Skip to main content

Microsoft vs Competition - Possible Alternative

[PLACEHOLDER]
Image



The latest development from Microsoft includes surface, Windows 8, Mobile endeavors and strategies, the cloud (Azure), the acquisition of Nokia.

Are they considering business services (enterprise offerings), as in providing wireless information services for the workplace? If not then… should they?

Microsoft continues on fighting for a “piece of the pie” for the consumer mobile market (tablets and phones), which currently is led by Apple iOS and Google Android devices, operating systems and app stores. It appears that new phone buyers are willing to give windows a try (at least outside of US and Canada, where the Nokia brand is not strong enough). But still I wonder if instead of going head to head with the 2 giants of the consumer mobile devices niche, Microsoft should consider an alternative strategy. Apple did this by making everyone fall in love again with the brand with their iPOD. That led to the iPhone and the rest is history.

The case that we want to focus here is that providing mobile solutions for the corporate market can be one of those alternatives for Microsoft. Most of the companies, at least in the Americas and Europe, are using PCs and windows operating system. A big population use Microsoft Office, then why not create the necessity for using their tablets and phones as well.  

Blackberry is currently struggling. For many years they were the leaders of wireless services (push emails, mobile phone, text messaging, internet faxing, Web browsing from your mobile phone, and other data related services). In addition, they were able to supply a solution for the niche, security (encryption built-in since day 1, the use of Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) among other corporate-features), and that worked very well for them. This made them popular within institutions (to mention an example: government), because, as we all can imagine when you are dealing with sensitive information traveling to your phone or through your corporate emails, just for naming a scenario, we can understand the value and the importance of having  our data as secure as possible. Blackberry devices became not only a part of our personal life, but part of our work/business one as well.

A few questions keep coming back to my mind: Will BB manage to maintain it? If they don’t then which company/provider will become the "go-to" vendor for this niche? Or will this niche go away as technology keeps changing?

Blackberry is going through a deal with FairFax Financial Holding Ltd. Making it a private company. If the deal moves forward but the wireless hand-held devices and services continues to lose ground facing the risk to become extinct (like others in the past, e.g. Palm) then who would be the one to rise to the challenge and the expectations?

Maybe this is a possible strategy for Microsoft to consider and finally position them as another viable and strong mobile option. I believe they (Microsoft) own strong tools (cloud, office, office365, outlook, server products, partners and infrastructure) that make them a viable option.

Microsoft needs to face the reality:
1. They did come out late in the game.
2. They haven’t been great in sales either.

So they need to make everyone feel they are an innovating company, but most of all they need to find a way to get to “everyone’s head and stay there” in a positive way.

I want to close this article by briefly referring to the other side of the coin around this subject.  There is a trend in the business market of “bring-your-own-device” policies where corporations ask employees to use their own mobile phones for work email and provide partial reimbursement to the employee, with the potential of converting the business and government market much more like the consumer market.

 Because of the security factor, I have my doubts this will happen completely. If any it will be a mix. Although the market behavior can always change and prove me wrong…

In any case if that trend becomes a reality then again the company with the most robust platform with a good service will be the one to lead that niche and gain more market share. If Microsoft intention is to dominate the mobile business then they should consider an alternative like this one before one of his competitors grabs it first.

Note: The article is based partially in public news.This Post is a collaborative work written by a group of individuals and provided to share on this blog. The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this post are purely from the author(s) and shared in this blog for sharing/discussion/knowledge purposes.

Trending posts

Democratizing AI

Democratizing AI is all about empowering others to use it, by making it available to them. Audiences, such as marketers in a company, will be able to access AI capabilities as part of their MarTech solutions, without the need of being technical. It could also be schools, where the younger generations are learning how to use it in responsible, secure, innovative, and creative ways. This is the year where companies, after discovery phases and teams experimenting, are looking to activate and take advantage of the AI advances. Generated with Microsoft Designer   And so, questions emerge, such as “What to democratize when leveraging AI?” There are common scenarios, as well as specific ones, that will depend on the company, and the industry they belong to. A common scenario, seen in many industries, when democratizing data is the data visualization and reporting . In digital marketing, as an example, data scientists and data analysts can automate reporting, making them available to the c...
Read more

Productivity framework for 2024

Recently I was at a Christmas party and I found myself giving advice to a friend on being more productive. I shared the approaches that I take which helped me become more productive at work and in my personal life. The conversation with my friend inspired me to share my approaches in this blog .  Photo by Moose Photos from Pexels   My productivity framework has five key pillars and to remember them I use the mnemonic, POFOR = P lan your tasks, O rganize yourself, F ocus on your tasks, O ptimize yourself with habits and R eflect to ensure you are being productive on the right tasks. Plan Planning is very crucial as it sets the tone for the rest of the pillars. I always found I was more productive when I planned my tasks compared to when I didn’t, and hence planning has become my rule of thumb. I recommend taking 30 minutes at the end of each day to plan your next day. This means prioritizing your tasks and blocking your calendar accordingly. By not doing so, you are at risk o...
Read more

Small Language Models

 Open source models will continue to grow in popularity. Small Language Models (SLMs) are smaller, faster to train with less compute.  They can be used for tackling specific cases while being at a lower cost.  Photo by Tobias Bjørkli via Pexels  SLMs can be more efficient SLMs are faster in inference speed, and they also require less memory and storage.    SLMs and cost Small Language models can run on less powerful machines, making them more affordable. This could be ideal for experimentation, startups and/or small size companies. Here is a short list Tiny Llama. The 1.1B parameters AI Model, trained on 3T Tokens. Microsoft’s Phi-2. The 2.7B parameters, trained on 1.4T tokens. Gemini Nano.  The 6B parameters. Deepseek Coder
Read more

Key insights from "Atomic Habits" by James clear

I recently finished reading "Atomic Habits" by James Clear. The book was incredibly insightful. If you are looking to improve your habits, and achieve results while you are at it, then this book is for you. It may help you form new habits, and break bad one. Without further due, here are my top three takeaways. Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich via Pexel, adapted by Beolle Takeaway 1:  The habit-forming loop: James outlines that the habit-forming loop consists of four stages Cue . The cue triggers the brain to expect a reward and is crucial for building automatic habits. It is typically associated with time, place, or feeling. For example, feeling bored could be a cue to the habit of using social media. Craving . This is the urge resulting from the cue. Using the above example, opening the social media app is the craving initiated by the cue of boredom. Response . An example of a response is the action of opening the social media app and using it. Reward . An example of reward i...
Read more

This blog uses cookies to improve your browsing experience. Simple analytics might be in place for pageviews purposes. They are harmless and never personally identify you.

Agreed