微软增长的关键：不是新Windows 10，而是云业务

    微软提供的服务有什么独特之处？

    我经常跟顾客讲述我们做的三件特别的事，这三件事情结合起来在行业中独树一帜。

    第一，我们通过在世界各地部署的Azure服务，提供超大规模的云平台。我们现在在全球16个地区建立了数据中心。每个区域建有多个数据中心的集群。客观而言，亚马逊（Amazon）的区域数量只有我们的一半。谷歌（Google）的云平台区域只有我们的五分之一。所以，从地域而言，现在我们的覆盖面最广。就规模而言，我们是少数几个超大规模供应商之一（另外两个是亚马逊和谷歌），每年在云数据中心安装成千上万或数以百万计的服务器。

    我们认为，从经济性和顾客能力角度来看，当公司安装并拥有如此大的处理能力，其地域覆盖和规模经济将使公司处于独特地位，我们可以随时随地服务于客户，运行数以万计的虚拟机器，或进行拍字节或艾字节的存储。我们认为最终大约将有三家供应商有能力满足这一需求。

    与另外两家供应商相比，我们有两个差异化特点。一个是企业级，我们专注于提供超大规模服务，不仅在经济和地域覆盖方面是超大规模，而且在能力、支持和整体服务方面实现真正的企业级。为了达到这种企业级服务，微软确实投入了20多年的努力。这说起来很容易，但要付诸实践并获得企业的信任，则需要很长时间。

    另一个特点是，我们的本地部署业务规模非常庞大，得益于我们现有的服务器软件和我们的私有云能力。其中，我们关注的一个焦点是，如何使组织和企业以及初创企业和独立软件开发商能够创建解决方案，不仅能够使用超大规模公共云，也可以与企业现有数据中心进行整合，即建立一种混合解决方案。

    基于您刚才所说，您如何看待亚马逊获得如此多的市场份额？

    亚马逊是首批大力投入云业务的企业之一。所以肯定具有先发优势，他们能够从中受益。如果我们在云方面的投入能够提早3年开始就好了。他们能够那么早涉足云业务，对此向他们致敬。就目前的业务而言，《财富》美国500强中，约有57％的企业部署了微软的Azure。当然，我的主要使命不是仅仅维持第二名的位置，而是真正从当前的领先者手中获取市场份额。说到底，我们要实现这一点，需要提供独特的产品和与众不同的视角。

    萨蒂亚[纳德拉]在担任首席执行官之前，曾担任您现在的职位，这一点有影响目前您与首席执行官之间的关系吗？

    从这个角度而言,我不知道是不是应该说发生了很大的变化。我们一直说以移动为本、以云为本,也许可以换一种表述方式,那就是“设备和服务”。这一直是我们公司的重点，即使在萨蒂亚成为公司首席执行官之前也是如此。从战略的角度来看，我们专注于云已有几年时间。并不是说我们现在才开始重视云。我们对云的重视已经有相当长一段时间。

    当然，我们的首席执行官是云的坚定拥护者，而且拥有丰富的运营云业务的第一手经验，这对公司很有益。这不仅有助于我的业务领域，也有利于我们正在开发的其他一些云服务，包括云和企业业务之外的设备、游戏或Office相关的云服务。

    译者：Lina

    What’s unique about what Microsoft is offering?

    The story I usually tell customers is how we’re really doing three unique things—three things that the combination of which we think is unique in the industry.

    One is, we’re focused on and delivering a hyper-scale cloud platform with our Azure service that’s deployed around the world. We’re now in 16 regions around the world. Each region is a cluster of multiple data centers. Put in perspective, Amazon has about half that many regions. Google for their cloud platform only has about a fifth of those regions today. So we actually now have the broadest coverage from a geographic perspective. From a scaling perspective, I think we’re one of [very few]—Amazon and Google being the other two—hyper-scale providers out there that are installing many, many hundreds of thousands or millions of servers every year in our cloud data centers.

    We believe that that geographic footprint, as well as the economies of scale that you get when you install and have that much capacity, puts you in a unique position from an economic and from a customer capability perspective, where we can take the customers and can literally spin up tens of thousands of virtual machines, or store petabytes or exabytes of storage instantly anywhere in the world. Ultimately we think there are about three providers out there that are going to be able to meet that need.

    Where I think we differentiate then, versus the other two, is around two characteristics. One is enterprise grade and the focus on delivering something that’s not only hyper-scale from an economic and from a geographic reach perspective but really enterprise-grade from a capability, support, and overall services perspective. I think that’s something that Microsoft has really kind of invested for 20-plus years in terms of getting there to be enterprise grade. It’s something you can say pretty easily, that you’re enterprise grade. But it takes an awful lot of time both to build out the muscle and earn the trust of organizations.

    The other thing that we have that’s fairly unique is a very large on-premises footprint with our existing server software and with our private cloud capabilities. One of the things that we’re focusing on is, how do we enable organizations and enterprises as well as the startups and ISVs to build solutions that span not only hyper scale public cloud but can also integrate within enterprise’s existing data centers and build hybrid solutions that span across both?

    What’s your assessment, in light of everything you just said, of how Amazon has been able to move forward in gaining so much market share?

    Well, I think Amazon was one of the first to really go big in the cloud space. So I think there’s certainly a first mover advantage that they’ve been able to benefit from. I wish we started three years before we did with our own cloud effort. Kudos to them for really embracing it as early as they did. In terms of where we’re at today, we’ve got about 57% of the Fortune 500 that are now deployed on Microsoft Azure. Obviously a core part of my mission is to not just be the solid number two but to actually gain on the current leader from a market-share perspective. Ultimately the way we think we do that is by having a unique set of offerings and a unique point of view that is differentiated.

    Does the fact that Satya [Nadella] had your role in the organization before becoming CEO in any way change the relationship that you have with the CEO now?

    Well, I don’t know if I’d say there’s been a big change from that perspective. I mean, I think obviously we’ve been saying for a while this mobile-first, cloud-first…”devices and services” is maybe another way to put it. That’s been our focus as a company even before Satya became CEO. From a strategic perspective, I think we very much have been focused on cloud now for a couple of years. I wouldn’t say this now means, “Oh, now we’re serious about cloud.” I think we’ve been serious about cloud for quite a while.

    Certainly it helps the fact that the CEO is a big believer in cloud and has a bunch of first-hand experience running the cloud businesses. It certainly helps, not only in my world, but also some of the other cloud services that we’re doing, whether they’re device specific or gaming specific or with our Office business, which is outside of the cloud and enterprise group.