Is Microsoft having an identity crisis?
On Wednesday when Microsoft announced it will take a $7.6 billion write-down for Nokia’s handset business, it makes one wonder if Microsoft is having an identity crisis with the decisions they are making. With this decision, Microsoft is looking to renew its goals and position in the smartphone market by focusing on apps and the Windows platform rather than the hardware.
This move is unfortunately familiar though for Microsoft. They try to find their way into a promising market and then reconsider by pulling out all together when they realize things are just not working out for them. These past failures have included the Zune which Microsoft killed after failing to rival the iPod, taking a whopping charge for the Surface RT tablet that was created to compete with the iPad, and finally, it took big bets on smartphones only to walk back on its investments after they saw they were far behind Apple and Google in the market.
This repeated history from the company has given everyone the impression that Microsoft is having an identity crisis.
With these staff cuts and massive write downs, insiders are rushing to defend the company’s decisions by marking this as an end to an era and the beginning of another. Satya Nadella, who took over as the CEO of Microsoft last year, has a broader strategy shift in mind with these cuts by taking out the extra fat from the company.
Analyst Frank Gillet says that at one time Microsoft was known for having office product tools for the desktop, but now it wants to increase its presence in cloud services as well, and acquire a suite of smartphone applications.
This newly defined mission as described by Nadella is to “reinvent productivity.” This statement however has been met with vagueness to consumers.
The chief example of their innovation right now is the Hololens, an augmented reality headset. Microsoft may be trying to play clean up now, but they still have much to prove other than follow in the footsteps of other tech companies if they want to stay relevant.
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