Microsoft – All go or all stay

If Bing and Xbox are to go all the rest must follow.

• The debate is raging over what the future holds for Microsoft and whether it should become more focused or more effectively use the assets it has.
• Hence, there is a groundswell of opinion that Microsoft should slim down its activities and focus on making money.
• What it really comes down is whether Microsoft wants to be a very profitable company focused mainly on the enterprise or whether it wants to become one of the big eco-system players.
• Microsoft currently loses a fortune through its ownership of Bing and Xbox but I am far from convinced that it should get rid of either of them.
• If Microsoft aims to be a player in the ecosystem then it cannot afford to rid itself of Bing or Xbox.
• This is because these assets are important pieces of the Digital Life pie and must be retained if Microsoft wants to be relevant for consumers.
• I have long been of the opinion that in an ecosystem, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts meaning that each player needs to have as wide coverage a possible.
• At the moment Microsoft is right up there with 74% of Digital Life covered making it one of the leading players.
• If it were to rid itself of Xbox and Bing, this figure would fall to 37% substantially weakening its offering.
• This would put it behind Google and Yahoo! putting it on a par with Apple which I consider to be one of the weaker players in this space. 
• If these assets are to go out the door there is no point in keeping any of the others.
• Hence, the other consumer assets such as MSN and Skype would also need to follow.
• One would also then need to start asking hard questions about the logic of acquiring Nokia’s feature phone business.
• Microsoft’s future as a consumer ecosystem play depends on keeping all of these assets together.
• If one or two go, they all need to go, as they will have no place in a company purely focused on the enterprise.