双语阅读：微软CEO纳德拉重塑微软

发布时间：2017-09-20 浏览数：

A DECADE ago, visiting Microsoft’s headquarters near Seattle was like a trip into enemy territory. Executives would not so much talk with visitors as fire words at them (one of this newspaper’s correspondents has yet to recover from two harrowing days spent in the company of a Microsoft “brand evangelist”). If challenged on the corporate message, their body language would betray what they were thinking and what Bill Gates, the firm’s founder, used often to say: “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

十年前，参观西雅图附近的微软总部就像是在深入敌营。微软高管机关枪式的讲话实非访客所能招架（本报有位记者曾去微软做过两天采访，至今还没走出“微软式”品牌传播的阴影）。但凡对微软的企业理念提出一点质疑，微软高管们的身体都会暴露出他们的真实想法以及公司创始人比尔•盖茨的曾经的口头禅——“我从没听过比这更蠢的话！”

Today the mood at Microsoft’s campus, a sprawling collection of more than 100 buildings, is strikingly different. The word-count per minute is much lower. Questions, however ignorant or critical, are answered patiently. The firm’s boss, Satya Nadella (pictured), strikes a different and gentler tone from Mr Gates and Steve Ballmer, his immediate predecessor (although he, too, has a highly competitive side).

如今，笼罩在百余栋建筑构成的且还在不断扩大的微软总部上的氛围截然不同了。高管们不仅放慢了讲话速度，对“白痴”和“挑刺”问题也更有耐心了。与微软创始人比尔•盖茨或刚卸任的前CEO史蒂芬•鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）不同，微软现任CEO萨蒂亚•纳德拉（Satya Nadella）（如图）更加温文尔雅（不过，他也有极度好胜的一面）。

Both these descriptions are caricatures. But they point to an underlying truth: how radically the world’s biggest software firm has changed in the short time since Mr Nadella took charge in early 2014. Back then everything at Microsoft revolved around Windows, the operating system that powered most computers. It was a franchise the company believed needed to be extended and defended at almost any price.

对比曾经和现在的微软的描述都有夸张成分，但是，都反映出了这样一个事实：从纳德拉在2014年初接任微软CEO开始，这个全球最大的软件公司在短短几年中做出了巨大的改变。纳德拉上任时，微软全部的业务都还在以Windows操作系统为核心运转，微团不惜以任何代价推广与维护自己对Windows的特许经营权。

Windows has since retreated into a supporting role; sometimes it is little more than a loss-leader to push other products. At the heart of the new Microsoft is Azure, a global computing cloud. It is formed of more than 100 data centres around the world, dishing up web-based applications, bringing mobile devices to life and crunching data for artificial-intelligence (AI) services. Along with this shift in strategy has come a less abrasive, more open culture.

纳德拉上任后，Windows逐渐退居二线，有时甚至可以为推销其他产品而亏本销售。取代Windows成为微软的核心产品是Azure，全球云计算，由100多个全球数据中心组成，提供基于Web的应用程序，可以丰富移动设备功能，为人工智能处理数据。除了在商业策略上的转型外，微软在文化上也变得更加开放，更加平易近人。

Microsoft’s transformation is far from complete. Windows, Office—the once equally dominant package of applications for personal computers—and other PC-related products together still generate about two-fifths of its revenues and three-quarters of its profits. But even those who have watched Mr Nadella’s actions with a high degree of scepticism reckon the firm is moving on from its cash-cows.

微软的转型还远未完成。曾经是两个最主要的PC应用程序的Windows操作系统和Office办公软件，连同其他PC类产品至今依然占微软总收入的40%和总利润的75%左右。不过，即使是那些对纳德拉的改革持高度怀疑态度的人也认为，微软正在一步步远离它的“摇钱树”。

The firm’s transformation did not begin with Mr Nadella. It launched Azure and started to rewrite its software for the cloud under Mr Ballmer. But Mr Nadella has given Microsoft a new Gestalt, or personality, that investors appear to like. The firm’s share price has nearly doubled since he took over (see chart).

