微软CEO谈IT转型、亚马逊与Windows 10

    大多数人认为亚马逊才是核心架构领域的领军者。随着时间的推移，它添加了更高级的服务，与通用电气等大公司的合作也越来越多。你怎么看云计算市场上针对大客户的竞争？谷歌是否也是一个竞争者？

    企业市场从来不是一个“赢者通吃”的市场。如果你看看之前的主从式服务器时代，我们有很多成功的例子，甲骨文、EMC和思科也一样。在云时代，你可能会说，我们和亚马逊、谷歌都有超大规模的云业务。但我认为只有亚马逊和我们，或许还有VMware能在这个新时代继续保持上一代的领先地位。

    我其实并不关注在IaaS（“基础设施即服务”）领域与亚马逊的竞争，那不重要。我们的Azure Active Directory“微软云”服务已经有了500万个实体用户，这意味着有500万个商业实体在云端上与微软有联系，而且他们既没有用本地服务，也没有我们的许可证。他们使用微软Dynamics进行客户关系管理或企业资源管理，还使用微软的Office 365、Azure和企业移动套件。而这500万个商业实体中，还有4.5亿个个人。

    在我看来，真正重要的，是拥有正确的SaaS的价值组合。我不认为我们的服务器业务是“过时的”，或是所谓的“遗产”。我认为服务器业务对我们的云业务来说是一种优势。

    我们现在有能力将云业务和服务器业务捆绑到一块，这是我们的一个独特的能力。所以我们究竟在与谁竞争？亚马逊在这方面是没有竞争能力的，他们没有服务器，谷歌也没有。甲骨文也没有等同的能力。所以这些都是我们想要领先的领域。

    我并不是说，我们是唯一一家能够在云服务方面取得成功的公司。就像上一个时代一样，其他公司也能取得成功。但在技术前景方面，我们是符合历史潮流的。你提到的几个名字都很对，有谷歌、亚马逊，还有我们。但是谁受到了企业界的信任？谁拥有一直专注企业界的韧性？有些公司说自己是做企业业务的，喊了几天口号，就转到下一个项目了。

    我想要大规模地构建我们自己的公共云。我们有超过100万台机器。我想要采用同样的软件——这时我们就要说说SQL（服务器）2016了。目前它已经开始运行了，它的名字叫Azure D8。我们将把它反向集成到一款服务器产品中。我认为这种能力在长期内都会给我们带来好处。

    我们似乎还没有提到Windows或Office。微软是否依然是一家做Windows的公司？

    Windows目前拥有15亿用户。每月都有8.5亿台机器进行Windows升级，这还没有算上那些因为被企业防火墙隔绝而没法直接进行Windows升级的机器。所以说我们拥有一个充满生机的用户群。另外每年还有3亿台PC被销售出去。

    所以Windows 10对我来说是一件大事。它是一个新时代的开始，不仅对于PC，对于平板电脑、智能手机、全息电脑、Surface Hub和Raspberry Pi（又称“树莓派”，一款小型卡片式电脑）也是一样。Windows已经远不止局限于PC。它是一个核心、一个仓库、一个平台。

    所以对我来说，Windows也是云服务的一个重要部分。但我认为，Windows的重要性不仅在于一款设备。当我说“移动第一”或“云第一”时，我指的是应用的移动性或体验，而不是设备的移动性。所以我们的控制平面其实是云技术。

    我在这次访谈中其实谈到了好几次Office 365，但有趣的是，你并没有把它当成Office。正是由于Office 365，Azure Active Directory才有了那么多商业客户。它是我们在整个Azure项目的核心，也是Office的核心。而且当你登录Windows的时候，你其实同时登录了你的微软账户和Azure Active Directory。所以我才说我们的控制平面是云服务，这些都是整合的方法。

    如果我是一个移动开发者，我可以为苹果的iOS开发应用，也可以为Android或Windows开发应用。但硬件厂商和微软之间也有一些摩擦。所以我为什么要选择为你们而不是为iOS和Android开发呢？

    我认为，只要能接触到最多的用户，赚最多的钱，开发者就会去开发应用。我们在Build峰会上说，我们希望开发者开发通用的Windows应用（即在各种设备上都可以用）。这样做是很有道理的。如果你开发了一款通用应用，你想获得10英尺的游戏体验，你就可以在Xbox上玩。如果你想创新地开发一款全息应用，你也可以在HoloLens这样的全息电脑上运行同一款应用。当然，你也可以选择在Surface Pro 3这样的平板电脑上运行。

    这样你就拥有了“Windows一致性”特点，也就是这些通用应用可以平顺地在平板和笔记本电脑之间切换。这对消费者来说是件大事，对于很多行业来说也非常重要。正是因为这些原因，开发者才会看重我们，愿意为我们开发应用。不过我们在Build峰会上也明确表示，开发者也可以使用我们的后端，同时为Android和iOS设备开发应用。他们可以使用我们的企业移动套件，如果他们是IT人员的话，还可以在Android、iOS和Windows等各个平台使用我们的安全管理、身份识别、设备管理和数据损失保护工具。这也是我们的一个独特的能力。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    审校：任文科

    Most people see Amazon as the leader in core infrastructure. Over time it added higher level services and talked more to big companies like General Electric. What’s your take on the competitive landscape for big customers when it comes to cloud computing? Is Google a contender?

