In San Francisco this week, two remarkable events took place just blocks away from each other: Google announced its ambitions to dominate the world of entertainment, through music and movie services, and even unveiled wireless-controlled lightbulbs.
On the same day, Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer took to the stage to reveal that the Windows-manufacturer had spent $8.5 billion on phone and web communications tool Skype. The next day, Google announced that it was launching an operating system and computers of its own, called Chromebooks, that will compete directly with Windows.
The battle between two tech giants, and implicitly Apple as well, encapsulates a trend – as technology becomes more capable, the lines between business and personal use are blurring rapidly. Consumers believe, increasingly, that putting up with outdated systems at work is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Kurt DelBene, president of Microsoft’s Office division, says this trend is encapsulated by the Skype deal. “There are natural interconnection points, whether it’s Xbox users who can reach out to all Skype users, or Office users.”
Created as a new, independent division reporting directly to Ballmer, Skype was attractive to Microsoft “because the vision that it has as a company is an exciting one for us,” says DelBene. “What it was trying to do in the consumer space is very similar to what we were trying to do in the business space. The reason people gravitated to them was because they were so good.”
No comments:
Post a Comment