Microsoft as a software company first.

[peterw1000]

There is lots a chatter about when will Microsoft bring out the next latest and greatest device, whats the next Surface going to look like? People tend to forget MS is a Software company first and foremost and hardware is something new to them, mainly designed to provoke the hardware industry into developing new device categories so they can sell the software that runs on them. Imagine a world full of 3rd party devices all capable of running Win 10, Win 10 IOT, ARM & Intel. Covering devices such as wearable's, small portable PC's, cars, workstations (VDI), AR/VR headgear, TV's and more, MS would never need to worry about expensive hardware development again but concentrate on providing the software to glue it all together. That's where the money and future lies for MS not developing hardware. They just need to get the ball rolling.

One analogy to this is, in France many years ago when there were only a few cars, Michelin weren't selling enough tyres. They came up with the idea of producing restaurant guide that would require people to drive around and sample the food at different locations, hence more people did more miles and bought more cars thus increasing tyre sales exponentially.

Provide a good enough reason and people will take it up.

Your thoughts?

 

[slepr]

I agree with some of this. I say some because I do like the quality and design of their hardware exploits.
Along the lines of getting back to the software business, I have never understood why they did not really invest some effort into app development when it became clear that independent developers were not jumping on board to create apps. I know that it is expensive to hire developers to create high quality apps to try to narrow the app-gap. However it is also expensive to develop hardware, but that continues and I am sure they do not make most of their income from hardware sales profits. IMO the next " ultimate mobile device" will fail if they do not do something on the software side to create compelling apps that fully utilize its capabilities. Do you risk alienating independent developers if you are creating apps that they are not submitting? Are there that many independent developers at this point? It seems if they can jump start this new device with solid app support then independent developers will come back as usage of the MS platform in mobile increases.

 

[jsjohnson1]

Blow up the current model for profit sharing on the app side of things. MS can't possibly get much revenue from UWP apps now and offering dev's a bigger slice of the pie will go a long way towards olive-branching MS's way to a better app environment which will drive more sales of the ecosystem. Hardware is absolutely necessary to push new form factors. Alexa sold Echos/Dots, not the hardware but without well designed, well integrated hardware to use Alexa, what good is it?