微软Office 365刚刚达到了一个里程碑

在上周四的一场电话会议中，微软的首席财务官艾米·胡德称，公司的Office 365在线办公工具带来的收入超过了传统的Office办公软件带来的收入。

这一变化值得关注，因为微软和许多其他的传统商业软件供应商（包括Adobe在内）一样，已经开始从销售需要人们自行下载的软件，转为销售在线软件的按月或按年订阅服务。

越来越多的公司开始转向所谓的“订阅即服务”模式，这种模式已经被Salesforce等公司推广开来。Salesforce公司向其数据中心的客户提供销售软件。这一模式除了帮助客户更好地预测未来的收入外，还使得软件公司能更容易地发布更新和新功能，并为他们提供关于客户如何使用公司产品的信息。

不过，胡德并未给出Office 365和传统Office套件（包括Word和Excel等软件）的具体销售数据。微软只表示，Office的商业营收（包括Office 365和Office软件套件两者的营收）同比增长5%，达到2.77亿美元。该公司将5%的增长归功于Office 365订阅量的上升，而不是传统版本的Office套件带来的销售额。同时，微软Office个人版的销售额同比增长了13%，达到9900万美元。微软也表示，这是因为有更多人订阅了Office 365的个人版。

无论如何，Office 365取得的里程碑式的成绩，都突显出微软正在不断推进云计算技术的努力，而且微软销售的软件和其它服务也都是以微软自有的数据中心为基础的。但是，这个发展方向也带来了一些“成长的烦恼”。

例如，微软本月早些时候曾表示，作为重组的一部分，公司将裁掉数千名销售人员。微软首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉在周四与分析专家的电话会议上承认公司将裁员，并表示这是全面改革的一部分。

纳德拉称 “这一改革已经进行了多年，目前还在进行之中。”

胡德进一步解释说，公司正试图在其业务的各个领域中重新推动云产品的增长。这就意味着，与过去相比，那些销量欠佳的老产品的销售人员目前创造的价值下降了。

他说：“我们正努力从过去十八个月的学习中吸取更多的经验，并将这些经验应用到更广泛的范围中。我们会把资源投入到那些在改革的下一个阶段中，会带来更好的长期回报的软件中。”

上周四，在开盘几小时后，微软股价下跌至74美元，跌幅接近1%。（财富中文网）

译者：Amelia Huang

Amy Hood, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said Thursday during a conference call for the company’s latest earnings that its Office 365 online workplace tools brought in more revenue than the traditional version of Office that’s installed on people’s computers.

This is noteworthy because Microsoft, like many other legacy business software vendors including Adobe, has been shifting from selling software that people own and download, to selling monthly or annual subscriptions for online software.

More companies are turning to a so-called subscription-as-a-service model that has been popularized by companies like Salesforce, which provides its sales software to customers from its own data centers. Besides helping customers to better predict future revenue, it also lets them more easily deliver updates and new features and gives them information about how their customers use their products.

Still, Hood didn’t detail the exact sales numbers of its Office 365 and classic Office software suite, which include Word and Excel, among others. Microsoft only said that Office Commercial revenue, which includes both Office 365 and Office, rose 5% year-over-year to $277 million. The company attributed that 5% growth to more subscriptions to Office 365, and not to sales of the traditional edition. Sales of Microsoft's Office Consumer segment grew 13% year-over-year to $99 million, which Microsoft said was due to more people subscribing to the consumer version of Office 365.

Whatever the case, the Office 365 milestone underscores Microsoft’s continued push into cloud computing and it selling software and other services that are delivered from its own data centers. But that focus comes with some growing pains.

For example, Microsoft said earlier this month that it would lay off thousands of salespeople as part of a reorganization. During the call with analysts on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged the layoffs and said that they were part of a broader overhaul.

“This transformation is ongoing and has been happening over multiple years,” Nadella said.

Hood elaborated further by explaining that the company is trying to recreate the growth of its cloud products in all parts of the business. This means that sales people who have experience selling older products that aren't performing as well are less valuable than in the past.

“We’re taking that learning of the past 18 months and really applying it at a broader scale across the salesforce—to put those resources where we feel confident that they’ll have a good long-term return in that next phase of transformation,” Hood said.

Microsoft's shares dropped a little under 1 % to $74.00 in after hours trading on Thursday.