Vital Problems Facing Microsoft

Nonetheless, even after it has enjoyed huge success over the years, Microsoft like any other firm remains vulnerable and not immune to various challenges concerning applications as well as their functions. In the course of their operations, there have been almost consistent grievances over their products such as phones and tablets which require updates and enhancements after they are launched. However, despite the improvements and updates such as upgrading the operating systems of their devices, the problems have been rampant and this has brought about several workarounds and resolution techniques that work by providing just a momentary solution until the company addresses the problems itself. The future of a corporate organization is highly dependent on how well it resolves its vital problems within the desired time frame.

In order to apply various solutions on some of the vital problems, the management of an organization must first ask about which direction the company need to head. With the leadership of a relatively newly appointed leadership of Nadella Satya, it becomes increasingly clear that the company is seeking another direction which will register more success. From the current turn of events, not only is Microsoft under a new form of leadership, but it also needs to make a quick adaptation to an environment which is under a rapid change. It needs to increase on its flexibility to cope with the expectations of their customers, who are typically and always expecting free Operating systems. Microsoft is also expected to adapt to a rapidly changing ecosystem whereby the PCs have provided ground to numerous mobile electrical devices which includes computerised tablets and smartphones.

As for Satya, his leadership started by announcing that Microsoft company would be making a new shift to a mentality which focuses mainly on addressing the issue of product promotion to increase on sales. Additionally, Microsoft’s Bing app has for a long period of time remained a far distance behind Google which has a margin of 18. 7% and 67. 6% respectively in its applicability (Eckersley, 2010). Furthermore, recently Microsoft issued a free online version of Office (Microsoft office online). This was meant to be a counter action measure against the earlier release of the Google Drive. From the moment that replacement of the old Internet Explorer app was made, every other newly implemented windows version comes handy with an Edging browser. The edging browser is set as the default browser app.

Majority of internet users who have tendency to using chrome or Firefox as their preferred default browsers do not find the edged browser since it was installed earlier. Solution As a way of counteracting the adverse effect of this problem, Microsoft needs to establish additional number of applications within its gear stores. Microsoft gear store is the unlimited ability and vast pool of intellectual resources such as engineers and app developers it has in disposal and can readily be manipulated to create new products and applications. The manufacturer partnership problem There are many reasons that led to the dominance of Microsoft in the PC global market. Some of these reasons include Microsoft giving licences to the Operating System of Windows 10 to a large group of third parties who operate in manufacturing.

Some of these manufacturers are global production firms who include Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, HP, Asus, and Acer among many others. With issuing of licences to these production giants, the result was an inevitable flooding of the global market with numerous amounts of relatively cheap electronic devices. Most of these firms are currently manufacturing and selling more advanced devices including Windows8, computers, laptops, tablets as well as Ultrabooks in the global market. Unluckily, what becomes desirable by the partners is often undesirable for a company. Microsoft depends on the actions of their highly esteemed partners to produce the best answers and at the best cost. However, Microsoft tends to serve two masters at the same time by way of generating products for their market partners.

For instance, when Microsoft merged with Nokia in 2013, the main aim was to address the needs of their customers at the expense of development of Surface as their original product (Kingsley-Hughes, 2011). As a result, failure is often imminent since the company resorts to manufacturing products that do not bring any appeal to their customers. After the discontinuation, it should pay more attention on other operations of its products. At that point, the company will be in a position to charge a premium and the growth of market would increase significantly. Additionally, Microsoft needs to focus more on the Nokia brand since with this product there will be less rivalry for market space and competition with other firms will be reduced competition.

Market Disconnect Problem For a company like Microsoft to thrive in the rapidly changing global market environment, it has to always maintain a consistent touch with its highly esteemed consumer of their product. After operating for number of years, Microsoft Company has not only registered a declining influence in the world market, but it has also had several mistakes which has apparently affected its touch on customers in an adverse way. For these price-associated issues, the new Microsoft tablet (Surface Pro tablet) has continued to go out of favour with majority of global customers, since its highly priced number of chief products including Surface, Office and Windows phone, and Xbox are not affordable. Later on, when the prices become the biggest challenge on the number of sales, the company resorted to slashing the prices so as to lure and maintain customers (Sutter, & Larus, 2005).

As a result of this slash, the company ability to produce new devices was compromised and those which were produced had a reduced quality and thus a low competitive power in the world market (Odlyzko, 1999). Additionally, from the first time Windows 8 was produced and launched, Microsoft has not formerly been in a better position to nurture the implementation of their contemporary operating systems. Microsoft product windows 7 has been in operation for over eight years even after their three revisions being done behind windows 10, it has also remained to be the standard for enterprises which are PC based and in a big margin. For example, applications in windows10 operating system never appear in the form of icons and pins within the start menu bar unless they are activated, most customers find it very hard to find where they are.

