keep the hate aside and forget MS's past. The biggest problem facing MS now is the loss of mind share on the Windows platform. The brightest minds aren't programming on Microsoft platforms if you look at colleges and conferences worldwide. This cannot be reversed; Open Source products are now technically superior, the community is very well organized, and it is free. Interesting research, frameworks, libraries and programming languages spawn on Open Source before they show up (if ever) on Windows. Windows engines have run out; though they will keep going for a while.<p>MS had a great run for over twenty years because the entire world ran on DOS and then Windows. That gave them enormous influence and power, power to make mistakes, fail over and over, and yet succeed. The real challenge will be in adapting to a future in which Windows is irrelevant. The long-term future of Azure, Windows Phone, Windows Desktop, Windows Server and their overpriced Office Tools looks bleak to me.
I have this theory, a companies culture is essential to being successful in a particular market... but that same culture also is the reason why it is not able to excel in another seemingly related area. The hard part, is that they seemingly are capable of participating in that market as it transitions, but they are probably not optimized for this new market, and in this winner takes the majority way of technology, they will get beat 100% of the time. Let's consider the history of companies, and technology.<p>When computers were large, and only government and fortune 500's could afford them IBM was a dominate force. When they got cheaper/more common. They still participated, but Microsoft came to dominate this new particular market. As Bill gates himself said, the hardware was now a commodity (but not for IBM's customers) it was the software that was valuable. It took a different company culture to rule that market.<p>In mobile, hardware has not been successfully made into a commodity. Apple as a mobile company looked more like IBM as a mainframe company. So far they've done a great job at sticking to their niche. They excel at making consumer friendly hardware devices, with supporting software.<p>Google obviously has mastered building free cloud services for consumers, however they seem to fail in every endeavor that's different. They struggle to understand people as people, and really haven't developed a company culture to build great products for them.<p>I think Microsoft is making progress on reducing the scope of sub optimal market's they are attacking, and is currently in the process of defining a culture to attack this new narrower scope. They may just be successful.
Microsoft has been "dying" for as long as I can remember.<p>The truth, however, is that they have continued to be a very healthy and well run business for far, far longer than any of their peers can ever claim.<p>The "Microsoft is in crisis" meme has always been popular but has never even remotely come close to being true.
I've said this earlier and as an iOS developer, I am excited for the new Microsoft. Some of the best minds in programming (ScottGu, SHanselmann, etc) are behind this new face of MS and they're well know for their contribution to opens source.<p>I think this is a win-win-win situation for Developers, Enterprises and Microsoft.
I'm struck by how the tech media deems every other Windows release a "disaster" that Microsoft has to recover from, yet Windows marches on and each version is actually quite stable and usable.<p>From the article "In desktop, the upcoming Windows 10 promises to fix the damage wrought by Windows 8, appealing to both desktop users, as well as the "corridor warrior" tablet devotees."<p>I have run every Windows OS since 3.1 and used all of the "duds" exclusively (as did almost the entire PC world).<p>I'm currently using Windows 8 and if you get beyond the "surface outrage" repeated insistently by the tech media, it's the same Windows that you use (and love - gasp!) exactly like Windows 7, or Vista, or XP, or 2000 or 98.<p>We all need to look beyond the "2 hour" blog review which all to commonly throws an entire product under the bus when the author spent all of a couple hours using it.
I've reached the indifference stage of my relationship with Microsoft. They just aren't relevant to me. And I don't say that insultingly: tech is a huge ecosystem and there are more companies that aren't relevant to me than are. (but I understand they're super relevant to a lot of people. cool.)<p>Therefore, I feel that I can unemotional say: the patent lawsuits are a massive issue when it comes to talking about a "new" Microsoft. It's a major issue for me. Software patents are bad, and as long as they're using them offensively (and at this point, it would take a very long time before I trusted them to use them defensively), I'm not sure how justified the celebration of "open" and "new" is.
Microsoft is changing under Nadella but you can't tell if it has recovered for a few years yet. Windows and Office are under attack from multiple fronts.
More people are joining OSX every year. Schools and other institutions are moving to Chromebooks and Google apps.
It might not seem a big deal at the moment but Microsoft major strength was the they had people locked in and used to their apps.
Now web based games and applications are slowly weaning people off the Microsoft ecosystem.
Effect of it wont show for a few years yet so Microsoft has a chance to be the part of it.
And Nadella's moves so far have shown that they see it happening and have started positioning it for it.
But its to soon to tell if they have recovered or not.
Recovery of what exactly? Just because a bunch of mid-twenties think Microsoft isn't hip anymore doesn't mean Microsoft is somehow slowly collapsing. They are still making billions in profits, their stock is climbing and all of their platforms are rising in popularity.
Microsoft is behind in the game. It´s starting (only now) to focus on cloud and mobile. It´s like they are chasing the big players. But they should be leading the changes in the industry.
IMO it´s a natural consequence of the past decade's focus: personal computers. To be the top player at 1999 on this high demand market, they had to focus. And now they need to reinvent their entire business. It´s hard, but hey have some advantages: good people (as this new CEO) and money, tons of it.
This seems like a very premature post. Microsoft still hasn't tackled mobile, and the latest reports show Windows Phone to be declining at a fast rate. Its market share in China is now less than at launch.