No Plan B? The fallacies and risks of Microsoft's all-in Windows gambit

February 15, 2013

You don't expect to hear shocking news coming out of the annual Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. Sure, the biggest names in technology put in regular appearances at the conference—the CEOs of Apple and Yahoo among them, this year—but no one ever says anything close to controversial. You don't want to rile the investors, after all. Microsoft CFO Peter Klein didn't get the memo. Amid talk about the company's plans to transition Windows' desktop success to tablets and smartphones, he was asked what the company's "Plan B" is if the gambit failed. It's a perfectly reasonable query when you consider the difficulties Microsoft has encountered with both Windows 8 and the mobile arena thus far. Klein's response gave me pause. "It's less 'Plan B' than how you execute on the current plan," Reuters reports him as saying. "We aim to evolve this generation of Windows to make sure we have the right set of experiences at the right price points for all customers." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2028314/no-plan-b-the-fallacies-and-risks-of-microsofts-all-in-windows-gambit.html