Its not every day that we get to watch a company that helped make personal computing a reality reinvent itself. Yet that is exactly what we are watching as Microsoft inches closer to one of its biggest operating system launches to date. Not only is this launch critical to Microsoft’s future, but so is the journey it will embark upon to reinvent itself.
Creating Software for the New Era
The computing devices that have helped make Microsoft what it is today are not the mainstream computing devices of the future. Of course, things like notebooks and desktops play a role in the computing ecosystem but in my opinion, devices like tablets, smartphones, and perhaps even some new devices represent what will consume the bulk of our personal computing time.
This means that Microsoft needs to reinvent itself for this new era of computing. There was a time when the computing devices driving the industry were primarily running Microsoft software. However, in today’s world that is no longer the case.
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The more I study the trends in the industry, the more I’m convinced that Microsoft’s future depends on it becoming a hardware-agnostic software company. Throughout most of Microsoft’s history, its major innovations and value have been strictly limited to companies who license Microsoft’s software platform, Windows. This worked in a Windows-dominated world, but with the role of smartphones, tablets, and even shifting tides in notebooks and desktops, it’s no longer a Windows-dominated world. I don’t believe we’ll see a Windows-dominated world again like we did as the computing industry was maturing. Leer más “We Are Watching the Reinvention of Microsoft”
