14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has made a promise earlier this year that it would soon transform into a devices and services company paying much more attention to hardware, but without neglecting software.
Asked by ET how Microsoft is trying to change people's perception that the company is all about Office and Windows, Bhaskar Pramanik, Microsoft India head, said that he was a little worried about this, as people are yet to discover the full capabilities of its products.
“I worry about this all the time. If you think about Office today, it's a productivity and collaboration tool and content management system. Excel does better analytics for a user than anything which OracleBSE -0.02 % or SAP throw at it. So that is the challenge,” he was quoted as saying
“When people think of Office, they think about Word or simple spreadsheet or PowerPoint. But the fact is today Office is about content creation. And when you have a share option, it becomes a collaborative tool,” he continued.
“Unfortunately, we are typecast as someone who does spell check, creates a PowerPoint presentation. It is much more beyond that. Excel, for example, has also evolved over time and I think most users only use 20-30% of its capabilities.”
As far as Microsoft's efforts in the hardware side of the market are concerned, word is that a smaller Surface tablet is likely to launch in early 2014, together with an LTE version of the device.
Of course, Microsoft remains tight-lipped on its future projects, but the company has already confirmed that it wants as many tablets as possible on the market in the next 12 months.
The company has recently refreshed the Surface product lineup with the second generation, launching new models that are running Windows 8.1 and come with upgraded hardware for both the RT and the Pro versions.