Latest news with #Windows-first
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Microsoft confirms next Xbox with AMD chip, cross-platform game support
The upcoming Xbox will support multiple devices, third-party game stores, and backward compatibility. Built on Windows and powered by AMD, it marks a shift to an open and unified gaming ecosystem New Delhi Microsoft has confirmed that it is working on next-generation Xbox console in partnership with AMD, with a focus on making gaming more accessible across platforms. Xbox president Sarah Bond shared in a video posted on the official Xbox YouTube channel: 'We've established a strategic, multi-year agreement with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, including our next-generation Xbox consoles.' Rather than being a standalone console, the new Xbox is part of a larger shift towards a cross-platform ecosystem. 'Designed for players, not tied to a single store or device, and fully compatible with your existing Xbox game library,' Bond said. Windows-first and multi-store support The new console will be based on a Windows-first approach, positioning Windows as the primary operating system for gaming. This strategy could open the door to third-party platforms such as Steam, expanding beyond Microsoft's own store. The approach is expected to be similar to what Asus is doing with its upcoming Xbox-branded handhelds. Backward compatibility and ecosystem integration A major feature of the next Xbox is backward compatibility, allowing users to play titles from their existing Xbox game library on the new hardware. This move supports continuity for long-time users and reduces the friction typically associated with hardware transitions. A broader Xbox platform The announcements underline Microsoft's shift in strategy: Xbox is no longer just a console but a broad, adaptable platform. It is designed to work seamlessly across devices, third-party stores and cloud services, all unified under the Xbox brand.
Forbes
08-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Executing Innovation In Large Corporations
In 2007, SAP, the German software giant, made a bold commitment to sell 10,000 software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions by 2010.1 Over decades, it can become a dominant player in enterprise resource planning software for large companies. However, the rise of tech startups such as Google and Amazon, alerted them to the alarming reality that the future lay in software provisioned from what we now call the Cloud. This was particularly true for small firms, who could use new SaaS tools build their businesses at lower-cost and with much greater flexibility than a traditional SAP system. However, by 2010, the newly appointed CEO, Leo Appotheker had to admit that they had fallen well short of the 10,000 target and had in fact only signed up 100 customers. SAP made a valiant attempt to leap into the future as an innovator, but in the end it failed. The short-hand explanation for this outcome is that SAP lacked a 'culture of innovation' and was too 'risk averse' to execute on its innovative intent. This may be accurate but to managers seeking to avoid the same fate, it feels inadequately actionable. I will offer a practical tool for diagnosing and closing execution gaps. Executing Innovation in the Cloud The shift from enterprise software to SaaS has been one of the defining innovations of the twenty-first century, right up alongside mobile-phones, and mRNA in life sciences. However, it pales in comparison to AI, and its potentially revolutionary impact on business models across the economy. If SAP struggled with SaaS, we can be certain that any and all incumbent firms are at risk of displaying the same pathologies as they try to adapt to AI. That makes it really important to understand why SAP failed. Fortunately, we can compare SAP's response to SaaS with how Microsoft reinvented itself to embrace a 'Cloud-first, Mobile-first' strategy. Although Microsoft started in a different segment of the software industry, selling operating systems and productivity applications, it too faced the threat of SaaS.2 In 2014, Microsoft recorded its first ever quarterly loss, as the market switched to cloud-based apps like Google Mail and Google Docs. Until then, Microsoft had been a 'Windows-first' firm sucking everything toward its computing platform in what we can most certainly describe as more of an ego-system, than an eco-system. Then, under its new CEO, Satya Nadella, Microsoft made an abrupt shift. Instead of being a Windows company, that defined its competitors as other operating systems – such as iOS and Linux – it became a Cloud provider. It would go head-to-head with Amazon, Google, Meta, and others, in the race to cloud enable entire industries. This is a shift that ultimately paved the way for its central role in the AI revolution, as the partner of OpenAI. SAP in the meanwhile is busy playing catchup, trying to make itself relevant to a transformation that it is subject to rather than shaping. Different approaches to Executing Innovation What is the difference in the two approaches between Nadella and Apotheker? The fundamental difference is that SAP changed its strategy without making a serious effort to realign how it was executing. It coded the launch of its SaaS platform, 'Business By Design' as a marketing problem. They focused on building a brand, producing marketing collateral, and communicating their value proposition to potential customers. Microsoft on the other hand shifted its entire approach to implementing strategy pivoting the company from its roots as an operating system company. Before Nadella, Microsoft was an arrogant company, with intense political rivalries between product silos, all focused on the company's Windows Operating System. Nadella opened the company to its competitors, signing new partnerships with Apple and Google, signaling an end to monopolistic thinking. Nadella exited leaders that did not demonstrate a 'growth mindset,' he built a new 'customer success' team to support