Microsoft Launches Three Pronged Attack Against Competitors

 Microsoft

In the wake of recent competitive slips against Apple on tablets and smart phones, and Google on search and cloud computing, Microsoft is re-inventing itself with the upcoming launch of Windows 8. Already the new operating system is being hailed as innovative, and with a strategy of crossing over the platform from the desktop/notebook computer to the Windows phone, to the XBox console, Microsoft is potentially poised to reassume a dominant market position.

In order to compete with Google, Apple and others in the future, Microsoft  has formed a three-pronged attack strategy based around, Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox. Also featured are Bing and SkyDrive, but Microsoft is nothing if not patient, and it thinks its trio of core consumer products will blend together in the next few years to form a major new ecosystem.

According to CNN Money, here's the big vision: Whether you're using your TV, PC, tablet, phone, or almost any other device that comes along, you'll be able to accomplish all the same tasks through all the same platform. The form factor will change, but the core experience won't.

"People are starting to see the same look-and-feel across the three screens and the cloud," says Craig Beilinson, director of Microsoft's consumer marketing. "This is all going to get pretty blurry."

Such a vision is shared by Google and Apple but their implementations are fundamentally different.

The linchpin of Microsoft's plan is Windows 8, which is set to launch this fall. The new operating system features touchscreen integration and the interactive tile-based "Metro" user interface, which debuted in late 2010 for Windows Phone 7 and made its way to Xbox last summer.  Windows 8 is also geared for touchscreen, and Kinect-gesture interfaces, which will extend across the Microsoft software portfolio as well.  That lets Windows run with high performance on many new devices, including tablets, table tops, large multi-touch displays and convertible notebooks.

Microsoft is also baking cloud-based services like Windows Live, SkyDrive and Bing into all of its consumer products. Sign in on any device and you'll have access to all of your content, apps, preferences and search history.

Apple and Google's device ecosystems are more fragmented.

For example, it's hard to build iPad apps on an actual iPad. To run Apple's Xcode developer software, you need a Mac.

Google's model focuses on the Web as the single platform of the future. It's a device-agnostic approach, but it requires constant connectivity. Once you go offline, your connection to Google's computing platform vanishes.

Right now, both are thrashing Microsoft in key markets. Microsoft has watched Apple race past it in media and tablets. Google captured search and the cloud, and both companies overtook Microsoft in smartphones. Meanwhile, sales of the PC, Microsoft's core competancy have stalled.

Microsoft-turned-Google-turned-Microsoft engineer James Whittaker explained that phenomenon in a recent blog post about why he left his job as a head engineer on social network Google+ to return to Redmond.

Facing an existential crisis, Microsoft is making radical changes. Windows and Office "have clearly undergone some sort of genetic re-engineering," he says.

In a lightly veiled swipe at Google, he added: "Most big competitors don't want the disruption. When you make your money on the status quo, you are incented to move slow or not at all."

It is increasingly clear to everyone, including Microsoft that the world of computing is morphing into a new paradigm.  Your office desktop will probably still have a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard, but those are just accessories. As mobile devices get better and faster, they're taking over more of our computing tasks.

Soon, a smartphone -- or a tablet -- will likely be your central device. Plug it into your desktop dock in the morning, then take it with you at night, and you'll have have an extremely portable, all-in-one computer.  The ASUS Padphone is an early example of this implementation.

That's the world for which Microsoft is building Windows 8. It can run everything from a touchscreen app like Angry Birds to resource-intensive software such as 3D games and video conferencing tools. That sounds simple, but it's an all-in-one approach Microsoft's rivals have chosen not to pursue.

There's signs Microsoft has finally learned from its previous catastrophes. Its "consumer preview" version of Windows 8 is drawing cautiously optimistic reviews.

Cnet reviewer Seth Rosenblatt calls it "the most ambitious operating system ever," with a "speed and responsiveness" that Windows has never had before. Gizmodo deemed it a "daring" and "brilliant," while The Telegraph says it's Microsoft's "most radical release in a generation."

SOURCE  CNN Money

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