Enterprise Ecosystem – Pole position

Office 365 is reaping the rewards of change.

• Microsoft’s change in attitude towards Office software is starting to reap real rewards.
• Only 12 months ago, in order to use Office a user had to have Microsoft Windows as its operating system.
• On iOS and Android, third party applications were available where a user could read Office documents but the experience was so bad that converting the file to Google or something else was a preferable option.
• The management change at Microsoft has brought in a completely new attitude towards its strategy and how to sell its products.
• The Windows everywhere mantra has gone to be replaced with a strategy designed to persuade users rather than force them. 
• To that end Office apps were made available on iOS and users can now read and edit documents without paying Microsoft a cent.
• This is does not mean that the PC is losing its relevance but it does mean that users are increasingly doing certain tasks on more than one device.
• Furthermore, its cloud offering, Office 365, puts all of these apps together into a complete enterprise ecosystem and makes it available on any device that the user owns.
• Office for Android is still in the works but I expect it to be launched during 2015.
• This is why cloud platform providers are seeing Office 365 rapidly rising in the ranks of installed applications and why I think Flurry saw productivity as the second fastest growing category on mobile in terms of usage over the last few months.  
• Not only is Office 365 rising in terms of installs but it is used more frequently than anything else (Okta.com).
• I believe that this will lead to decline in the usage of alternative offerings such as Google Docs, iWork and so on.
• These alternatives were created as alternatives to Office but now that pricing is far more reasonable and the causal user can get access for free their appeal is starting to wane.
• Consequently, I suspect that Office 365 will continue to gain traction over the short and medium term.
• Salesforce still remains the number one cloud application used by companies but Office 365 is quickly catching up.
• There is still a very long way to go as less than 33% of companies have migrated their IT into the cloud (Gartner) but Microsoft already has its ducks in a row and is in pole position.
• Microsoft remains the only company with a comprehensive offering for both the consumer and the enterprise ecosystem.
• Consequently, if it can find a way to marry the two in a single experience that is both fun and easy to use, it will have achieved a very strong competitive edge.
• Microsoft remains one of my favourite ways to have exposure to the increasing importance that the ecosystem will play in the generation of revenues and profits in the technology industry.