微软CEO谈IT转型、亚马逊与Windows 10

    我们生活在一个奇怪的时代。越来越多的企业在其他公司拥有和运营的电脑上运行他们的应用程序。很多员工都很讨厌搞IT的同事，而不是把他们视为一笔资产。

    萨塔亚•纳德拉认为，他的公司可以帮助人们理解这些问题。

    本月初，在微软Ignite芝加哥峰会上，这位首席执行官将对这些确保邮件顺利抵达目的地，公司数据库保持正常运转的技术人员发表演讲。纳德拉还将提醒他们，尽管许多技术预算正在流向营销或其他业务部门，但这并不意味着IT支出正呈现总体下降趋势，也不意味着技术人员对企业的重要性正在降低。事实截然相反。

    上周接受《财富》专访时，纳德拉谈到了微软的战略以及云计算领域的竞争。这次峰会也是纳德拉为期2个月的巡回演讲行程的最近一站，他希望通过此次巡回演讲拉拢微软最大的“票仓”，即微软企业应用用户（3月的Convergence峰会）和软件开发人员（上周的Build峰会）。

    为了解开部分读者心中的疑问，《财富》也向纳德拉求证了微软将收购Salesforce公司的传闻。Salesforce长期以来一直与微软保持着亦敌亦友的关系。不过纳德拉拒绝评论这个问题。

    以下是此次采访的摘要，有删减。

    《财富》：“让IT与企业结盟”这个主题，微软已经说了好几年了。在云计算时代，这个主题有何新意？

    纳德拉：我们要赋予IT更大的力量。当然IT的意思是信息科技，但如果IT人士不把自己看作创新和转型的关键推动者，那么商业用户的其它转型是无法真正实现的，尤其是在企业环境中。最近我思考了很多这方面的事。IT的真正含义应该是创新（Innovation）与转型（Transformation）。

    许多员工认为IT部门就是“找茬的”或是“看大门的”，而且我认为这种情况还没有转变。是否正是这种看法催生了所谓的“自带设备上班”（BYOD）潮流？

    是的，我认为这是一个挑战。早在我成为CEO以前很长时间，我就非常关注微软的“企业移动套件”（Enterprise Mobility Suite，用来管理企业移动设备的软件）。“自带设备上班”或“自带服务上班”的关键问题是，它对企业的信息安全有何影响？对涉密人员的进入权限有何影响？谁来负责约束这些行为？

    我认为，终端用户必须有选择设备和服务的自由，同时IT部门也要具备管理而非控制的能力。我认为这种从控制到管理、从提供到赋予的转型，是企业的IT部门必须经历的一步。老实说，不想做出改变的并非仅仅是IT部门，还包括像我们这样的守成者，尤其是作为一家大型的IT供应商，也需要为他们提供正确的解决方案。

    Windows 10是我们最近谈得比较多的。我们使企业能够继续轻松享受Windows这项服务（就像普通消费者一样）。这个版本有很多技术元素——比如在Windows的系统更新上，我们仍然围绕着升级补丁等方面给予了IT部门很多管理权，同时也解决了很多妨碍IT部门满足客户要求的问题。

    所以，你说的很对。IT部门必须要从说“No”向说“Yes”转型，但是要有把握地说“Yes”。这既是一个有待我们解决的技术问题，也是一个我们必须多多宣传普及的问题。

    We live in strange times. Companies are increasingly running applications on computers owned and operated by another company. Employees tend to look upon their colleagues in information technology as more of a nuisance than an asset.

    Satya Nadella thinks his company can help make sense of it all.

    On Monday, at Microsoft’s Ignite conference in Chicago, the chief executive will directly address those tech professionals who make sure email gets where it needs to go and that corporate databases keep chugging along. To them Nadella will issue a reminder that even though many dollars budgeted for technology are now flowing to marketing or other corporate departments, that doesn’t mean IT spending is down overall or that the need for tech specialists has evaporated. Quite the contrary.

    Last week Nadella spoke with Fortune about Microsoft’s challenge in addressing this group about the company’s strategy and how he feels about its cloud computing competition. It’s the latest stop in a two-month itinerary that has placed Nadella in front of his company’s largest constituencies, from users of Microsoft business applications (at Convergence in March) to software developers (at Build last week).

    For those readers wondering, Fortune did ask Nadella about reports that Microsoft may be the company behind a recent takeover offer for Salesforce , a company that has proven to be a rival and sometimes partner to the Redmond, Wash. company. He refused to comment.

    The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

     Fortune:Microsoft’s theme of aligning IT with businesses is something you’ve talked about for years. So what’s new in the cloud era?

    Nadella: It is all about empowering IT. And in some sense I look at it and say, you know, of course IT stands for information technology, but none of those other transformations for business users can really be achieved, especially in the context of the enterprise, if IT professionals don’t also think of themselves as key drivers of innovation and transformation. And that’s kind of the play with words that I’ve been thinking about a lot. IT really stands for innovation and transformation.

    Many employees view IT as naysayers and gatekeepers. I don’t see that changing. Isn’t that what drove the bring-your-own-device [BYOD] stuff in the first place?

    That’s right. And I think that is the challenge. One of the things that I’ve been really focused on, long before even becoming CEO, has been Enterprise Mobility Suite[Microsoft’s software to manage corporate devices]. The thing about bring your own device or bring your own service is, what happens to the information assurance of a company? Okay, so you move to another company. What happens to all the access you had as a person with credentials? Who is taking care of restricting all of that?

    So I feel that there has to be the freedom for end users to be able to choose devices and choose services and yet the ability for IT to govern but not control. I think that transformation—from control to govern, from provision to enable—is what IT must go through. And quite frankly it’s not just about them not wanting to change. It’s also incumbent on us, especially as a massive provider to IT, to give them the right kind of solutions.

    One of the things we’re talking about right now is Windows 10. We are making it possible for businesses to stay current with Windows as a service [as easily as consumers have been able to]. There are lots of technology elements to this—for example, there are things that we’re doing in Windows Update to still give IT a lot of governance around how patches are applied but solve some of the things that get in the way of IT being able to satisfy their customers.

    So yes, you’re absolutely right. IT has to go from saying “no” to saying “yes,” but saying “yes” with assurance. And that I think is both a technology problem for us to solve and what we must talk a lot about and evangelize.