With one year under his belt, Microsoft Corp chief executive Satya Nadella has made strides in changing the focus of the technology giant that some feared was turning into a dinosaur.
Nadella, who took over from Steve Ballmer in February last year, has been moving to make Microsoft more relevant in the new tech world led by mobile-focused rivals such as Apple Inc and Google Inc.
Microsoft, which can no longer rest on its PC dominance with its Windows operating system, has taken a page from the playbook of the late Steve Jobs at Apple — providing software like Office for free on rival devices like the iPad and Android-powered tablets.
Photo: Bloomberg
Nadella also managed to surprise and wow people with Microsoft’s HoloLens goggles, delivering holograms and hitting a sweet spot between Google Glass and virtual reality headgear.
“He hasn’t solved all problems, but he’s made moves in the right direction strategically,” Forrester Research Inc analyst J.P. Gownder said.
Even though many of the new things unveiled were in the works for years, Nadella appears to have injected new energy into the Redmond, Washington-based tech powerhouse.
Gownder said it was “a wise move” to bring popular Microsoft programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint to Android and Apple devices, because Windows has been slow to gain traction in the mobile universe.
“When you have software, you have to run that software where the customers are,” instead of using it as “a weapon” in a war of operating systems, he said.
In a move aimed at reaching a younger tech user base, Microsoft agreed in September last year to buy Swedish group Mojang AB, who is behind the hugely popular video game Minecraft, for US$2.5 billion, bolstering its gaming division.
The deal for Mojang gives Microsoft one of the best-known video games of all time — one which is played on game consoles as well as PCs and mobile devices.
“Microsoft is a different company now. Microsoft is not making stupid mistakes,” Global Equities Research LLC’s Trip Chowdhry said.
“This year is more of a reinvention and restrategizing year … when the company may have some progress on initiatives like mobile and cloud,” Chowdhry said.
Nadella has made some missteps, notably in comments suggesting working women should trust “karma” when it comes to securing pay raises, but quickly moved to back away from the controversy.
He ordered the biggest reorganization in Microsoft’s history, cutting some 18,000 jobs — or 14 percent of the workforce — under a plan aimed at simplifying the corporate structure and integrating the mobile division of Finland’s Nokia Oyj.
Wall Street has been happy with the new leadership — Microsoft shares gained 36 percent in Nadella’s first eight months, but pulled back early this year.
Nadella, 47, has been pressing cloud and mobile computing since taking the reins, and is seeing some progress in areas like the Azure cloud platform for business.
However, Microsoft still faces a big test with its upcoming Windows 10 platform, which aims to keep PC users while also powering mobile phones and tablets.
About 1.5 billion people around the world use Windows-powered computers, and Microsoft is intent on renewing its relevance in an age of mobile computing; the new platform is being designed with feedback from millions of “insiders” testing early versions of the operating system.
Microsoft needs to remake its business, which had been based on one-time Windows license sales, to a new model for the mobile world, analysts said.
BGC Partners Inc’s Colin Gillis said the plan appears to be working.
“We remain positive on the efforts to reshape Microsoft into a recurring revenue, subscription-based business,” he said.
Gillis said this means some “turbulence” as higher-margin software license sales are replaced with lower-margin subscriptions.
Windows 10 will be crucial for Microsoft, which is hoping to win over developers, as well as users, with a platform that works on mobile devices as well as PCs.
Windows 10 is “the best opportunity yet for Microsoft to come back in the game in mobile,” Gownder said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day