事实上，微软的转型不是从纳德拉才开始的。在鲍尔默领导下，微软推出了Azure，并着手为这一云产品重写软件。纳德拉赋予微软一种新“人格”，为投资者所乐见。微软的股价自从纳德拉上任后便几乎翻了一番（见下表）。

Dethroning Windows was the first task. Previously, new products were held back or shorn of certain features if these were thought to hurt the program (something known internally as the “strategy tax”). One of Mr Nadella’s early decisions was to allow Office to run on mobile devices that use competing operating systems. He went so far as to use a slide that read “Microsoft loves Linux”. Mr Ballmer had called the open-source operating system a “cancer”.

剥夺Windows的核心地位是首要任务。此前，只要新产品的研发威胁到了Windows的发展就会停止或牺牲部分性能（微软内部称为“战略税”）。纳德拉最早的一个决策就是让Office能够在使用Windows以外操作系统的移动设备上运行。他甚至在一张幻灯片上写到“微软爱Linux”，要知道，微软上一位掌门人鲍尔默可是把Linux这种开放的操作系统称为“癌症”的。

The downgrading of Windows made it easier for Mr Nadella to change the firm’s culture—which is so important, he believes (along with Peter Drucker), that it “eats strategy for breakfast”. Technologies come and go, he says, so “we need a culture that allows you to constantly renew yourself”. Whereas Mr Ballmer was known for running across the stage and yelling “I love this company”, Mr Nadella can often be seen sitting in the audience, listening. When, in 2016, internet trolls manipulated Tay, one of Microsoft’s AI-powered online bots, into spewing racist comments, people waited for heads to roll. Mr Nadella sent around an e-mail saying “Keep pushing, and know that I am with you…(the) key is to keep learning and improving.”

Windows核心地位的下降有利于纳德拉改革微软企业文化。纳德拉认为，企业文化十分重要，他援引了彼得•德鲁克（Peter Drucker）的话，即“企业文化能把战略当早餐吃”。纳德拉还表示，科技革新非常快，“我们需要一种能够让我们不断革新自己的企业文化”。鲍尔默总是跑到台上大喊“我爱微软”，而纳德拉则常常坐在观众席中静静聆听。2016年，微软推出的人工智能机器人Tay在网络黑客的操纵下发表了有关种族歧视的言论，就在人们等着微软开除相关负责人的时候，纳德拉给公司员工发了一封邮件，他在邮件里写道“继续努力，别怕，我与大家同在……只要不断学习和改进，我们就能取得成功”。

Employees are no longer assessed on a curve, with those ending up at the lower end often getting no bonus or promotion. For the firm’s annual executive retreat in 2015, Mr Nadella included the heads of companies Microsoft had recently acquired, such as Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, a video game, and Acompli, an e-mail app, breaking with the tradition that only longtime executives can attend.

此外，微软也不再根据业绩报表评估员工能力，如今业绩难看的员工也有可能获得奖金或晋升。纳德拉还打破了只有资深高管才能进入微软管理层核心的传统，将微软新收购企业——如电子游戏《我的世界》（Minecraft）的开发商魔赞协同公司（Mojang）和邮件应用开发商Acompli——的高层纳入了2015年微软总部高层人事调整的范围。

The book of Nadella

纳德拉的业绩

Sending such signals matters more than ever in the tech industry. Well-regarded firms find it easier to recruit top-notch talent, which is highly mobile and has its pick of employers. A reputation for aggression can attract the attention of regulators and lead to a public backlash, as Microsoft itself knows from experience and Uber, a ride-hailing unicorn, is finding out.

