微軟增長的關鍵不是新Windows 10 而是雲業務
Much has already been written about Microsoft’s new Windows 10 and the reintroduction of its long-lost Start button after the company unveiled its updated flagship operating system on Tuesday morning. The new OS may provide a much-needed advance over its predecessor, Windows 8, but it is unlikely to restore Microsoft MSFT -1.22% to its former glory as the operating system of choice for computing devices—certainly not in an era where tablets and smartphones have largely supplanted the PC in terms of attention.
美國時間9月30日上午，微軟（Microsoft）發佈了其最新旗艦操作系統Windows10技術預覽版，並重新引入久違的開始菜單，關於此消息已有諸多報道。新的操作系統可能在Windows 8基礎上提供人們期待的改進，但不太可能使微軟重振往日作爲計算設備首選操作系統的輝煌，尤其是在當今這個平板電腦和智能手機很大程度上取代了PC機的時代，這肯定是不可能的。
Where Microsoft is seeing a lot of growth, though, is in its cloud-based businesses like Azure (a platform for managing business applications) and Office 365 (the cloud-based version of its signature productivity software suite). In the company’s most recent earnings report, revenue from commercial cloud services grew 147%, representing an annualized run rate of over $4.4 billion.
而微軟有望實現較大增長的領域其實是雲業務，如Azure（管理業務應用程序的平臺）和Office365（標誌性雲端企業生產力軟件套裝）。公司最新財報顯示，商業雲服務的營收增長了147％，年化運營收入逾44億美元。“Our Cloud OS represents the fastest growing opportunity for Microsoft,” newish CEO Satya Nadella said during a call with investors in July. It’s no wonder Nadella, the former executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, is bullish on the business. Since taking over the top job earlier this year, he has reorganized the company and made selling Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and applications a priority.
7月份，新任首席執行官納德拉在與投資者的電話會議中表示：“我們的雲操作系統是微軟最佳的增長機遇”。納德拉曾擔任微軟雲和企業業務執行副總裁，難怪他看好該業務。自今年初接任首席執行官以來，納德拉對公司進行了重組，並將出售微軟的雲基礎架構和應用程序作爲頭等要務。
Nadella also tapped Scott Guthrie, a longtime Microsoft exec, for his old role. Fortune recently caught up with Guthrie to ask about some of the changes under Nadella, the competition with Amazon, and what differentiates Microsoft’s cloud products.
納德拉還發掘出在微軟擔任高管多年的斯科特o格思裏接任自己原來的職位。《財富》雜誌近日採訪了格思裏，問及納德拉掌舵期間微軟發生的一些變化、與亞馬遜的競爭以及微軟雲產品與衆不同的地方。Fortune: How has your role changed?
財富：您的職責發生了什麼變化？Guthrie:I took over in February, I think the same day Satya became CEO. One of the things that Satya talks about is how we’re living in a mobile-first, cloud-first world. I think the cloud and enterprise group in Microsoft has been very focused for the last two or three years on that mission. We’ve been in the process of transforming our business to really embrace that. I’d say a lot of my focus has been around, how we accelerate that even further? How do we move down that path? And then, how do we embrace customers and build the set of products that they really want in this mobile-first, cloud-first world, and provide a uniquely differentiated offering that we think only we can provide?
格思裏：我在2月份接任微軟雲和企業業務執行副總裁一職，與薩蒂亞上任首席執行官是同一天。薩蒂亞談論的一個主題是，我們如何在一個以移動爲本、以云爲本的世界生活。我認爲，微軟雲和企業集團最近兩三年一直非常注重這一使命。我們不斷轉變業務，旨在真正實現這一願景。我主要關注的問題是，如何進一步加速該進程？我們如何在這條道路上繼續走下去？我們如何從顧客出發，併爲顧客創造一套他們在這個以移動爲本、以云爲本的世界真正想要的產品？如何提供獨特的差異化產品？What’s unique about what Microsoft is offering?
微軟提供的服務有什麼獨特之處？The story I usually tell customers is how we’re really doing three unique things—three things that the combination of which we think is unique in the industry.
我經常跟顧客講述我們做的三件特別的事，這三件事情結合起來在行業中獨樹一幟。One is, we’re focused on and delivering a hyper-scale cloud platform with our Azure service that’s deployed around the world. We’re now in 16 regions around the world. Each region is a cluster of multiple data centers. Put in perspective, Amazon has about half that many regions. Google for their cloud platform only has about a fifth of those regions today. So we actually now have the broadest coverage from a geographic perspective. From a scaling perspective, I think we’re one of [very few]—Amazon and Google being the other two—hyper-scale providers out there that are installing many, many hundreds of thousands or millions of servers every year in our cloud data centers.
第一，我們通過在世界各地部署的Azure服務，提供超大規模的雲平臺。我們現在在全球16個地區建立了數據中心。每個區域建有多個數據中心的集羣。客觀而言，亞馬遜（Amazon）的區域數量只有我們的一半。谷歌（Google）的雲平臺區域只有我們的五分之一。所以，從地域而言，現在我們的覆蓋面最廣。就規模而言，我們是少數幾個超大規模供應商之一（另外兩個是亞馬遜和谷歌），每年在雲數據中心安裝成千上萬或數以百萬計的服務器。We believe that that geographic footprint, as well as the economies of scale that you get when you install and have that much capacity, puts you in a unique position from an economic and from a customer capability perspective, where we can take the customers and can literally spin up tens of thousands of virtual machines, or store petabytes or exabytes of storage instantly anywhere in the world. Ultimately we think there are about three providers out there that are going to be able to meet that need.
