Windows Phone is dead – how will Microsoft bring order to their mobile plans? – IDG.se

Steve Ballmer time as CEO of Microsoft may, in retrospect, be summarized in two points. Partly a failed launch of Windows 8, but perhaps more important, a failed strategy for the mobile market. Neither operating system, Windows Phone and Microsoft’s hardware efforts have managed to do something bigger footprint. After the latest figures dödförklarar analyst Windows Phone with a big flop flag on the grave.
worse for Microsoft is that these failures have opened for the competitors to the company’s most important product: Microsoft Office.

Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO, a new strategy to become a major player in the field started to take shape. Perhaps the clearest strategy change was to try to get out the Office package on as many devices as possible. Previously Microsoft tried to use the suite as leverage to get started sales of Windows Phone. When the package well launched for Apple’s iOS was so many features that were missing that the message could not be mistaken for: do you want a real Office Version, you buy a Windows Phone.

Read also: New lows for Windows Phone – sales plummet

Since Nadella took on the complete mobile versions of Office launched for both iOS and Android. To get Office on as many devices as possible is a must for Microsoft, but it is still only part of the company’s new strategy. The other parts of the strategy is Microsoft’s solutions for enterprise mobility management, EMM.
 

Satya Nadella.

 EMM solutions, the IT department can control security on user devices with functions such as disabling copy-paste-up function. Common to most of these functions is that they rely on the operating system’s built-in capabilities, in other words, basically Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Some control can be added, but basically it is based on what the operating permits.

Microsoft has put in a central postition here with EMM solution Intune. With Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), which includes Intune, will be also many business features, such as Advanced Active Directory. It gives Microsoft a slight edge over competitors, but many of them also offer similar functionality through partnerships.

The key to Microsoft’s mobile strategy is hidden in the combination of Microsoft Office and EMS. On the surface, they appear as two separate products, but they are in fact closely related. Microsoft has introduced its own set of control functions in Intune (mobile application management policies). Some of them are dependent on the operating system, but these functions can be implemented in the apps themselves rather than drive. In practice, Microsoft can offer – and has already partly done through conditional access in Outlook – features that are specific to certain apps or Office365.

Read also : The phones have been good enough – what should Apple and Samsung do now?

This means that Microsoft could theoretically increase the number of control functions to their applications regardless of what operating system offering, which could prove a major advantage over competitors. It might not give a big boost to Microsoft hopes within the mobility market, but it can at least give a much needed boost where they previously treaded water this year.

But Microsoft need still balancing on a tightrope. The company is still dependent on platforms like Office can run on. If they get too aggressive with new features, and violates Google and Apple’s developer guidelines, future versions of Office due to be removed from the App Store or Google Play. How Microsoft handles this in the future remains to be seen.

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