对于科技行业来说，传递出这样的讯息尤为重要。知名企业更为容易地招聘到高端人才，而高端人才流动性强，也会选择雇主。企业若是以残酷的人才竞争与淘汰闻名，不但会招来监管部门的注意，也会引起公众的反感，这是微软从过往经验中学到的，也是全球领先打车软件优步（Uber）正在上的一课。

Mr Nadella has changed the firm’s organisation as well as its culture. It is now more of a vertically integrated technology firm—“full stack”, in the jargon. It not only writes all kinds of software, but builds its own data centres and designs its own hardware. Mr Nadella points out that it now even develops some of the chips for its data centres.

纳德拉不仅改变了微软的组织架构，也改变了它的企业文化。微软现在更像一个垂直整合（术语叫做“全端开发”）的科技公司，不仅能开发各种软件，同时也能建立自己的数据中心，设计自己的硬件。据纳德拉称，现在微软还为自己的数据中心开发芯片。

His imprint can be seen on three businesses in particular: the cloud, hardware and AI. Microsoft does not break out by how much it has increased investment in the cloud, but building data centres is expensive and its capital expenditure is soon expected nearly to double, to $9bn a year, from when Mr Nadella took over. If you take only basic services, such as data storage and computing, Microsoft’s cloud is much smaller than Amazon Web Services, the leader in cloud computing, which is owned by Amazon, an e-commerce giant. But if you add Microsoft’s web-based services, such as Office 365 and other business applications, which are only a negligible part of AWS’s portfolio, the two firms are of comparable size. Both AWS’s and Microsoft’s cloud businesses boast an annual run rate (the latest quarterly revenues multiplied by four) of $14bn. Microsoft hopes to reach $20bn by its 2018 financial year, a fifth of total expected revenues.

纳德拉对微软的三大业务发展的影响最为深远：云产品、硬件业务和人工智能。微软的转变并不是体现在它在云产品方面增加了多少投资，尽管数据中心的建立花费巨大，微软的资本支出相较纳德拉上任时很快将增加近一倍，达到每年90亿美元。在提供诸如数据存储和计算等基础服务方面，微软的云产品要比电商巨头亚马逊旗下的云计算领军者亚马逊云服务所占磁盘空间小得多。不过，如果用户要添加微软开发的基于Web的服务，比如说Office 365和其它应用（这些在亚马逊云服务系列中只是不起眼的一小部分），那么两种产品大小相当。亚马逊云服务和微软云产品每年的业务量都达到140亿美元（以最新季度总收入乘以四计）。微软希望其云产品收入在2018财年可以到达200亿美元，达到预期总收入的五分之一。

In terms of scale, then, there has been much progress. Yet in stark contrast to AWS, which supplies the bulk of Amazon’s profits, Azure is still loss-making. Some analysts are optimistic that this could change. Mark Moerdler of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, thinks that once Microsoft tapers its investments in data centres and their utilisation goes up, it could approach the margins enjoyed by AWS, which reached more than 30% in the last quarter.

在规模方面，微软云产品也取得了长足的进步。与作为亚马逊主要收入来源的亚马逊云服务相比，Azure仍然在赔本赚吆喝。一些分析人士持乐观态度，认为这种情况会有所改变。盛博（Sanford C. Bernstein）研究机构的马克•莫德勒（Mark Moerdler）认为，如果微软对数据中心的投资逐渐减少，它的数据中心的使用率上升，所得利润便能同亚马逊云服务相当，后者上一季度的利润率增长了30%以上。

Scott Guthrie, who heads Azure, admits that the margins for cloud-based services will probably be lower than for conventional software. But when applications are delivered online, he points out, Microsoft can capture a bigger slice of the overall pie. As well as offering its existing software as services in the cloud, it also takes care of components of IT systems, such as storage and networking, that used to be provided by other vendors. The firm’s addressable market is far bigger, he says.