    The enterprise market is never winner-take-all. If you look at the previous client-server era, we had a lot of success. So did Oracle, EMC, Cisco. And now, when you look at the current cloud era, you would say there is us, there’s Amazon, and there’s Google who have that hyperscale cloud. But really it’s Amazon, us, and maybe VMware who will translate the position that they had in the previous era to one in this new era.

    I really am not focused on competing against Amazon in IaaS [“infrastructure-as-a-service”]. That’s not what it’s about. Take Azure Active Directory. It’s got 5 million entities—that means 5 million commercial organizations that have a relationship with Microsoft in the cloud and not on premise or with our licenses. None of that. They’re using Dynamics for CRM [“customer relationship management”] or ERP [“enterprise resource management”], Office 365, Azure, Enterprise Mobility Suite. That is representing 450 million individual identities within that 5 million organizational footprint.

    To me what matters is having the right mix of SaaS value. I don’t think of my server business as somehow “old school” or “legacy.” I actually think of the server as the edge of my cloud.

    We now have the ability to tie together the cloud and the server. That is a very unique capability that we have. So who am I competing with? Amazon has no capability to compete there. They don’t have a server. Nor does Google. Oracle doesn’t have the equivalent capability. So those are the places where we want to really excel.

    I’m not claiming that we are the only guys who are going to succeed in the cloud. Others can succeed as well, just like in the previous generation. But the people who are on the right side of history, so to speak, when it comes to technology promise? You identified them right. There is Google, Amazon, and us. But who has the credentials with the enterprise? Who has the tenacity to stay constant with it? It’s not a fashionable thing to say you’re in the enterprise business for a few days and then move onto the next project.

    I want to build our own public cloud at scale. We have over a million machines. I want to take the same software and—well, this is how we got to SQL [Server] 2016. It’s already running; it’s called Azure DB. We will now take that and reverse-integrate it into a server product. That’s the kind of capability that I feel will serve us well in the long run.

    I don’t think we’ve actually mentioned Windows or Office once. Is Microsoft still a Windows company?

    Windows is used by a billion and a half users. We see, on a monthly basis, 850 million machines that touch Windows Update. This is not even counting the machines behind corporate firewalls that don’t directly talk to Windows Update. So it’s a vibrant user base. And there are 300 million PCs, by the way, sold every year.

    So Windows 10 is huge to me. It’s the beginning of a new generation of Windows. It’s not just about PCs. It’s about tablets and phones. It’s also about holographic computers and Surface Hub. It’s about [simple, versatile computers like] Raspberry Pi. Windows has gone way beyond the PC. It’s one core, one store, one platform.

    So to me Windows is very much part of the cloud. But one of the fundamental things I believe is, it’s not just about one device. When I say “mobile first” or “cloud first,” to me it’s about the mobility of the app or the experience, not the mobility of the device. And if you believe that, then the control plane is really the cloud.

    I actually talked quite a bit about Office 365 in this conversation. The fact that you didn’t think of it as Office is interesting. Office 365, that’s where Azure Active Directory gets all those organizational tenants from. It’s core to what we’re doing in Azure. It’s core to what we’re doing in Office. And guess what? When you log into Windows, you’re logged into both your Microsoft account and your Azure Active Directory. So the control plane is in the cloud. And those are the ways things come together.

    If I’m a mobile developer, I can develop for Apple iOS, I can develop for Android, or I can develop for Windows. But there’s been strife with hardware makers and Microsoft. Why develop for you and not them?

    I think they will choose to develop wherever they can make the most amount of money by reaching the most amount of users. At Build we said that we want them to write universal Windows apps [that work across devices]. There are many cases to be made for it. When you build a universal app, and you want a 10-foot experience, you can go to the Xbox. You want to innovate and build a holographic app, you can use the same application on a holographic computer like HoloLens. You can, of course, run it on our tablets like the Surface Pro 3.

    So you now have these “Windows Continuum” features where those universal applications can gracefully move between a tablet and a laptop. It’s relevant for consumers, but it’s also going to be relevant in many industrial scenarios. Those are the kinds of reasons why developers will want to look at us and build for us. But we made it clear at Build that developers can use our back end and still target Android or iOS devices. They can have our Enterprise Mobility Suite and, if they’re an IT person, manage security, identity, device management, and data-loss protection across Android, iOS, and Windows. That’s a unique capability of ours.