微软战略重组不到位 Satya Nadella must find more pills for Microsoft’s ills

If you have a headache, it is a good idea to stop banging your head against the wall. That is what Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadelladid this week when he cut back his company’s struggling smartphone division, writing off almost all of the $7.9bn (net of cash) that Microsoft paid for Nokia’s phone business only 15 months ago.

如果头疼，别再用头撞墙是个好主意。上周，微软(Microsoft)首席执行官萨蒂亚纳德拉(Satya Nadella)就是这么做的。他削减了微软旗下正在苦苦挣扎的手机部门，近乎一笔勾销仅仅15个月前微软收购诺基亚(Nokia)手机部门时支付的79亿美元（剔除现金后）。

However, the strategic overhaul at Microsoft looks incomplete, even counting other recent moves. While Mr Nadella has lessened the pain, there is still more to be done. The headbanging was the fault of his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.

然而，即便考虑到近期其他举措，微软的战略重组看来也不到位。尽管纳德拉减轻了微软的痛苦，但需要做的还有很多。“以头撞墙”是他的前任史蒂夫贠尔默(Steve Ballmer)的过错。

The former chief executive’s main justification for buying the Nokia division seemed to be, without better ideas, why not give it a go? It turns out that this is not a basis for sound strategic thinking. Taking on Apple in high-end smartphones and the entire Android ecosystem in every other part of the market were non-starters.

微软前首席执行官对于收购诺基亚手机业务的主要解释是，既然没有更好的主意，何不试一试呢？结果证明，这种思路不能作为稳健战略思维的基础。在高端智能手机上挑战苹果(Apple)、在市场的其他所有领域挑战整个安卓(Android)生态系统，根本没有成功的机会。

It is notable that Microsoft’s two biggest acquisitions — and, now, its two biggest write-offs — have come from Mr Ballmer’s failed attempts to chase Apple and Google. In digital advertising, the $6.3bn purchase of aQuantive was followed by a $6.2bn writedown in 2012. The remnants of the display advertising business were shed to AOL last month. Seldom has a company admitted such total failure twice over.

值得注意的是，微软的两笔最大收购——现在成了两笔最大的资产减记——是鲍尔默试图追赶苹果和谷歌(Google)失败的结果。在数字广告领域，微软曾斥资63亿美元收购aQuantive，然后在2012年将其减记了62亿美元。上月，余下的展示广告业务被剥离给了美国在线(AOL)。很少有哪家公司两次承认投资完全失败。

The disasters are revealing. For better or worse, Apple relies on selling hardware for most of its revenues, while Google is almost entirely dependent on advertising. Microsoft has conspicuously failed at both.

这些灾难很说明问题。无论好坏，苹果主要靠销售硬件赚取收入，谷歌则几乎完全依靠广告。微软在这两个领域遭遇惨败。

This is where Mr Nadella’s housecleaning looks incomplete. In the Xbox gaming console he has a giant hardware business that does not do much to advance either Microsoft’s profits or its strategy. The Bing search engine, supported by advertising, has also accounted for plenty of red ink over the years, though the Microsoft boss promises it will soon break even.

这正是纳德拉的改革看来不到位的地方。Xbox游戏机是一块庞大的硬件业务，但这块业务对于增进微软利润或推进微软战略没有太大帮助。多年来，广告支持的必应(Bing)搜索引擎在微软的亏损中占据了很高比例，尽管这位微软老板承诺，必应很快将实现盈亏平衡。

By dealing with his most glaring problem — the Nokia acquisition — Mr Nadella has removed some of the distractions to focus on what is important. Microsoft’s own way of making money — selling software licences — is under long-term threat from the internet. Shoring up existing licensing revenues and supplementing them with new subscription-based services are the jobs that require full attention.

纳德拉通过解决他最引人注目的问题——收购诺基亚——摆脱了分心因素，从而关注重要事项。微软自己的赚钱方式——销售软件许可权——正受到互联网的长期威胁。巩固现有许可权收入，并辅之以新的以订阅为基础的服务，是需要全力关注的任务。

A successful launch of Windows 10 later this month is essential to achieving the first of these objectives. This may be the post-PC era, but the device will still be a significant platform — particularly in the corporate world — and the foundation of Microsoft’s business for years to come.

本月晚些时候Windows 10的成功推出，对于微软实现上述前一个目标至关重要。当今或许是“后个人电脑”(post-PC)时代，但PC仍将是一种重要的平台（尤其是在企业界），也将是未来多年里微软业务的根基。

After the disastrous attempt to merge the PC and the tablet experiences in Windows 8, Microsoft looks on track to straighten things out with a software release that no longer forces uncomfortable compromises on users.

在灾难性地企图把PC和平板电脑两种体验融合到Windows 8之后，微软似乎理清了思路，即将发布一款不再让用户别扭的软件。

With almost no presence on smartphones, the new Windows will not be able to meet some of the main requirements of a modern operating system: to help users navigate a multiscreen world and give application developers a single platform that runs on multiple devices. But Mr Nadella has to play the hand he was dealt, and the best he can do is a multiplatform approach that tries to extend the reach of Microsoft’s own services (as well as those of developers who pick the Windows ecosystem) on to iOS and Android handsets, alongside devices that run Windows.

由于在智能手机市场几乎没有地盘，新版Windows将无法满足现代操作系统的一部分主要要求：帮助用户驾驭多屏世界，并给应用开发者一个可在多种设备上运行的单一平台。但纳德拉必须打好手中的牌，而他的最佳出路是推行多平台策略，除了运行Windows操作系统的设备之外，还要尝试延伸微软自己服务（以及选择了Windows生态系统的开发者的服务）的触角，使其进入iOS和安卓系统的手机。

Exactly which services he will choose to invest in has become another test of strategic focus. By making the puzzling purchase of Minecraft his first significant acquisition, he has sent conflicting signals. Owning a game that is popular on mobile platforms gives Microsoft a way to reach into the iPhone and Android worlds — but unless it can use this foothold to sell extra services, it is unclear what the company gets from the deal. Minecraft seems distant from Microsoft’s core “productivity” services such as Office.

他具体将选择投资于哪些服务，已成为对微软战略聚焦点的又一个考验。他的第一笔重大收购的对象是《我的世界》(Minecraft)，这笔令人困惑的交易发出了相互矛盾的信号。拥有一款在移动平台上很受欢迎的游戏，给微软提供了一条进入iPhone和安卓世界的途径。但是，除非能利用这个立足点销售额外服务，否则看不出微软能从这笔交易获得什么。《我的世界》距离Office等微软的核心办公软件/服务似乎很遥远。