New Boss in Town

When Microsoft released its Office suite for the iPad (and Android phones), the comments on the Net were scathing:

- Ben Evans titled the event, “Hell freezes over”! After all, that's what Microsoft software on an Apple device sounds like.

- Others said it was too little, too late. That the world has moved onto other editors on their phones and tablets and nobody even wants Office anymore.

And it is fashionable to call Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's ex-CEO, an idiot. But when it came to coming up with a mobile OS, Microsoft didn't really miss the opportunity (Windows Mobile came up in 2000); rather, as Ben Thompson wrote, they just got “out-executed” by Apple first and then by Google.

Then again, Ballmer is (in)famous for having laughed at the iPhone when it was launched saying a phone without a physical keyboard would never succeed. He could not have been more wrong about anything in his life. By 2012, as Forbes said:

“One Apple product (iPhone), something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975.”

Contrast that with how fast Google and Samsung recognized that the world had changed with the launch of the iPhone. Google, doubly so. Not only did go on to build their own mobile OS (Andrid), they even started making money by putting their apps on the iPhone! As Ben Thompson said:

“The fact remains that Google and Samsung are the only two companies who were relevant in 2007 who are still relevant today. It turns out seeing and accepting reality are powerful differentiators.”

Microsoft's new boss, Satya Nadella, seems to have accepted the reality of mobile and so made his first public event the launch of Office for iPad. So has Microsoft rounded the corner? Not necessarily. But at least they have a boss who doesn't bury his head in the sand like an ostrich.