我們認爲，從經濟性和顧客能力角度來看，當公司安裝並擁有如此大的處理能力，其地域覆蓋和規模經濟將使公司處於獨特地位，我們可以隨時隨地服務於客戶，運行數以萬計的虛擬機器，或進行拍字節或艾字節的存儲。我們認爲最終大約將有三家供應商有能力滿足這一需求。Where I think we differentiate then, versus the other two, is around two characteristics. One is enterprise grade and the focus on delivering something that’s not only hyper-scale from an economic and from a geographic reach perspective but really enterprise-grade from a capability, support, and overall services perspective. I think that’s something that Microsoft has really kind of invested for 20-plus years in terms of getting there to be enterprise grade. It’s something you can say pretty easily, that you’re enterprise grade. But it takes an awful lot of time both to build out the muscle and earn the trust of organizations.
與另外兩家供應商相比，我們有兩個差異化特點。一個是企業級，我們專注於提供超大規模服務，不僅在經濟和地域覆蓋方面是超大規模，而且在能力、支持和整體服務方面實現真正的企業級。爲了達到這種企業級服務，微軟確實投入了20多年的努力。這說起來很容易，但要付諸實踐並獲得企業的信任，則需要很長時間。The other thing that we have that’s fairly unique is a very large on-premises footprint with our existing server software and with our private cloud capabilities. One of the things that we’re focusing on is, how do we enable organizations and enterprises as well as the startups and ISVs to build solutions that span not only hyper scale public cloud but can also integrate within enterprise’s existing data centers and build hybrid solutions that span across both?
另一個特點是，我們的本地部署業務規模非常龐大，得益於我們現有的服務器軟件和我們的私有云能力。其中，我們關注的一個焦點是，如何使組織和企業以及初創企業和獨立軟件開發商能夠創建解決方案，不僅能夠使用超大規模公共雲，也可以與企業現有數據中心進行整合，即建立一種混合解決方案。What’s your assessment, in light of everything you just said, of how Amazon has been able to move forward in gaining so much market share?
基於您剛纔所說，您如何看待亞馬遜獲得如此多的市場份額？Well, I think Amazon was one of the first to really go big in the cloud space. So I think there’s certainly a first mover advantage that they’ve been able to benefit from. I wish we started three years before we did with our own cloud effort. Kudos to them for really embracing it as early as they did. In terms of where we’re at today, we’ve got about 57% of the Fortune 500 that are now deployed on Microsoft Azure. Obviously a core part of my mission is to not just be the solid number two but to actually gain on the current leader from a market-share perspective. Ultimately the way we think we do that is by having a unique set of offerings and a unique point of view that is differentiated.
亞馬遜是首批大力投入雲業務的企業之一。所以肯定具有先發優勢，他們能夠從中受益。如果我們在雲方面的投入能夠提早3年開始就好了。他們能夠那麼早涉足雲業務，對此向他們致敬。就目前的業務而言，《財富》美國500強中，約有57％的企業部署了微軟的Azure。當然，我的主要使命不是僅僅維持第二名的位置，而是真正從當前的領先者手中獲取市場份額。說到底，我們要實現這一點，需要提供獨特的產品和與衆不同的視角。Does the fact that Satya [Nadella] had your role in the organization before becoming CEO in any way change the relationship that you have with the CEO now?
薩蒂亞[納德拉]在擔任首席執行官之前，曾擔任您現在的職位，這一點有影響目前您與首席執行官之間的關係嗎？Well, I don’t know if I’d say there’s been a big change from that perspective. I mean, I think obviously we’ve been saying for a while this mobile-first, cloud-first…”devices and services” is maybe another way to put it. That’s been our focus as a company even before Satya became CEO. From a strategic perspective, I think we very much have been focused on cloud now for a couple of years. I wouldn’t say this now means, “Oh, now we’re serious about cloud.” I think we’ve been serious about cloud for quite a while.
從這個角度而言,我不知道是不是應該說發生了很大的變化。我們一直說以移動爲本、以云爲本,也許可以換一種表述方式,那就是“設備和服務”。這一直是我們公司的重點，即使在薩蒂亞成爲公司首席執行官之前也是如此。從戰略的角度來看，我們專注於雲已有幾年時間。並不是說我們現在纔開始重視雲。我們對雲的重視已經有相當長一段時間。Certainly it helps the fact that the CEO is a big believer in cloud and has a bunch of first-hand experience running the cloud businesses. It certainly helps, not only in my world, but also some of the other cloud services that we’re doing, whether they’re device specific or gaming specific or with our Office business, which is outside of the cloud and enterprise group.
當然，我們的首席執行官是雲的堅定擁護者，而且擁有豐富的運營雲業務的第一手經驗，這對公司很有益。這不僅有助於我的業務領域，也有利於我們正在開發的其他一些雲服務，包括雲和企業業務之外的設備、遊戲或Office相關的雲服務。
