New mission
- MS is a software company at its roots - show it to the world and let hardware come in second.
- Time has shown MS struggles with keeping its own eco system viable. Instead, make great software for every popular platform to make sure users want and like to use MS products.
- Advertise cleverly if any at all. Let products speak for themselves.
Windows Phone
- Concentrate on making two Windows Phones only. One high-end and one for the mid-tier.
- Scrap nearly all existing Microsoft apps for iOS and Android and build them from the ground up, make them perform perfectly so people will love using MS apps no matter their choice of platform.
- Cut the WP7/8 design for apps for other platforms - go native so users will know what to do immediately. Keep away from embedding ads in any way.
Windows
- Bring back the Start menu and people will be less confused.
- Let users choose between Metro and regular menu - always embed Metro as a touch layer available at any time on any device.
- Clear every single computer/phone/tablet for bloatware and trial software. Give users a vanilla experience like Android has done with Nexus devices.
- Disable sound by default when interacting with MS products.
Windows Tablets
- Focus on the Surface Pro and make it a little bit cheaper. Make one Surface with Windows RT (excluding possibility to use desktop mode).
Keep and continue current strategy
- Replace Steve Ballmer with a visionary CEO who truly realizes the current state of affairs.
- Office suite
- X-box
- C#/ASP
- SkyDrive
Keep but tread lightly and "do no evil"
- Hotmail / Outlook.com
- Cut corny stock images on frontpage and just welcome the user.
- While faster than Hotmail ever was it is still slower than other competitors.
- Security Essentials
- Lately research has shown that its protection is not good enough compared to other antivirus programs. This is a key chance to protect MS consumers so a great effort should be put into this to rebuild and maintain reputation.
- Bing
- Do not stuff it down users' throats. Make no ads for it, let the search results do the job.
- Skype
- Rebuild Skype for all platforms making it lighter, more stable and simpler.
- Office365
- Optimize for speed and compatibility across every major browser.
- Internet Explorer
- IE has improved a lot over the years. If this browser really has a right to live, make it available on other platforms so users have a choice. Do incremental updates faster like Firefox and Chrome.
- Never ever prompt new users to go through phishing and content filter settings at first start. Do whatever serves the user best. This should regard all products.
- Social
- Cut ad-like posts on Twitter and Facebook. Users don't want to follow ads. Post interesting messages to engage people and let their opinions be heard instead. This is also a possibility to give people a real inside look of MS as long as it is natural and coming directly from a knowing employee.
- Windows RT desktop mode
- It is currently limited in software compatibility and for this reason risks frustrating users.
- Windows Media Player
- It smells like iTunes and doesn't get any better in time.
- Photo synth
- Focus, focus, focus.
- Money for apps
- This will increase the marketplace app count with everything but quality apps.
