Transformation @ Microsoft

I wanted to offer my take on important changes I perceive at Microsoft.

Pastel Became Passe

Microsoft is evolving to stay relevant within a technological oligarchy ruled alongside Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook. Like the movie, Miami Vice, whose protagonists Sonny and Tubbs were transformed as gritty, cerebral and laconic -- in stark contrast to their original, television counterparts -- Microsoft realized that Yesterday's Microsoft would not survive Today. Beyond survival, in order to thrive the company must transform.

And indeed Bob, Clippy, Rover and the faceless, androgenous, interspecific progenitor that spawned them were euthanized; collateral damage of self-reinvention. Here's a highlight of other changes at Microsoft that separately may go unnoticed but together redefine the company's direction moving forward:

The Tree Isn't Far from the Apple

Microsoft finally beat Apple at design (once) and is refocusing efforts to improve user experience -- comparatively its most-glaring software deficiency. Is Microsoft also stumbling along the way? Undoubtedly -- while also improving.

Ammunition and Now Guns

With the acquisition of Nokia's devices and service division and release of the Surface family of consumer hardware products Microsoft is suddenly also a devices company. While still lagging behind the likes of Samsung and Sony, it is playing ball on the same field as the big leaguers.

Sharing is Caring

Microsoft has embraced open source software development as a value. More on this and why it maters later.

Their Foot In More Doors

Microsoft is invading living rooms -- Xbox continues to position the company within the increasingly unsettled consumer entertainment market prior to the (inevitable) collapse of cable TV. The acquisition of Yammer affords Microsoft social networking capabilities within B2B which it already dominates; heretofore a space that LinkedIn has championed uncontested.

E Pluribus Unum

Even Microsoft products and brands, a perpetually disparate spaghetti, are transcending into integrated service offerings (Office, Visual Studio are now available on the Cloud -- XBox on Azure, common UX between Windows phone and Windows etc) that play nicely with eachother. Additionally, at long last the branding of these product offerings is consistent!

"Steve? Steve Who?"

Microsoft hired a new CEO - only the third in its history. Gone is the bombastic, odd Steve Ballmer; in his place a pragmatic, 'more efficiently designed' engineer Satya Nadella.

In Summary the transformative reinvention of Microsoft, a company long considered awkward and uncool, is occuring:

There's Just One More Thing...

Is this perspective into the transformation of Microsoft profound? No. However, I believe the changes the company is making are deserving of notice. This capable, overlooked Microsoft might just be the Coloumbo that solves the mystery of how to succeed across a myriad of competitive landscapes where others have not; the Cladius that ascends to power, the Steve Urkel who hits a game winner.

My next post will center upon developing enterprise software on Microsoft's tech stack from the context of these evolving paradigms.