微软巨变蒙上阴影

    公关艺术中，先发制人是最便捷的利器之一。如果企业能抢在新闻——尤其是那些不怎么有利的新闻之前采取行动，就能控制舆论的基调，甚至操纵舆论为公司的优势鼓吹造势。

    微软公司（Microsoft）本月初宣布的雄心勃勃的重组计划看来就像是一次先发制人的行动。这次重组已经开展有一段时间了，因此并非重组本身，而是宣布重组的时机——即在微软准备发布远低于华尔街预期的营收的前一周——成为先发之举。

    目前还不清楚这个策略这次是否会奏效。实际上，微软可能倒是为先发制人会怎样误入歧途树立了反面榜样。它并没有引导舆论关注微软的未来（也就是一家科技巨头如何重振旗鼓掌控未来），同时抛开微软的过去（也就是一个巨无霸如何被日薄西山的桌面计算市场牢牢捆住了手脚），而是让人觉得微软似乎陷入了一片充满不确定性的真空地带。

    7月11日，微软公布了市场期待已久的重组计划，旨在将微软多个各自为战的领域整合到一个更为统一的架构中。长期以来一直是微软核心技术的多套操作系统将被整合到同一个技术部门中。硬件设备和企业应用也将各自纳入一个相应的部门。计划宣布后的几天里，有消息称，微软正将发展重点转到云服务、移动设备和应用这类新兴市场上来。结果，微软公司股票应声上涨了5%。

    目前，人们正为苹果公司（Apple）未来将何去何从争执不下。因此，微软这次重组被拿来与苹果相提并论，不过这不重要。微软这次重组采用了“帮助人们完全实现潜能”的战略，这话听起来更像是人生导师的职位描述——这也不重要。重要的是，微软的股价飙升到了近六年来的最高位，这家公司的前景看起来也比以前更加光明。

    但随后，利润数据出炉了。

    上周四，微软称去年第四财季的收入同比增加10%，达到199亿美元，同时每股净收益为59美分。而分析师普遍预计收入为207亿美元，每股利润为75美分。所有人都知道台式机和笔记本需求疲软让微软业绩受损，但他们显然低估了这种损害的严重程度。而微软表示，尽管针对企业的PC出货量实现了个位数的增长，但针对消费者的PC出货量却下降了20%。

    雪上加霜的是，市场对微软的平板电脑Surface的需求始终不振，迫使微软公司最终减记了9亿美元的存货。这笔极少有投资者料到的减记使每股净收益又少了7美分。而微软将Surface RT的售价降低了150美元，下调到349美元，同时对“相关部件和配件”进行了调整，也增加了减记值。

    不过财报中还是有一些亮点的：首席财务官艾米•胡德指出，消费者对Office 365、Outlook.com、Skype和Xbox LIVE的需求看涨。但PC和Surface前景黯淡的消息似乎让这些亮点也都黯然失色了。花旗集团（Citigroup）的一位分析师毫不客气地称这一业绩为“记忆中最糟糕的一个财季”。

    Preemption is one of the handiest tools in the art of public relations. If a company can get ahead of news -- especially not-so-good new -- it can control the tone of the conversation and even guide it in a direction that plays up the company's strengths.

    The ambitious restructuring that Microsoft (MSFT) announced earlier this month looks to have been a preemptive move. Not the restructuring itself, which has been in the works for some time, but the timing of its announcement: a week before Microsoft was going to announce earnings that fell short of what Wall Street had been expecting.

    It's not clear the strategy worked this time. In fact, Microsoft may have offered a case study in how preemption can go wrong. Rather than steering the conversation toward Microsoft's future (a tech giant refitted to better handle what's coming) and away from the past (a juggernaut tied down to the aging market of desktop computing), Microsoft appears to have entered a vacuum of uncertainty.

    On July 11, Microsoft announced a long-awaited restructuring that sought to turn its scattered fiefdoms into a more integrated confederation. Myriad operating systems, long the company's core technology, would be consolidated under one engineering division. Hardware devices would be grouped in another, enterprise in yet another. Over the several following days, the stock gained 5% on the news that the company was shifting its focus on growing markets like cloud services, mobile devices, and apps.

    Never mind that the restructuring drew comparisons to Apple (AAPL) at a time when Apple's future is a matter of debate. Never mind that the single strategy the company was uniting behind -- "to help people realize their full potential" -- sounded more like the job description of a life coach. Microsoft's stock was drifting up to its highest level in nearly six years. The future looked brighter for the company than it had in some time.

    Then came earnings.

    Microsoft said last Thursday that revenue rose 10% on year to $19.9 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter, while net income came in at 59 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting $20.7 billion in revenue and 75 cents a share in profit. Everyone knew that the weak demand for desktops and laptops was hurting Microsoft, but they underestimated the damage. Microsoft said that, while shipments of those PCs to companies rose in the single digits, consumer PC shipments fell 20%.

    On top of that, demand for Microsoft's Surface tablets has been disappointing enough to prompt the company to write down $900 million in inventory. That writedown, which few if any investors were expecting, deleted 7 cents a share from its net income. Microsoft cut Surface RT prices by $150 to $349, and adjustments to "related parts and accessories" also added to the writedown.

    There were bright spots too: Office 365, Outlook.com, Skype, and Xbox LIVE are seeing increased demand from consumers, CFO Amy Hood pointed out. But the gloom of the PC and Surface news seemed to obscure those bright spots. An analyst at Citigroup bluntly called it "the sloppiest quarter in memory."