Gartner 2014. Interview with Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft

Very busy session, CIOs (and people like me who managed to get onto the CIO programme) get to see the interview in person - but still miles away.   The other 8,000 attendees or so spread across the other venues.

Right.  Let’s see what Satya has to say.

Gartner begins with a suggestion that – on the one hand – Microsoft is being challenged like never before.  Even in core areas such as personal productivity (by Google and others), data analytics, but especially in mobile telephony and consumer.  On the other hand, Microsoft still earning $87 billion of revenue and growing.  Microsoft, arguably, still own the office productivity space and are continuing to push new innovative products.

How will you make your mark?  Satya: “it’s not really about making my mark, more what Microsoft can do.  A key paradigm for Microsoft is mobile and cloud first.  But, this means personal, individual mobility – not the device.  So, individuals able to be mobile without being tied to a particular device.”.  Good definition.  Mobility shouldn’t be about delivering to a mobile device – more, it’s about delivering mobility to individuals.  Does this mean our licensing for student Virtual Desktop will get easier?  We’re already moved to more of an individual rather than device model of use – particularly for our 33,000 students. 

Where are the areas you want to compete? Satya: “best in world for productivity – individual, team, and business process.  It’s all a continuum for me’  ‘getting platforms right – consistency for user, IT management”

Is Windows 10 the core of Microsoft’s story?  Satya: “10 is a whole new story – not just an iteration after Windows 8.”  “we need to architect Windows for general purpose compute, Internet of things” “User consistency is key.  We got a few things wrong in Windows 8”.  I haven’t heard much about Microsoft’s Internet of Things / sensor etc approach.  Will windows really run on these tiny, mostly ARM based, sensors?

What about licencing – how can you make this simpler? Satya: “we’re focused on this.  Cloud offers huge opportunity for simplification.  But, people still also want perpetual licensing”  So, no push to 100% subscription licencing.  Not like Adobe ‘cloud’ licensing then.

One license thing to simplify?  Satya: “as people transition from device to user / individual”.   Yes please.   Our use of Microsoft and other software has and is moving to individual rather than device usage.  Everyone else is or will be too and licensing in this environment is a mess.

Will Windows run on sensors? Satya: “well, yes, it’s factored and architected to do this” – really?  I guess there is Windows RT for Arm but is this really fit for purpose for the billions of Arm chips / sensors? (my is question partially answered later on).

What about the phone?  Satya: “We’re happy with Nokia.  But, the real bet is Windows 10.  No one else has an OS that works across phone, tablet and PC – using mouse, keyboard across all”  “We have one OS and that’s a virtue” So, I guess that means Windows 10 on the phone will be a big new release.

When can we trust Universal App as a platform to create Apps?  Satya: “Now”.  OK then.

What happened to Windows 9?  Satya: “It came and went”.  Not much of an explanation but who cares?

As hybrid cloud becomes more commoditised, how will Azure differentiate? Satya: “It’s the total package.  We have SAS, Cloud, Office 365 and Azure AD.. we have a billion transactions on Azure AD – high scale”  Differentiation?  “Office API, Data API”  “With SQL 2014, you can automatically set up a DR position in Azure – out of the box”.   “Hybrid is a key differentiator – we’re the only people who can orchestrate and manage from a single control plane”  SQL 2014 automatic DR position in Azure – interesting.  I wonder if we should be looking at this.

Satya: “We’ll be one of the key Cloud providers and we’re investing $2-4B per year CapExp” “A key approach for us is to provide a on-premise and cloud hybrid model for our software”

Satya: “Azure machine learning service is used by lift company to, in real time, monitor a million lifts across the world”.  So, ISS (Intelligent Software Service) is the internet Of Things for Microsoft.  Who knew?  Gartner analysts hadn’t caught on.  I’m not clear how the billions of Arm devices are going to work with this but something to investigate.