Monday, July 30, 2012

Microsoft reboot starts October 26th.

Microsoft recently announced that Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface tablet will both launch on October 26th, and will be part of the reboot of the company, together with the expected launch of Windows Phone 8 devices from Nokia and other manufacturers within the coming months.

The coming launches, in addition to existing Xbox and Kinect products, are part of an attempt to make Microsoft not only relevant again, but give it a shot at claiming bragging-rights as one of the companies at the forefront of innovation. This comes after what has been billed as a lost decade within the company, where Microsoft seemed overrun by competitors as Google, Apple and Facebook.

The news coming out of Redmond, WA lately, has spurred a lot of interest and focus on the company which had almost been written off as irrelevant to cutting-edge innovation in the PC and mobile space.

Windows 8 has with its completely revamped user interface, Metro, received a lot of positive feedback even though some wonder how the vast installed user base will react to the drastic changes. Ironically, if the Metro UI becomes a success, Microsoft can be viewed as being at the UI forefront, leaving Apple OSX behind. OSX has not seen much of an UI update in a quite a while.

Windows 8 together with Windows Phone 8 products, Surface, Kinect and Xbox are all potential building-blocks of a consumer oriented strategy that extends beyond Windows and Office. 

The questions that remains to be answered are, does the products measure up, and how do they gel together into a coherent strategy?

In any case, whether you are a PC or a Mac, it is great to see a company like Microsoft give it a go, instead of folding like HP, which abandoned their latest consumer oriented effort within months after disappointing sales. 

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