Microsoft wants to win over consumers again, but with a half-hearted effort

At Microsoft’s Enterprise-focused Inspire partner show Microsoft announced that they will make another attempt at wooing consumers by adding “Modern Life and “Gaming” as two new additions to Microsoft’s core digital solution areas that its own sales force and its partners are meant to target in fiscal 2019 and beyond.

Yusuf Mehdi newly minted corporate vice president of Modern Life and Devices explained Microsoft’s approached in a session there.

Admitting that “in the last couple of years, we’ve lost a little of that magic with consumers,” he said the company “would begin the journey to win back consumers with our vision,” based on  “Modern Life Services.”

These would build on Microsoft’s strength as a productivity company, with Microsoft planning to make this “more sexy.”

The idea is that Microsoft would give “professional consumers” more time for fun by making them more productive at work and home.

Modern Life Services would include apps, services, and features that Microsoft already makes available in Windows, Outlook, and PowerPoint, marketed at “professional consumers”.

This include features such as Focused Inbox, @mentions, Time to Leave in Outlook for Windows 10, and Outlook Mobile which would make professional consumers more productive, Mehdi said.

Microsoft also plans to try and push the cheaper Surface Go running Windows 10 S and Office 365 as part of its strategy to “win back the consumers”. This will include marketing and resources specifically aimed at consumers. Medhi also spoke of a new consumer campaign for Cortana and Cortana hardware, such as the Johnson Controls GLAS smart thermostat, due in stores this August.

While trying to win back consumers is a laudable goal it seems clear Microsoft plans to do this not by developing new resources but by repositioning current resources aimed at corporate users.  While this may be a reasonable goal, Microsoft is competing against companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung who are fully focussed on consumers, suggesting this half-assed approach will simply result in a bunch of embarrassing commercials which we would sooner rather forget next year.

Do our readers think Microsoft can succeed and reach consumers again? Let us know below.

Source: ZDNet