So this is the grand scheme, eh?

[bsayegh]

Now that Nadella has taken over, it seems like the plan is to remove all creativity from the company. Xbox Entertainment Studios? Gone. McLaron? Gone. Xbox Music? Being scaled down (possibly gone).

All I have really heard about on the WP front is the release of some really low end Lumias. The cheap ones that sell in India and parts of Europe. The Xbox is now available without Kinect, which is basically the death of Kinect as a medium for console games. Reports of a high end WP phone being released, or at least announced, in November have been replaced with reports of a Spring 2015 release date.

So what is he doing other than pleasing investors? I understand that it is important to please investors, but it is also important to please customers. There is absolutely nothing about MS right now to get hyped over. Anything that could have been interesting has been scrapped.

I own a Windows Laptop, an Xbox, and a WP. I got them because I liked the creative ideas coming out of MS and thought they had an interesting vision. It seems like that interesting vision is getting lost, and my loyalty may go with it.

Does anyone know of anything that has been confirmed since Nadella took over that I should be excited about?

 

[MSFTisMIA]

I'm actually fine with much of these moves, except from a human cost perspective (no one likes to see people get fired). If the company was bleeding cash and the projects would bleed more cash, it is better to stop the bleeding early than too late.

I liked the unified idea they had but to hear that teams didn't even share code was troubling. That means that the old way of working has to go. I think they can add some of these things later, but right now streamlining is better in spite of the PR hit.

 

[Joey Balls]

I'm fine with "removing". It's not as if the current management has done anything worth while in the last 10 years. They need new minds (preferably open), and a completely new direction. This company can not continue what they have been doing if they actually want to survive this horrible tailspin they've been in for the past 10 years.

 

[RavenSword]

I'm actually totally fine with the moves being made. First of all, they had too many employees, they needed to downsize from that Nokia purchase. And I think the way there making their services platform agnostic is a great move for people like me that want to use MS services, but do t want to use a PC, SURFACE, and windows phone. I'd rather be able to choose which of this I'd want to use, if any, and then still be able to use their services if I, day, want to use a iPhone or iPad instead of a windows phone and surface. Or a Mac instead of a PC.

 

[bsayegh]

My only concern with what happened with Nokia is that it seems like a step away from improving their mobile platform. I guess I don't really know how bloated the company was, but laying of over 10,000 people sounds a bit extreme. Did MS just buy them for the patents?

My main concern, though, is that it seems like all of the ideas that may have been surprise success are being flushed down the toilet. I don't really like Google as a company, but they seem to let their ideas flourish. They release products and let consumers decide if it is a success. If it isn't, then oh well, try something else. I know MS cant really do that in the enterprise world, but they could for consumer products.

I have seen plenty of ideas from them that I never hear from again. There was that Xbox extension that would fill the room beyond the screen with images so that the game was more immersive. There was a product for corporate meetings where the user could tough floating icons that weren't actually on a screen or surface (it looked like Minority Report stuff). They were working on a way to almost perfect 1 to 1 motion detection between the screen on a mobile device and the finger touching it. These are ideas that I would love to see fleshed out, but probably never will.

Nadella seems willing to concede that the stigmas about MS are true. That its a boring company that builds cheap products for the business world, but doesn't offer much in the way of fun.

 

[HeyCori]

IMO, streamlining the company will allow Microsoft to innovate faster and be more efficient. Microsoft was definitely drifting into "jack of all trades, master of none" territory. Going forward, Microsoft has the opportunity to improve in key areas instead of stretching themselves thin. And while I wish Microsoft would announce some new high end Windows Phones already, I also realize that Microsoft probably doesn't want to play their hand early by announcing a new handset months before Samsung and Apple announce their fall lineup.

 

[bsayegh]

But they NEED to announce it around the same time as Samsung and Apple. They need to make it known that they are competing with these products. That there is an alternative. Release a high end WP that can do something that an iPhone or Galaxy cant do. Do something to differentiate WP from everyone else. Yes, we all like the layout and the tiles and such, but that has probably converted everyone that its going to convert.

They should be advertising as competitors, attacking the competition. Don't wait until everyone has already bought an iPhone or Galaxy to announce your next big phone. By then, your market has already shrunk.

P.S. Don't release anymore commercials that take swipes at the competition (they were kind of amusing but I don't think they worked).

 

[WanderingTraveler]

IMO, streamlining the company will allow Microsoft to innovate faster and be more efficient. Microsoft was definitely drifting into "jack of all trades, master of none" territory. Going forward, Microsoft has the opportunity to improve in key areas instead of stretching themselves thin. And while I wish Microsoft would announce some new high end Windows Phones already, I also realize that Microsoft probably doesn't want to play their hand early by announcing a new handset months before Samsung and Apple announce their fall lineup.

This. Though, a lot of the staff they cut were just hemorrhaging money (I believe that they acquired the entire Nokia (app++) Store and Multimedia center).

The problem with Microsoft is just that they have too much legacy baggage to support, which I can really blame on the years of being a monopoly.

Remember that monopolies need not be efficient to be profitable, but once you aren't one, you better be.

 

[11B1P]

...I wish Microsoft would announce some new high end Windows Phones already..

What makes a phone "high end"?
> The price? I don't want to pay $500 for a phone.
> The specs? Who cares if it has a quadrillion core processor. As long as it runs smooth and fast, efficient with the power management and battery usage. If it has a single core processor and runs better than the competition, that is fine with me.

 

[bsayegh]

Of course the definition of high end changes every day, but I think there are a few things that matter.

Does it have a great camera?
Can run multiple apps smoothly?
Can I play graphically-intensive games without lagging?
Does it have great battery life?
Is it future proof-ish?
Does it have enough storage?

A mid-range windows phone is great for the basics. It will take decent photos, have good battery life, and can handle the basic apps well. But I wouldn't want to play Modern Combat on a mid range phone, nor would I expect it to manage multiple apps very well. Not everybody needs a high end phone, but some of us want one and are willing to spend the money on it.

 

[rodan01]

IMO, with Ballmer, Microsoft was trying to enter in the consumer market with a full featured platform, at the same level than Google and Apple.

Now with Nadella, Microsoft is concentrated in their core competences. All the non-core consumer products in which they don't have an advantage or a good position are being axed. This void has to be filled by third party software/hardware.



In some sense it's a capitulation. But at the same time it opens new opportunities. They won't go after google and apple anymore, so they can differentiate.


For Nadella productivity is also for consumers. Cortana is a productivity tool for enterprise and consumer use. I guess we'll have to wait until 2015 to see what amazing productivity scenarios will only be possible in Windows.