UPDATED 07:30 EDT / JUNE 26 2015

NEWS

Nadella spells out Microsoft’s new mission: Help everyone “achieve more”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has officially revised the company’s mission statement, in an email sent out to employees yesterday.

As of today, the Redmond firm’s goal is to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” Nadella wrote in his communique. The email was first leaked to GeekWire, and has since been confirmed as authentic by Microsoft.

Microsoft’s mission statement is much simpler than before, but also indicative of the new direction Nadella is keen to take the company in. Since taking over from Steve Ballmer, Microsoft has embraced the idea of getting its software and services out onto every kind of device and platform, while pusing ahead with a major revamp of its signature Windows operating system.

Microsoft is fast approaching a new fiscal year, which starts on July 1 and could well be a defining one in the company’s history. It has high hopes for the release of Windows 10 next month, and will also revamp its Office software, while stepping up efforts to get customers onto cloud and subscription pricing models – and all of this will take place under the intense glare of shareholder who’re desperate to see the company accelerate its transition.

Nadella acknowledged this transformation in his email to employees, saying:

“Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world. It’s important to note that our worldview for mobile-first is not just about the mobility of devices; it’s centered on the mobility of experiences that, in turn, are orchestrated by the cloud.”

Nadella’s note also tried to explain how he intends to achieve this vision, emphasizing the “dual-use” idea and a focus on work-related products and business process experiences:

“First, we will reinvent productivity services for digital work that span all devices. We will also extend our experience footprint by building more business process experiences, integrated into content authoring and consumption, communication and collaboration tools. We will drive scale and usage by appealing to “dual-use” customers, providing productivity services that enable them to accomplish more at work and in the rest of their life activities with other people.”

It makes sense. As ZDNet‘s Mary Jo Foley points out, business-focused software and services is where the bulk of Microsoft’s revenues come from. Windows Server, SQL Server, System Center, ERP/CRM, Visual Studio, SharePoint and Exchange are all billion-dollar businesses.

Nadella’s message doesn’t contain any stunning revelations, but instead appears to be designed to inspire employees ahead of what will surely be a critical year. It’s possible that morale has slumped somewhat, what with the departurs of several key executives last week, including former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, and Kirill Tatarinov, Microsoft’s Business Solutions chief. These follow a series of layoffs that began in 2014 when Nadella first took over the company, and ended with the last batch of job cuts this April.

Microsoft has set itself the ambitious goal of having Windows 10 running on one billion devices by the start of fiscal 2018, which is just over three years away.

Photo Credit: n.bhupinder via Compfight cc

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