A new Microsoft television ad, airing for the first time tonight, aims to introduce the public to the company’s new “devices and services” strategy — and implicitly helps to explain why Microsoft is prepping for a massive internal reorganization.
The ad, called Windows Everywhere, features products including Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Skype, Office 365, Surface, Bing, Internet Explorer and Xbox Music & Video in quick succession. The tagline: “That’s the new Windows. One experience, on every device, for everything in your life.”
A Microsoft spokesperson says in an email, “The ad reflects the devices and services era that Microsoft is entering into and will be the first time people will see Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Surface in one ad. With this spot, the company is moving away from how it traditionally talks about individual products to showcase how its services light up across the multiple devices that people use.”
Microsoft’s impending reorg is designed, ostensibly, to reorient the company around this new strategy and make it easier to coordinate activities across the company’s product groups.
Mary Jo Foley, also noting the ad, reports on ZDNet, “I’ve heard that Microsoft could possibly appoint two leaders for each of its new business segments, so that “services” would have a head focused more on business needs and another focused more on consumer needs. If that happens, there’d be a new kind of “matrix” organization in place, with devices, services (and possibly software) being headed by multiple leaders.”
Funny story that I was told once by a Microsoft veteran: When the company launched its “Live Anywhere” vision for video games across PC and Xbox 360, the company had considered the name “Live Everywhere” but nixed it because it seemed too overbearing. (“Hey, it could be anywhere!” vs. “Yes, this will be everywhere.”) Back then, emerging from its antitrust era, the company was still sensitive to coming off as too dominant.
That doesn’t seem to be a concern anymore.
Previously: Microsoft’s big reorg: What to watch, and what it means
