In the last few trading days of November 2018, Microsoft Corp's intraday market capitalization exceeded Apple Inc several times, briefly crowning the world's highest market capitalization crown. Many media have said, "Ten years of drastic changes, a moment in history." But the real moment came in the last month of 2018.

On December 1st, US stocks closed and Microsoft Corp officially reached the top. (currently Microsoft Corp has a market capitalization of US $840.2 billion and Apple Inc US $811.2 billion)

(source: Futu Niuniu, Apple Inc in pink)

Microsoft Corp was founded in 1975.

In 1999, on the eve of the bursting of the dotcom bubble, Microsoft Corp set a record for the highest market capitalization of a listed company of US $661.6 billion.

In 2010, Microsoft Corp had a market capitalization of US $219 billion and was surpassed by Apple Inc, who launched iPhone, at US $222 billion.

In 2018, Microsoft Corp returned to the top position of market capitalization.

In the 20 years since 1999, how many technology companies have collapsed or declined? Microsoft Corp has survived to the present, still at his peak.

Before, we also interpreted Microsoft Corp's Q1 financial report for fiscal year 2019."Microsoft Corp, who attaches importance to the interests of shareholders, is still far from the market capitalization of trillion yuan. "

This article will feel the transformation of Microsoft Corp from the perspective of user experience.

In today's Wall Street, investors are chasing the FAANG Club and regard FAANG as a symbol of the Internet in the United States, symbolizing the new economy of the United States. Microsoft Corp was mercilessly excluded. When it comes to Microsoft Corp, it always gives people the feeling of being down and out. Especially for the young post-00s generation, they may prefer the trendy Apple Inc, using MacBook Pro and showing off Touchbar, but it is very likely that the computer, which is prone to tens of thousands of "soft girl coins", is running a dual system.

Looking back on Microsoft Corp in the past ten years, he has lost himself and been reborn in Nirvana.

Broken halberd mobile end

Before this wave of mobile Internet came, Apple Inc was unknown, and Microsoft Corp could still get a piece of the pie in the smartphone system market. Ballmer, stranded by Windows Vista tinkering, did not realize that he was about to witness a new era.

Windows Mobile was all the rage, but the emergence of iPhone and T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream) ushered in a new era belonging to iOS and Android. Even if Microsoft Corp offered Windows Phone (WP) to join hands with Nokia to try to turn the tide, it was still in vain. After the revelation of Elop's "this Trojan horse", it destroyed Nokia and the hopeful Lumia.

(source: Microsoft Corp's official website)

Ridiculed: why did you choose 1% of your life?

Apple Inc introduced Apple Watch for the first time in 2015, and before it went public, Alipay immediately announced the adaptation, which angered WP users. You know, the WP Alipay client has not even been able to scan the code. So WP users criticized BABA one after another. Soon Alipay sent Weibo Corp a counter-question: "Why did you choose 1% of your life?" Insinuating that WP's market share in China is only 1 per cent.

The lack of software ecology has been regarded as an important reason for the failure of WP. But it was a bit of a surprise for Microsoft Corp, especially considering Microsoft Corp's strong ecological dominance in the Windows on PC. The lack of software leads to a lack of enthusiasm among developers and high development costs. Even big companies like BABA are unwilling to develop, and independent developers are even less motivated, forming a "death spiral."

However, WP as a smooth crushing iOS and Android system, such an end is really sad.

All in Azure

After Ballmer abdicated in 2014, Microsoft Corp ushered in a new helmsman, not "hero" Elop, but hero Nadella. Nadella's supremacy also means that Microsoft Corp is about to change. The Indian led the Bing search engine, SQL Server database and Azure cloud computing business at Microsoft Corp. In recent years, although Microsoft Corp's performance is not growing fast, his free cash flow has risen steadily, and his valuation has gone up with the development of the cloud business, eventually reaching the top of the global market capitalization.

(source: Bloomberg)

Now all the research papers about Microsoft Corp can not avoid praising Azure, which has become synonymous with Microsoft Corp's transformation. At present, the market share of Azure is second only to Amazon.Com Inc's AWS.

According to Microsoft Corp's official propaganda, Azure focuses on performance-to-price ratio, under the premise of the same performance, the price is less than AWS 1/5. The Azure in the national area is operated by 21Vianet Group Inc. Domestic well-known customers include China Merchants, mobike, Kingdee, Vipshop Holdings Limited and so on. But because Azure is mainly toB at present, it is a little far away from individual consumers, so it is not obvious for ordinary users to feel this.

(source: Microsoft Corp's official website, Azure)

The hardware will improve eventually.

The new officer was on fire, and Nadella put forward that apart from "cloud first", he directly shut down the loss-making hardware business. Among them, the mobile sector bears the brunt, with Lumia "driving west". After the great success of Xbox One X, the Xbox department successfully turned losses into profits, and the number of Xbox Live online reached record highs. Xbox successfully staged a Jedi escape, avoiding the fate of being cut down.

Another star hardware product is the Surface series. After iterating over several versions, Surface finally made a little contribution to Microsoft Corp's revenue. Of course, the role of Surface is just like Alphabet Inc-CL C's Pixel, which has a greater demonstration effect on the OEM factory, and also acts as a hardware carrier to optimize the Windows ecology.

(source: Microsoft Corp's official website, Surface Laptop 2)

In addition, the performance of the Surface Go released this year is outstanding, with sales ranking fifth in the entire Surface family in less than half a year. In fact, Microsoft Corp Surface series pricing is not cheap, but compared with competitive iPad Pro,MacBook series, iMac, it highlights the performance-to-price ratio and productivity.

(source: share of AdDuplex,Surface product line)

Windows&OfficeWelcome to the new era

Whether in the past or at present, Windows has always been synonymous with Microsoft Corp.

