Satya Nadella Says Changes Are Coming to Microsoft（ZZ）

小呵呵

Satya Nadella Says Changes Are Coming to Microsoft
The New York Times By NICK WINGFIELD


Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, has written a company manifesto of sorts.

The 3,100-word essay, distributed by email to Microsoft employees Thursday morning, is Mr. Nadella’s mission statement and a rallying cry for Microsoft employees. Although it contained few specifics, the essay appears to lay the groundwork for significant company changes to be announced this month.

Mr. Nadella said everyone at the company must find ways to simplify and work faster and more efficiently. “We will increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes,” he wrote. “Culture change means we will do things differently.”

Those words seemed to hint at the possibility of layoffs coming to the company. Most years, around the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year on June 30, rumors swirl among employees about cutbacks in different groups as the company defines its plans for the next 12 months. When job reductions occur, though, they are rarely big enough to meaningfully impact Microsoft’s overall head count, which was close to 100,000 at the end of June 2013.

This year, however, the rumor mill among employees about layoffs has been especially active. That is partly because Microsoft added 25,000 new employees at the end of April with the completion of its acquisition of Nokia’s mobile division.

Mr. Nadella said in his email that senior leaders at Microsoft throughout June will reveal “more on the engineering and organization changes we believe are needed.” He said he will discuss more about changes at Microsoft when the company releases is earnings on July 22.

The crux of Mr. Nadella’s essay was an extended description of Microsoft’s mission. Clarifying, rather than strikingly redefining Microsoft’s “unique core” and “soul,” Mr. Nadella said Microsoft was “the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.”

“We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more,” he wrote.

He described how Microsoft’s focus on productivity will encompass people’s needs in both their professional and their personal lives. That description seemed to leave one of Microsoft’s most high-profile businesses, its Xbox unit, in an awkward spot: outside Microsoft’s core focus.

In the past, many outsiders have called on Microsoft to sell its Xbox unit to simplify its business. Even though Xbox is not part of Microsoft’s focus on productivity, Mr. Nadella wrote in his essay that “the single biggest digital life category, measured in both time and money spent, in a mobile-first world is gaming.”

“Bottom line, we will continue to innovate and grow our fan base with Xbox while also creating additive business value for Microsoft,” he said.

The message: Xbox isn’t central to Microsoft, but the company is keeping it. For now.

小呵呵

这算利空还是利多？