微软Azure之父斯科特•格思里（Scott Guthrie）承认云服务的利润率可能比传统软件低。不过，他也指出，一旦应用程序开始在网络上运作，微软便能分得更大的一杯羹。微软除了在云领域提供既有软件作为服务外，也开始自主开发存储和网络等IT系统组件，这些之前都是由其他供应商提供的。格思里认为，微软可开发的市场远比目前要大。

Perhaps. But however well Microsoft performs, life in the cloud will always be far tougher than it was in the realm of personal computers, argues David Mitchell Smith of Gartner, a consultancy. Microsoft will not only have to compete with Amazon, but with Google, which intends to go after business customers.

也许是这样吧。不过，咨询机构高德纳（Gartner）的大卫•米切尔•史密斯（David Mitchell Smith）称，不论微软表现多么杰出，在云领域的日子将永远比PC领域难过得多。微软的对手不仅是亚马逊，还有打算培养企业客户的谷歌。

Although the cloud is the core of the new Microsoft, hardware is another important bet. The firm has shed its ailing mobile-phone division, which it had bought from Nokia, but on its campus in Redmond hundreds of employees are busy developing new devices. Its prototyping lab offers all that a designer of mobile gadgets could want, such as 3D printers to churn out overnight new models of a hinge, for example, or machines to cut the housing of a new laptop from a block of aluminium.

除了作为核心的云产品，硬件业务也是微软发展蓝图中的重要一块。虽然微软舍弃了收购自诺基亚的手机业务，在雷德蒙德小镇上，微软总部的几千名员工还在开发新的设备。微软的产品模型实验室可以满足一个移动设备开发人员的所有需求，比如能在一夜间制造出全新铰模型的3D打印机，或是能从铝块中切割出全新笔记本电脑外壳的机器。

“Failing faster” is the purpose of the new equipment, says Panos Panay, who is in charge of Microsoft’s hardware business. Designers can test ideas more quickly in pursuit of the firm’s goal to develop new categories of product. Hardware, software and online services are meant to be bundled into a single product to create what the firm gratingly calls an “experience”.

微软硬件业务负责人帕诺斯•帕奈（Panos Panay）称，硬件设备的开发理念就是“快速试错”，开发人员要能快速检验自己的想法，满足公司开发新产品线的需要。微软意图把硬软件产品和在线服务最终合为一个产品，给消费者带来它们一直宣扬的独特的产品“体验”。

One example is the Surface Book, a high-end laptop. It features a detachable screen which doubles as a computing tablet—a combination that has already found a following, and according to some, offers better value than comparable laptops from Apple. More daring still is HoloLens, an augmented-reality device in the form of a wireless head-mounted display. It is capable of mixing “real” and virtual reality for business purposes—for example, by projecting new parts on a motorcycle frame so a designer can easily see what works. (It is currently only available for developers.)

以高端笔记本电脑Surface Book为例。它有一声可拆卸屏幕，可当作两个平板来使用——这种二合一的创新模式已有公司开始效仿，同时一些消费者也认为Surface Book比同等的苹果笔记本电脑更合算。微软还有一个更加大胆的尝试，那就是具有增强现实功能的HoloLens，这是一款无线头戴式显示器，能够将“现实”和虚拟现实混合以实现商业目的。比如，摩托车设计者戴上它之后可以看到加上新零件之后摩托车的样子，从而判断设计是否可行（目前仅限开发人员使用）。

HoloLens, its designers hope, will also be a device where people use artificial-intelligence services—Mr Nadella’s third big bet. In September Microsoft formed a new AI unit, combining all its efforts in the field, including its basic-research group of more than 1,000 people and the engineering team behind Bing, its search engine.

微软也希望通过HoloLens为人们提供人工智能服务，这也是纳德拉第三个创举。九月，微软成立了一个新的人工智能部门，门汇集了微软在人工智能领域的所有人才，包括1000多人的基础研发团队及搜索引擎必应（Bing）背后的工程团队。

Every single business application is going to be disrupted by AI, says Harry Shum, who is in charge of the new unit. Algorithms trained by reams of data could tell sales staff which leads to spend most time on, and help identify risky deals where, for instance, the customer might not fulfil contract terms. This, he explains, is also a big reason why Microsoft spent a whopping $26bn to buy LinkedIn, a professional social network that has 467m users. The deal adds to the data the firm needs to train its new AI applications.