The high spirits of Bill Gates when he attended Microsoft Corp's antitrust case in 1998 also reflected the horrible dominance of Windows in the PC market.

It can be said that success is also Windows, failure is also Windows.

In 2007, Microsoft Corp released the new belt operating system Windows Vista, Gates personally for its platform. The gorgeous and dazzling Aero ground glass UI has conquered many users. However, due to driver compatibility, Aero hardware requirements and other issues, resulting in consumer consistent poor reviews. Microsoft Corp later launched the Vista SP1 update and pushed the XP SP3 update at the same time, which also shows Microsoft Corp's lack of confidence in Vista.

In 2008, Microsoft Corp began to promote Windows Vista's image improvement project. Maybe Vista is a little ahead of time, and its Aero ground glass special effects are still amazing. The subsequent Win7 also basically copied Vista's UI, while Win10 Fluent Design's acrylic style is also a tribute to Vista.

(source: Wikipedia, Aero special effects of Vista)

(source: Microsoft Corp's official website, Win10 under the latest Light theme)

But too much energy is spent on the repair of Vista, which makes Microsoft Corp lack of skill, thus missing the opportunity of mobile Internet.

However, after the appearance of Nadella, the development of the story has undergone new changes. He skipped Windows 9 and released Windows 10, which became a new generation of operating system for Microsoft Corp after Windows 8Accord 8.1.The last generation of operating system。This is undoubtedly the biggest change in Microsoft Corp's history.

Nadella also put forward the idea of "One Windows Platform", which integrates all the hardware into the same system and shares the same application store, while the general Windows platform application (UWP) can be used seamlessly in every hardware in the ecosystem.

(source: Microsoft Corp's official website)

Judging from the data, there is no doubt that Win10 is successful. According to the November report released by Net Marketshare, Win10 is only one step away from surpassing Win7 and is about to become the world's largest desktop system. (of course, all Windows versions together account for more than 85% of the market.)

(source: Net Marketshare)

Nadella's claws also extended to Office.

As the leading office software, Office is also a part of the memories and feelings of countless people growing up. Under the leadership of Nadella, Microsoft Corp launched Office 365, which implements a paid subscription system, which changes the rhythm of "every three years" and keeps it up-to-date in real time.

But Office 2019 will still exist. Compared with every previous Office release, this year's Office 2019 release is only an official announcement.

According to Microsoft Corp, General Manager of Office products in Greater China, "Office 2019 is only launched to meet the needs of government agencies, state-owned enterprises and other institutions that are inconvenient to access the external network, while Office 2019 plays a leading role in the field of SaaS office. "

Recently, Microsoft Corp released a new Office icon design and Ribbon user interface, using Microsoft Corp's Fluent Design design concept.

(source: Microsoft Corp's official website)

This change will never be seen on Office 2019.

In fact, the feature update for Office 2019 will stay forever in September this year, and only the necessary security updates will be available from now on, while the feature and interface updates will only be for Office 2019 subscribers. This makes Office 2019 look like nothing has changed, as if only the version number is new.

Windows and Office are, as always, one of Microsoft Corp's biggest sources of income, but now Azure is favored and has the posture of striving to be the first hero in revenue.

(source: Bloomberg, percentage of revenue by business)

Microsoft Corp has really changed. The number behind Windows is always fixed at 10pi Office, and the number behind Office is always fixed at 365th.

HoloLens shows strength

Microsoft Corp is a technology company, but few people will label it as "strong in science and technology". Windows and Office are just software after all, and they can't give us a vision for the future. In the field of science and technology, Alphabet Inc-CL C is favored by thousands of people. After all, Google X has brought us a lot of unimaginable cool techs, such as Google Glass once upon a time. Although the product has entered the "Alphabet Inc-CL C Cemetery".

(source: Wikipedia)

But Microsoft Corp hit me hard in the face with HoloLens. HoloLens is the first MR (mixed reality AR+VR) device released by Microsoft Corp. This amazing device has an amazing price (too high) and an amazing experience. Because HoloLens is equipped with Win10 system, it has rich application ecology and seamless connection across devices. Especially in creative and collaborative scenarios, HoloLens has greatly increased productivity.

(source: Microsoft Corp's official website, HoloLens)

HoloLens is mainly used in the enterprise market, with target groups in various industries, such as hospitals, manufacturing, military and so on.

According to Bloomberg, the US Army has recently provided Microsoft Corp with a procurement contract worth 480 million US dollars, and Microsoft Corp will provide the Army with up to 100000 HoloLens equipment for combat training.

Microsoft Corp is expected to release HoloLens 2 with Windows Core OS (a stripped-down version of Win10) in the second quarter of 2019, bringing a more efficient experience.

Viewpoint

Microsoft Corp is now promoting the Microsoft 365 (Windows10+Office 365+Azure) program in the B end of the wind and water.The next thing worth thinking about is how to please C-end and how to make software and hardware that satisfy consumers.Azure is very successful, but there is still a long way to go compared with Amazon.Com Inc AWS, not to mention AWS is also trying to sink to the C side.

It is worth noting that Microsoft Corp is becoming more and more open, such as the acquisition of GitHub,Edge browsers to adopt Chromium kernels instead of their own kernels, Windows Insider Program to maintain a very high frequency of updates, and reforms to Windows. All this shows Microsoft Corp's determination to change. The secondary market also gave positive feedback, with Microsoft Corp shares up more than 30 per cent in 2018 (the S & P 500s fell by 0.86 per cent over the same period) and returning to the highest market capitalization in the world.

Finally, we look forward to Microsoft Corp bringing more excellent products in 2019.

(Wen / Cui Tong / tr. by Phil Newell)