Satya Nadella takes over Microsoft, Elop takes over Xbox
Replacing the lunatic used car salesman Steve Ballmer with Microsoft’s mysterious “cloud” guy is a very clear message about what the Board of Directors at Microsoft believe is the impending challenge of times: mobile devices and online services replacing traditional client-server business networks and home PC’s.
This is a topic I’ve wanted to rant about for a long time, after reading Nicholas Carr’s fascinating 2008 book “The Big Switch”, which specifically talks about the inevitable change to a cloud future, before the term “cloud computing” became popularized. He predicts Microsoft’s struggle to keep up with Amazon and Google in this realm (Amazon’s Web Services are phenomenally successful, while everything Google-related is operated online thanks to their cloud-computing) while the sleek, agile mobile devices makes owning “powerful hardware” seem yucky and outdated.
Nadella has no illusions about this transformation, and was responsible for getting Microsoft’s foot in the right door. Look at this excerpt from the company letter he gave just today:
While we have seen great success, we are hungry to do more. Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation. This is a critical time for the industry and for Microsoft. Make no mistake, we are headed for greater places — as technology evolves and we evolve with and ahead of it. Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world.
Nadella does not respect the traditional model, in which consumers (businesses or individuals) own powerful hardware and Microsoft helps them install and maintain complicated services on it. It’s a “mobile and cloud-first world”.
What does this say about Xbox, or the other big hardware attempt, Surface?
He named Stephen Elop to be head of devices, which includes Xbox and Surface. This, just months after unconfirmed reports that Elop wanted to get rid of the Xbox and Bing divisions entirely if he became CEO. Whether those reports are true or not, it should be clear that non-mobile hardware will get knocked down the ladder, especially when we look at the PR video Microsoft released where Nadella says that he wants to “ruthlessly remove obstacles to innovation”. Innovation = (Mobile + Cloud). Obstacles = Tradition = Computers.