Just how do you completely rebuild a company? Windows 8 is important but it's just one step towards the future for Microsoft.
It's been a big week for Microsoft. Three days in three cities, two operating systems, one device, a flagship conference — all adding up to one really big launch. New phones and tablets are great for consumers, and for enterprises, and a new OS opens up new possibilities for developers. But there's a bigger story behind it all.
That one big launch or, rather, relaunch, is the most interesting thing to come out of Microsoft's big week: the company's reinvention of itself as the home of a modern, user-centric platform that covers both software and hardware to deliver services to users — one that's ready to set the computing agenda for the next 10 years.
So why the relaunch, and why now? There's a problem that faces all companies, a life-or-death moment that can mean a future of growth, or stagnation and eventual irrelevance. It's what Harvard professor Clayton Christensen called the innovator's dilemma. How can you reinvent a business on the fly, with no opportunity to hit a pause button?
IBM did it by allowing its Global Services consulting business to grow, turning the old IBM into a rump organisation that still makes money, but has stopped being the engine that drives the business.
Read more at source:
Windows 8: It's only one part of Microsoft's brave new world | ZDNet
