Is Microsoft Going Forward By Going Back..?

The entire tech industry is fighting tooth and nail. From investments in human capital, to R&D and driving innovation across entire process chain. Moving on with new ideas and concepts are the typical mantra.

Amazon for instance, goes higher beyond drones delivery to speed up the movements of goods. It is investing in airborne warehouse!  Preliminary filing shows that it would be an airship, floating in the air with drones gliding down to make deliveries.

Image from Postal Times

Google and its reputation with many innovations up their sleeves used to wow people.  Actually they still do, but some have noticeably quiet down, like the futuristic Google Glasses. Waymo, however, is still on track.

These are cases of typical mantra in ways of moving forward.

But Microsoft is not the typical mantra practitioner. 

Ever since the infamous early generation Surface was written off, several iterations have surfaced, pun intended. While some design ideas behind recent generations of Surface devices are still quirky, they seem to have gained a place in consumer's hearts. 

And with the launch of Surface Studio, which is essentially a personal computer, it could be seeing a trickle of success.

Going by some of these developments, it is rather fascinating that Microsoft is going backwards in order to go forward in this product roadmap.

The sale of PCs has been on a gradual downward trend. At various stages of the PC growth story, notebooks, tablets and hybrid devices have been taking over.  The last few years saw mobile devices cannibalised PC sales. 

Image/data by IDC

This is where what Microsoft has been doing turns interesting. First, they created fears and concerns to their long-time hardware partners and made tablets which can double as notebooks.

Then Surface Book came.

Now, Microsoft is producing desktop computers. Yes, the typical PC we commonly see in offices or homes. Theirs come with really large screens and the CPUs, storage and memories built into an all-in-one machine.

While some critics say they are the same desktop computer, Surface Studio is quite different in what it offers in user experience. It is also quite obvious that this product is aimed at iMac aficionados and creative professionals at large. So in some ways, it is catering to a niche segment of the PC sub-sector.

According to an analyst, the way Microsoft reimagines the PC mirrors that of Apple, which started the revolution some 20 years ago. This adds another dimension in the 'Going Forward By Going Back' theory.  Why would Microsoft take such a risk? The answer seems to lie in desktop productivity.

Now the vision which Microsoft Surface designers have seems complete. What started out in Surface RT extended to Surface Book and now, Surface Studio. All lined up with quiet ambitions to regain their world dominance, or at least to win design enthusiasts over.  

On one parting thought, should long-time partners like Acer, Dell, HP or Lenovo be concerned where Microsoft is entrenching itself?

Let me know what you think?

If you don't already know, check out the prices below..

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/10/26/13380462/microsoft-surface-studio-pc-computer-announced-features-price-release-date