Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts

Friday, April 19, 2013

What’s Apple’s biggest challenge: replacing Steve or Wall Street?

Steve Jobs’ influence on Apple was pervasive – maybe too much. Prof. James L. Heskett of Harvard Business School questions in an HBS working knowledge paper on whether Apple faces an almost impossible task in replacing the visionary founder.

Discussions of management succession have been triggered once again in boardrooms around the world by Steve Jobs’ demise. Regarding Apple, of course, the question is what will the Jobs-loss mean for its future? If leaders often become “cult heroes,” to use a term coined by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Steve Jobs was the cult hero’s cult hero. The assumption is that cult heroes are unique, one of a kind, impossible to replace, and that succession is the biggest challenge facing any company led by one. But is this the real problem confronting the company with the departure of a Steve Jobs?

Apple watchers cite several important contributors to the company’s success: 1) Its product development relies less on finding out what customers want than it does on what its employees think would be “cool”; 2) Its strategy is based on the introduction of a stream of thoroughly tested and proven products and new models, all based on a common platform, that often cannibalise each other, and that are simple, elegant, and easy to use; 3) It borrows good ideas from organisations such as Xerox and Gap but practices secrecy with its own ideas; 4) Its strengths and interests reflect its cofounder’s interest in hardware, not software. Possibly as a result, it relies heavily on partnering with others in the development of application software; 5) Its product development is organised around sometimes competing teams operating under a regime with the philosophy that “The system is, there is no system … (as opposed to discipline and) great processes,” as Jobs put it.

All of this occurred under the leadership of a person who practiced hands-on management, sometimes personally making detailed decisions. Jobs’ influence on Apple was pervasive. As one visitor observed, designers are the most respected people in the organisation at Apple, as opposed to Microsoft where the technical people rule.

In some respects, Apple’s experience with Jobs has parallels with Starbucks’ history with Howard Schultz, also a hands-on, detail-oriented leader who created the innovative concept of a “third place” outside the home and workplace where customers could enjoy an experience that included great coffee. However, after he stepped away from the CEO’s job (in 2000), Schultz watched apprehensively as new competitors entered the market and his successors succumbed to Wall Street’s expectations for even greater success than Starbucks’ had enjoyed under Schultz. Wall Street demanded increasing growth, internationalisation, better productivity, and new products. And Schultz’s successors responded by opening up to 5 new stores per day; extending business to new foreign markets; introducing a faster, higher capacity espresso machine that, because of its bulk, created a barrier between the barista and the customer; and offering new products. In 2008, Schultz had to step back in to save the company.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

How to improve the lives of the poorest people on the planet?

“The biggest change for me – and it’s a major change – will be to think about how to improve the lives of the poorest people on the planet, whether they need education, to increase their harvest, or to find better medical treatment...”

Q: And you don’t regret anything?
A: Of course I can look back and think about some people I recruited, about certain times I acted naive, about acquisitions we made, or about things we could have launched sooner. But I wouldn’t change anything, because it’s a dream come true to have been able to play such an important role. We learned as we went along, including from our mistakes, because we were the first company to believe in the personal computer. The entire industry has expanded around our Basic operating system, then MS-DOS and, finally, Windows.

Q: But the PC isn’t the centre of everything now.
A: I’m talking about software, not the PC, that incredible object, thanks to which the Internet emerged. We shouldn’t downplay the role of the PC, but here it’s a software question. Thanks to software, we are revolutionising TV, the way you drive your car, the way you use your cell phone. We stayed away from hardware on purpose, but when you see those new ultra-portable computers replacing school notebooks and many PCs in business, you can’t underestimate their importance.

Q: But the distribution of this software has evolved, upsetting your business model.
A: Major breakthroughs have been made in graphic interfaces and the power of personal applications that allow you, for example, to exchange business plans remotely. A new language has been created that allows us to do things. Everything goes through fibre optics. That’s how Microsoft was created, on the idea that advances in hardware and software would allow us to be more ambitious. That’s why when we founded this company we said, “A computer in every home and on every desk.”


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

MICROSOFT CORPORATION: THE SMARTPHONE CATASTROPHE

Microsoft tried to do to mobile phones what it did to PCs over the past couple of decades. It failed miserably. Firstly, it was a late mover. Secondly, it got the very products wrong and was forced to withdraw them. Does this pull-out imply the end of Steve Ballmer’s smartphone dreams? by Surbhi Chawla

Apart from being the best for the youth, Microsoft’s products were far from being even acceptable. For instance, the trend currently is of larger screens, that give better browsing experience – something which the Kin-duo lacked. Another reason for the failure was the ‘wrong’ choice of carrier. It was a self-inflicted blow. To maximise returns on a handset whose USP was social networking, Ballmer should have instead given the carrier contract to T-Mobile or Sprint, which have had previous experience handling cellphone users traffic on social networking sites. He didn’t and Microsoft was forced to withdraw a product with the shortest life span in its 36 year-old history. So what next for Microsoft? In this light, the news is good. Ballmer is doing what he should – bet big on the success of Microsoft Windows Phone 7 smartphone version. During the first week of July, manpower which previously was allocated for the Kin development team was reallocated to the Windows Phone 7 development group. It is expected that multiple handset makers will launch products based on the Phone 7 platform by the end of 2010. Even as the company plans to continue living the smartphone dream, many have started writing off this Microsoftian chapter. But there are believers too. Says Jeff Kagan, a New York-based telecom analyst, “Microsoft is still a very large and important company in certain segments. But its efforts to enter the wireless phone business have been troubled. I think if it can come up with the kind of OS that customers want, it could be very successful. Just look at how Apple and Google are succeeding. Microsoft can win over wireless users by understanding the basics.”

But Microsoft has to watch out for competition. Apple, Nokia and RIM have a number of impressive products lined-up. The future would see both Droid and Android devices challenging Ballmer’s success. Also, all OEMs that were earlier basking on the success of the Windows (majorly Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson) are now riding the Android wave. Microsoft should simply take advantage of the fact that these manufacturers are still game for a Microsoft Windows Phone 7. And there is the tablet category too with MSI, Asus, LG and HP having already showcased their Windows Phone 7-based tablet computers.

There was a time when Windows “dominated” the PC industry. But times have changed, and today, absolute supremacy is passe. It’s unlikely that Microsoft will dominate the mobile platform space they way it dominated the PC industry. But for now, Microsoft has a great chance with the Windows Phone 7, as Michael Gartenberg, Partner at New York-based Altimeter Group tells B&E, “Windows Phone 7 will allow Microsoft to become a strong mobile platform provider. And porting applications & services to other platforms will also make it the key provider for core functionality across multiple platforms and devices.”

The future will belong to non-PC converged devices, and much as this is a challenge to the PC-dominating Microsoft, it’s a golden chance for Ballmer to prove many critics wrong.


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