By now almost everyone who follows semiconductor and consumer computing markets must be aware of Satya Nadella becoming CEO of Microsoft. For anyone to be CEO of a company with such great heritage is an honor. As an Indian living in America, it is definitely a proud moment. He now joins the elite status of people like Vinod Khosla,Indra Nooyi etc. Congratulations to him and good luck to Microsoft in its future direction.
I read the first email sent by Satya to his employees. It is plain and simple as you can expect from Satya, if you have to believe what news reports say about his personality. Here are some of my thoughts on his statements. Please remember these are my thoughts, what I felt and I in noway deem to be an expect critic at the matter. Anyway, here you go..
First para:
"I saw then how clearly we empower people to do magical things with our creations and ultimately make the world a better place."
Initially I thought what is he talking about? Microsoft empower people to do magical things? What magical things are we talking about? Given the current brand image of microsoft, it might be difficult for consumers who use tablets and smartphones to realize that it was Microsoft that made consumer usage software ubiquitous, with its Windows roll out. That change along with Apple's products changed the computing world forever. When it started, it must have been magical for people. So I'll say even though today his statement might sound pompous and frankly unreal, I do understand the spirit in which he said it.
Third para:
"While we have seen great success, we are hungry to do more."
This is very interesting. In my view, the statement should be read: "while we have seen great success, we are starved to do more."
The next statement reads: "Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation"
I can't agree more. You let your guard down for a moment and you are eaten alive. Look around to see how many companies used to exist at the turn of century in consumer computing space and see how many are left now. Companies that didn't innovate or didn't copy enough of the innovation being done by their competitors just perished. Whether MS innovated enough or not is a different question. However it did keep up with the innovation, closely, may be clumsily following the competitors.
The para ends with "Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world". Well this is as of today. As such MS was late to jump on to mobile and cloud computing. However, as I said given the money it has, it could gobble up smaller companies that are marching ahead in innovation. However, these smaller companies have problems: how to tackle heavy investment demanding devices like tablets and smartphones. I think that's where MS can help small companies. What surprises me is, how and why did he end this para with such a statement. As of today, mobile and cloud are the happening things. I expected he would say something like, "our job is to keep MS leads new frontiers of the new technologies, including the current mobile and cloud", but well its me. I thought the context switched midway, from a very long term to mid-term view.
I read the first email sent by Satya to his employees. It is plain and simple as you can expect from Satya, if you have to believe what news reports say about his personality. Here are some of my thoughts on his statements. Please remember these are my thoughts, what I felt and I in noway deem to be an expect critic at the matter. Anyway, here you go..
First para:
"I saw then how clearly we empower people to do magical things with our creations and ultimately make the world a better place."
Initially I thought what is he talking about? Microsoft empower people to do magical things? What magical things are we talking about? Given the current brand image of microsoft, it might be difficult for consumers who use tablets and smartphones to realize that it was Microsoft that made consumer usage software ubiquitous, with its Windows roll out. That change along with Apple's products changed the computing world forever. When it started, it must have been magical for people. So I'll say even though today his statement might sound pompous and frankly unreal, I do understand the spirit in which he said it.
Third para:
"While we have seen great success, we are hungry to do more."
This is very interesting. In my view, the statement should be read: "while we have seen great success, we are starved to do more."
The next statement reads: "Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation"
I can't agree more. You let your guard down for a moment and you are eaten alive. Look around to see how many companies used to exist at the turn of century in consumer computing space and see how many are left now. Companies that didn't innovate or didn't copy enough of the innovation being done by their competitors just perished. Whether MS innovated enough or not is a different question. However it did keep up with the innovation, closely, may be clumsily following the competitors.
The para ends with "Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world". Well this is as of today. As such MS was late to jump on to mobile and cloud computing. However, as I said given the money it has, it could gobble up smaller companies that are marching ahead in innovation. However, these smaller companies have problems: how to tackle heavy investment demanding devices like tablets and smartphones. I think that's where MS can help small companies. What surprises me is, how and why did he end this para with such a statement. As of today, mobile and cloud are the happening things. I expected he would say something like, "our job is to keep MS leads new frontiers of the new technologies, including the current mobile and cloud", but well its me. I thought the context switched midway, from a very long term to mid-term view.
2 comments:
Maybe thriving is their biggest challenge at the moment rather than leading! Interesting views though!
@Chaitu: Given the talent and the number of people they have, they can easily thrive. I think they just need good direction. Sometimes, you will have to lose a battle to win the war. Look at IBM for example, they keep changing their focus as and when something becomes common place. Given the money MS has in its bank and the market cap, it can take risks to move the technology ahead, rather than competing with everyone.
It could also be a cultural problem. I am also in a company where the internal culture doesnt allow company to be agile. I guess companies like Amazon have ingrained the agility into their culture. If MS can do the same, I am sure they will come ahead.
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