Last week, our consultant Josh, discussed some of the reasons why Windows 8 has been slow to launch. I’d like to take the topic a step further and cover some of the challenges any company faces when they are truly engaged in transformational change.
Particularly for a large company like Microsoft, when you know the status quo is not sustainable in the long run, how do you roll out change? You create a vision of the future and then try to find stable stepping stones in that direction. Windows 8 and its recent launch is an example of this in action.
The consequences for Microsoft if they don’t react to the need to change are huge. Two great examples for failure in this regard are Nokia and Borders. In the case of the leaked burning platform memo from the CEO of Nokia, the Harvard Business Review commented in a blog post , “the lesson of the burning platform is that it is far better to anticipate the crisis and change your behavior well before the explosion.”
With the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft is attempting to get ahead of the crisis and introduce a product that is smaller and utilizes touch before it’s too late. There are some other implicit challenges, with the x86 architecture’s ability to downscale to lower power consumption being the primary one, which may make it harder for Microsoft to compete.
It’s important to note Microsoft currently has market share for operating systems somewhere in the range of 88%, so for now, the Microsoft platform is still a solid player. It will be interesting to see whether this heft is enough to swing users who are nervous about making the switch to Windows 8.