online sales, and, promoted managers capable of leading a digital revolution at the company.3 Critically, Nadella focused on transforming the culture of the company. The tag line for Microsoft's cultural transformation became the switch from a 'know-it-all' to a 'learn-it-all' company. Executing Innovation requires 'Congruence' Nadella made Microsoft's approach to execution 'congruent' with the strategy of 'cloud first.' Apotheker tried to make an enterprise computing company deliver a SaaS strategy. SAP's execution was incongruent with its strategy. This concept of 'congruence' was first coined by my colleague at Change Logic, Professor Michael Tushman from Harvard Business School.4 What Mike and his co-authors, particularly my other co-founder, Professor Charles O'Reilly from Stanford, argue that organizations need to adapt to deliver new strategies. Adaptation is not a matter of adding a process or hiring a new leader. It means looking at organizations as complex systems in which multiple factors interact – critical tasks, people and skills, formal organization, and, yes, culture. Successful organizations have a set of routines that govern how they operate. These routines dictate how they are structured, what processes they use and whether these are strictly enforced or more open ended, what they measure and reward, and who they hire for what roles. After a while these routines are not challenged, they just become an unconscious part of daily life. Anyone hired into the firm from outside detects them very quickly as they have to learn to adapt to these ways of working, but to existing managers and employees they are like oxygen: necessary, pervasive but invisible. In this situation, announcing a new strategy and explaining it to people in the organization is so inadequate as a mechanism for execution. It assumes that people are consciously aware of what needs to change to make this new direction a reality. Unfortunately, because the system for execution in organization is largely unexamined, people do not realize that their actions undermine the strategy. If you change strategy, but do not change how you execute, then you will get the strategy you started with and were trying to change. There are at least five important mechanisms that Microsoft used that SAP failed to adopt. Action on these five points do not guarantee success – it's a complex system – but they do improve the odds of acting on changing the organization's routines. Microsoft exited leaders that did not display what Nadella called a 'growth mindset.' He contrasted this with a 'fixed mindset' that coded the Cloud as a threat to Microsoft's historic franchise. SAP executed the BusinessByDesign strategy with the same team that was successful with developing and selling its enterprise software. They regarded SaaS as an inferior product lacking the technical sophistication of the traditional solution. Nadella rebuilt the enterprise sales team as a consultative selling team. It focused on how Cloud could be deployed to enable its clients to solve business problems. It built a 'customer success' team to support the switch from selling application software to selling subscriptions. SAP deployed the same sales and marketing organization that had served enterprise companies to address the SaaS market. A team that was good at closing business on long-sales cycles was ill-equipped for the world of digital marketing. Nadella opened Microsoft to its competitors, realizing that the overall market for its products would be larger if its applications worked on rival operating system platforms. This helped to take Office 365 mobile, working seamlessly on iOS and Android. SAP tried to build a brand in the small business market, starting in the USA. It did not engage ecosystem players as distributors or partners. Nadella exited leaders, like the COO, Kevin Turner, and hired new ones like Judson Althoff to lead sales. Microsoft laid off 10% of its sales team and retrained the rest to focus on delivering customer outcomes. SAP retained its same organizational structure. Even the selection of the US as its target market illustrated a desire not to disrupt or threaten the existing business. Microsoft adopted a new mantra that came to symbolize the shift – 'we are moving from a know-it-all to a learn-it-all company.' Nadella led countless meetings with leaders and employees, demonstrating his own willingness to learn by being open about mistakes. Apotheker talked about changing the need to 'change the genetic makeup of our people,' but did nothing to execute on this missions. Microsoft executed its pivot to the Cloud because Nadella understood the unconscious routines on which the company operated. This was partly from his own experience, but he also committed to learning, investing a huge amount of time in meetings with employees, engaging them in designing the change to 'Cloud first.' This takes bravery. Many leaders shy away from inviting feedback from employees. They fear having a 'talking shop' that 'turns negative' and lacks ownership of the problem. What leaders like Nadella realize is that only when you are armed with the unvarnished truth can you be sure that you are revealing those unspoken routines that govern how the firm executes. Executing innovation means focusing on changing organizational routines with as much energy and commitment as you bring to developing an innovation. It can be done. Microsoft can do it, so has many others, like LexisNexis, AGC, UNIQA Insurance, and Analog Devices. Their ability to build an approach to execution congruent with their strategy sets them apart from cases like SAP, Intel, and the many others that struggle to build innovation from inside established firms. 1 Lead and Disrupt, O'Reilly and Tushman, Stanford Press, 2016 2 Microsoft Cloud Transformation, Hazy and Zenios, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2020 3 Corporate Explorer, Binns, O'Reilly, and Tushman, Wiley, 2022 4 Winning Through Innovation, Tushman and O'Reilly, Harvard Business School Publishing, 1997
