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Should Microsoft sell Windows and Office? This former exec believes so:
A former Microsoft executive has offered up some advice for current CEO Satya Nadella: spin off Windows and Office and focus on Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing crown jewel.
Ben Slivka, a 14-year veteran at Microsoft who left in 1999, gave the unsolicited advice to Nadella in an interview with CNBC, saying: "The right thing probably is to bet the future on the cloud."
[...] On top of this, Nadella invested heavily in building out Azure and other enterprise-focused offerings to compete with Amazon's AWS and Google Cloud. By some estimates, Azure hold 20% of the cloud market, below AWS' 32% and above Google's 9%.
According to analysts that CNBC spoke to, spinning off Windows and Office would make very little sense. Nadella has built significant and much-needed synergies between Microsoft's various businesses, in such a way that the rise of one boosts the others.
So what do you think?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday January 13 2022, @08:00PM (2 children)
Relying on "piracy" is how Microsoft established its market in China.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by isostatic on Thursday January 13 2022, @11:25PM (1 child)
s/China/the world/
Back in the 90s the casual copying of windows and office from the office to home, and from the computer expert to everyone in the street, meant that everyone used Microsoft
This has two effects
1) made windows/office the standard as everyone used it
2) prevented any other system from gaining a foothold as it was always cheaper to use windows/office
It wasn’t until the 2000s that Microsoft started to put even a modicum of effort into preventing copying it, and then onpy really in the west. “Piracy” was rampant in the Far East for years after that.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday January 14 2022, @10:52PM
The Microsoft executive responsible for marketing in China was actually praised and rewarded for his strategy there, which consisted of encouraging "piracy".