微軟終於決定要"統一"操作系統了

On Microsoft’s quarterly earnings conference call yesterday, the company’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, said the word “one” nine times in his prepared remarks.

日前，在微軟（Microsoft）的季度收益電話會議上，公司首席執行官薩蒂亞o納德拉講話中9次提到了“一”這個字。

“Cloud”? Nineteen, if you can believe it, not including product names. “Microsoft”? Just three times. “Innovation”? Two. (Bless his heart.)

另外，你或許難以相信，納德拉19次提到“雲”，這還是除去提到雲產品名稱的時候。相比之下，他僅三次提到微軟”，兩次提到“創新”。（上帝保佑。）

Nadella, who took Microsoft’s top post in February, has been trying mightily to set a single course for his sprawling technology company . In July, he issued a memo to more than 128,000 employees outlining his vision; a week later, he issued another explaining why he decided to cut 18,000 of them. In between, he dropped by Fortune‘s Brainstorm Tech conference, where he reiterated that cultural change was necessary to revitalize the company—a more elegant way of repeating the well-worn maxim that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

納德拉於今年2月就任微軟掌門人，從那時起，他一直努力試圖爲這家涉獵甚廣的科技公司設定一條路線。7月，納德拉給公司128,000多名員工發了一份備忘錄，概述自己的願景；一週後，他又發了一份備忘錄，解釋爲何決定裁掉18,000名員工。在這期間，納德拉參加了《財富》科技頭腦風暴技術大會（Brainstorm Tech conference），並在會上重申，要振興微軟，必須變革公司文化。這是用比較文雅的方式表述一條老生常談的格言，即：墨守成規，一遍遍做同樣的事情，期望藉此獲得不一樣的結果，絕對是癡人說夢。

Nadella is certainly moving swiftly. In his remarks yesterday, he revealed that the next version of Microsoft’s Windows, still a cash cow for the company but in recent years more of an embarrassment, would meld “three operating systems into one,” a single piece of software “for screens of all sizes.” (For those keeping track at home, that would be Windows, Windows Phone, and the system software for the Xbox gaming console.) Microsoft’s developers should spend their time working on a single application or service that works across devices, Nadella seemed to say, rather than versioning each of them out for different environments.

納德拉的行動相當迅速。在季度收益電話會議上，他透露下一版Windows將把“三個操作系統合爲一體”，將“適用所有尺寸的屏幕”。Windows仍是微軟的搖錢樹，但近年來也越來越令該公司尷尬。（這三個操作系統是指Windows、Windows Phone以及Xbox遊戲機的系統軟件。）納德拉似乎是說，微軟的開發人員應當致力於開發一款能應用於多類設備的應用程序或服務，而不是針對不同環境開發不同的應用程序或服務。

This makes sense. The convergence of operating systems has been underway for some time, and many Microsoft customers may not realize that Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, each formally released in 2012, share the same underlying core architecture. (This was not the case for previous versions.) That leaves the Xbox gaming console, Microsoft’s anchor in the living room, which runs three different operating systems of its own: one to boot the device and create virtual machines, another to run games, another to run applications. It’s the third in this series that shares underlying architecture with Windows and Windows Phone, and the one on which Nadella is placing his bets.

這合乎情理。操作系統的融合已經進行了一段時間，許多微軟用戶可能沒意識到，2012年正式發佈的Windows8以及Windows Phone8有着相同的基礎核心架構。（之前的版本可不是這樣。）這樣一來，就只剩下微軟推出的客廳設備——Xbox遊戲機。Xbox本身有三個不同的操作系統：一個用於啓動設備、創建虛擬機；另一個用於運行遊戲；最後一個用於運行應用程序。最後一個操作系統的基礎架構與Windows和Windows Phone一致，納德拉下注的正是這個操作系統。

Anyone who has worked at a large company knows that platforming and standardization are two tools that executives love to trot out; anything less reeks of inefficiency. In a connected, multi-device world, it’s nothing short of imperative. Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to reunite its disparate parts—which began, arguably too late, under former CEO Steve Ballmer—have finally begun to be seen in a monetary light as the company loses traction with developers, the economic engines of the Connected Age.

任何曾在大公司任職的人都知道，平臺化和標準化是高管們最愛用的兩個法寶；其它解決方案都有低效之嫌。在互聯互通的多設備時代，這可謂是當務之急。微軟從前任首席執行官史蒂夫o鮑爾默時期開始，努力統一操作系統，其起步就已經太晚。如今，這個問題的財務影響終於被認識到：微軟對開發者漸漸失去吸引力，而開發者正是互聯時代的經濟引擎。

So far, Nadella has framed his tenure as one that will be marked by clarity, drive, and efficiency rather than entrepreneurialism or revolution. “We will be relentless in our focus,” he said at one point during the call. He’d go on to repeat the “f” word eight more times.

就納德拉上任以來的表現看，他任期的特點將是清晰、推動和效率，而非企業家精神或革命。他在電話會議上說道：“我們將不懈的突出重點。”他會重複“重點”一詞多達八次。