Microsoft announced a major reorg today, so here’s the strategy document and email to employees from CEO Steve Ballmer, in their entirety:
Transforming Our Company
As the times change, so must our company.
In the 37 years that Microsoft has been helping to improve people’s lives by helping them to realize their own potential with technology, we have seen exactly the kind of transformation we had hoped for when we set out to put a PC on every desk and in every home. Personal technology has developed from an idea to an everyday experience, reaching and connecting billions of people.
With the more recent growth of broadband and the mobile Internet as well as the development of newer devices such as tablets and smartphones, consumers’ experiences and use of technology have fundamentally changed again. We have entered an always-on, always-connected era that holds new promise for what technology can bring to people’s lives and to businesses everywhere on the planet. And this gives us an opportunity to help people lean in and do more in every part of their lives.
A few years ago in a speech I gave at CES, I observed that there was a shift underway. We were headed from a phone, a PC and a TV to simply three screens and a cloud — and over time, a common software-based intelligence would drive all of these devices, bringing them together into one experience for the consumer.
As devices proliferate, it has become clearer that consumers crave one experience across all of their technology. Yet today, they often face different experiences on their PC as compared to their phone or their tablet. As technology moves from people’s desks to everywhere in their lives, it should become simpler, not more complex. And our products and services should operate as one experience across every device.
Together, the leadership team looked at how we could renew and reorient Microsoft for this new time. We focused on how we could continue our mission of improving and empowering people’s lives through technology but with a new North Star far beyond putting a PC on every desk and in every home.
In the end, we realized our strengths are in high-value activities, powering devices and enterprise services. And we realized we could bring those strengths together in a unique, differentiated experience that will delight consumers and customers.
Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most.
To take advantage of our critical competitive assets, we will center our work on the following:
• A business model based on partner and first-party devices with both consumer and enterprise services
• Optimization for activities people value most
• A family of devices powered by a service-enabled shell
• Design for enterprise extensibility and enterprise needs
These will be key guiding principles as we design and create the next generation of new and amazing experiences that drive our family of devices and services to market in this fast-changing and highly competitive world. We will at the same time continue to build upon and expand the base we have in enterprise services and adapt them to the latest trends developing in the workplace.
Building upon Windows, Xbox and our growing suite of consumer and enterprise services, we will design, create and deliver through us and through third parties a complete family of Windows-powered devices — devices that can help people just as much in their work life as they do after hours. Devices that help people do more and play harder.
We will strive for a single experience for everything in a person’s life that matters. One experience, one company, one set of learnings, one set of apps, and one personal library of entertainment, photos and information everywhere. One store for everything. Microsoft has the clear opportunity to offer consumers a unified experience across all aspects of their life, whether the screen is a small wearable, a phone, a tablet, an 85-inch display or other screens and devices we have not yet even imagined.
Look at our tremendous assets. We have a super-intelligent cloud that understands people and can solve problems for them. We have a platform that is adaptable to every screen — big, small, mobile, institutional, personal and even wearable — and is defined by a set of universal services that meet people’s needs at home, work and school. We have a gaming and home entertainment platform second to none. We excel not only at the things people do most often but also by what matters the most to them. Our platform, services and apps are not limited just to activities in people’s personal lives but also span their professional lives. We have focused not only on what matters most to individuals but also on what’s vital to businesses around the globe, IT managers and developers.
In the critical choice today of digital ecosystems, Microsoft has an unmatched advantage in work and productivity experiences, and has a unique ability to drive unified services for everything from tasks and documents to entertainment, games and communications. I am convinced that by deploying our smart-cloud assets across a range of devices, we can make Windows devices once again the devices to own. Other companies provide strong experiences, but in their own way they are each fragmented and limited. Microsoft is best positioned to take advantage of the power of one, and bring it to our over 1 billion users.
Defining Our Way Forward
In moving to a strategy of devices and integrated services, we are driven by history, market reality and opportunity.
From the delivery of the first PC and even the first Xbox, our magic has always been in bringing devices alive with services that made them highly valuable to consumers. For decades, our software has been at the core of what our OEMs build and what enterprises deploy to make their workers productive. We are bringing the power of touch to phones, tablets and PCs with our new Windows 8 software. Our Kinect is the first sensor that offers fully natural input with you as the controller. As devices of all kinds become an integral part of our daily routine, the power to bring them alive in new ways will become even more important and valuable.
On top of this, we have been building an expanding base of consumer services — Bing, Skype, Internet Explorer, SkyDrive, Outlook and Xbox entertainment services. They all deliver critical services that consumers need in the areas of insight and information, task completion, communication and fun. We have been investing in and advancing each of these key applications. Office, Office 365 and other enterprise assets give us unique advantages in the workplace while Azure is opening up the cloud to more and more enterprises.
The bedrock of our new strategy is innovation in deep, rich, high-value experiences and activities. It’s the starting point for differentiated devices integrated with services. It’s at the core of how we will inspire ourselves all to do our best work and bring to our customers the very things that will make a difference in their lives.
Most of the time, people use technology casually — listening to a quick song, finding a movie, catching up on the news on Flipboard, playing Angry Birds or checking in on Facebook. We will make sure our consumers can do the everyday well. But people also turn to technology for more important tasks in their lives — and we will focus our energies on creating new, memorable and even extraordinary experiences across our family of devices and services. Think of the student stuck on that term paper looking to display all his creativity in ways that will get him an A+; the family that’s getting together for a reunion and wants the delightful memories to last forever online; the gamer who is taking his fantasy team to the playoffs; or any of us who could be faced with a tough medical decision and needs to plan care and finances.
Such high-value activities include the full breadth and depth of areas like personal expression, decision-making and tasks, social communication, and serious fun — and we have both the drive and the capacity to reinvent these experiences for people across the globe.
Reinventing expression and documents. People love and need...Read the rest of this post---->
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