The process of seeking for such through many programs ends up consuming a lot of precious time and even causing much confusion to the users. On this issue it has also been identified that developing and promoting a mobile platform in the current electronic global market is very hard for Microsoft Company. The pressure that Microsoft has been being subjected to by both Android and iOS have become vital problems that are faced by windows phones which has been one of their relatively new product to be manufactured and released to the market. This pressure has also caused a stiff competition from these two giant firms since they are both well established and steadfastly entrenched in the industry. Microsoft company need to stop utilizing the approach based on premium model with most of its manufactured products including tablets, Xbox, laptops as well as phones.

Additionally, the company should also need to stop its aggression on forcing windows8 metro tile interface which it perceives to be the only possible answer to this issue. This problem is appropriately solved by the users themselves since this depends mainly on the competence of an individual to operate computer devices. In order for the user to see the particular application icon or pins they want to use on the start menu of windows 10 operating system, an individual is required to click on the start button and then proceed on to enter by typing in the specific name of their desired application. Since this is a problem which originates from user ability to operate a computer device, Microsoft should therefore tackle the issue by manufacturing easy to operate devices.

The platform on its side is taking a new twist to take a new development by producing constantly, customer expectations as well as the interest of the enterprise is perceived to be focused on more. To solve this issue, Microsoft would be required to make free upgrades to the already windows PCs that are in existent. To realize this, Microsoft Company could first monetize this strategy through the two main approaches. These approaches could be through the services of Bing or just view it as an expense meant to keep individuals within the company’s operations. Further to that, Microsoft is required to make a rope within the PC OEMs. When an organization or an individual seek the services of uncertified personnel to install the products, functionality problems are always forthcoming (Platt, 2002).

Solution to this issue Before purchasing and implementing some of the latest product as components of the operational infrastructure, individuals and organizations should ensure a prior evaluation and assessment has been properly done to ascertain the quality and genuineness of the software products. Organizations and individuals are required to hire only those companies that are associates with Microsoft. The company should be reputable and holder of Microsoft certification. This will ensure that only the genuine and best quality software is installed within the organizations’ operation systems. Of the total sales of Apple, 53% of all the revenue collected within the last quarter alone was directly generated from the numerous sales of the iPhone (Gleick, 1996). In overall, over the past few years, the laptops as well as desktop market have been waning as majority of customers within the global market have shifted to the use of tablets more than they use their computers.

However, this should not be mistaken to mean a complete abolition of both desktop and laptop computers from the market. However, it should imply that in a typical household setting, at some point in the past, individuals who would have opted to purchase two laptop computers would now prefer to purchase one and supplement it with a tablet. Additionally, there also exists another reason as to why mobile devices are more preferred than the desktops and laptop computers (Gleick, 1996). In an event that Microsoft provides profound discounts on their smartphone products such as the windows phones and tablets, and to reach a balance with Amazon and Google, they will end up in a good position to acquire grip in global market in a large scale.

Issue of Malfunctioning MS Office 365 For those institutions and organizations that use the MS Office operating system, they were faced with several critical problems at a time when the newly manufactured update to Office was presented to the market. The new office 365 operating system was a quick success due to its speed and efficiency for the first few years. However, with time, the office 365 becomes obsolete (Platt, 2002). With that turn of events, majority of organizations and firms which had already installed the software in their premises experienced a lot of challenges over its functionality. This further ensures that installation of software is timely and all updates scheduled as it is required. Problem of server platforms For those firms and individuals who work on computing infrastructure that are based on Microsoft software, are often to be ready to encounter vital issues with the server platforms.

The problems with server platforms are systemic and as such they end up disrupting the functionality of the entire system on all the linked platforms as well as users (Platt, 2002). The main solution to this issue is to make an accurate identification of the most suitable server. For example the company utilize the type of server that run in an individuals or organizations’ infrastructure determine the true scale of operation and the manner in which it runs. Solution for the issue To address this problem, Microsoft should establish a protocol to orient customers to the operations of their products. Since most of Microsoft products are operated devices, orienting users to their functioning serves a great purpose as its adds on to the utility of the product.

Microsoft should hire the services of trained technicians who would take customers through the operation producers of the devices whenever they make purchases. Through this initiative, Microsoft will also solve the problem of minor programing issues as customers will also acquire some basic skills in settings and customization of the device once they buy them. References Bosch, J. Eckersley, P. (2010, July). How unique is your web browser?. In International Symposium on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (pp. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Gleick, J. Making Microsoft safe for capitalism. Antitrust L. & Econ. Rev. Hill, C. International business: Competing in the global market place. Strategic Direction, 24(9). Huang, X. , Acero, A. 2, pp. IEEE. Kingsley-Hughes, A. Nokia/Microsoft partnership–Winners and losers. Lipner, S. Introducing Microsoft. Net.