新部门的负责人沈向洋说，所有的商业应用程序都将受到人工智能的影响。比如，大数据算法能够告诉销售人员哪个环节耗费了最多时间，还能够帮助他们识别存在用户不履约风险的交易。这也是为什么微软要以260亿美元的巨额收购拥有4.67亿用户的专业社交网站领英的原因。微软希望通过这笔交易获得大量数据，用于开发新的人工智能应用。

AI is a growing part of Azure, too. In recent months Microsoft has introduced two dozen “cognitive services” to Azure. Some understand language and can identify individual speakers, others recognise faces and can tap into academic knowledge. The idea is for other firms to be able to use these offerings to make their own products smarter, thus “democratising AI”. Schneider Electric, which makes gear to manage energy systems, for instance, uses some of Microsoft’s AI services to monitor its equipment.

人工智能也逐渐运用在Azure上。最近几个月，Azure推出了25款“认知服务”，有些能听懂人们说的话，能分辨讲话者，有些能进行人脸识别，甚至还能挖掘学术知识。微软希望其它公司也可以利用这些服务让自己的产品更加智能化，这也是微软“普及人工智能”的战略。比如，致力于提供能源管理解决方案的施耐德电气（Schneider Electric）就使用微软公司的部分人工智能服务对其设备进行监控。

It is easy to be impressed by what Mr Nadella has achieved in only three years. But it is far from certain that his technology bets will play out as planned. To run a computing cloud profitably you need hyper-efficient operations; something that Amazon, in contrast to Microsoft, has grown up with. Although Microsoft has expertise in AI, others, such as Google and IBM, got a far earlier start. Nor is designing integrated devices part of Microsoft’s DNA in the way it is for Apple. Augmented reality is an extremely promising field but HoloLens may turn out to be no more than an expensive toy for developers.

纳德拉在上任后短短三年所取得的成就非常了不起，但是，他的科技计划是否能够按照预期展开还远远不能确定。要想在云计算领域盈利，微软必须实现超高效的运作模式，而这是亚马逊一直都具有的品质；在人工智能领域，虽然微软很擅长，但像谷歌和IBM这样的公司有先发优势；在开发集成设备方面，微软也不敌苹果公司；增强现实倒是一个极具前景的领域，HoloLens有可能仅仅是开发人员的昂贵玩具。

Success or failure in the new areas will of course continue to be cushioned for some time by the revenues and profits from Windows and Office. Yet there, too, lie risks. If the PC market, whose secular decline has slowed since last year, take another turn for the worse, the company’s finances would suffer badly, warns John DiFucci of Jefferies, an investment bank.

短期内，Windows和Office带来的收入和利润足以支持微软继续开发新产品，但是开辟新疆场有一定风险。美国投资银行杰富瑞（Jefferies）的约翰•迪福西（John DiFucci）提醒称，虽然PC市场的长期衰落趋势从去年开始有所减缓，如果市场再次滑坡，那么微软的财务情况将遭受重创。

Mr Nadella doesn’t seem to be worried by such unknowns, which are to be expected in a fast-changing industry. Instead, he frets about too much success. “When you have a core that’s growing at more than 20%, that is when the rot really sets in,” he says. It remains to be seen whether or not the firm can ever again achieve such velocity. For now, though, its share price is showing plenty of speed.

尽管在日新月异的科技行业，上述担忧很有可能发生，纳德拉似乎并没有受到这些未知因素的困扰。相反，他担心微软一路走得太顺。他说：“当一个核心产品以超过20%的速度增长时，衰落也就不远了。”微软能否再次实现这样的增长速度，还需拭目以待。不过，就目前来看，微软股价的增长势头还是相当强劲的。

编译：雷琰

审校：吴越

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人

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