With the release of Windows 8 and last months preview release of
Office 2013 paired with SharePoint 2013 many consultants and
companies are scrambling to find features, benefits or return on
investment to justify budget plans to migrate to the new platforms.
I’m not one of these folks. I believe the technical fellows at
Microsoft have a solid long term vision which will allow them to
sway consumers and businesses to give device computing using
Microsoft software another chance. It seems clear the new releases
of Windows 8, Office, Skype, SkyDrive and SharePoint are an
attempted to aggressively pursue the growing device market.

To put the device market in perspective in 1999 there were 50
million internet users, today there are over 3 Billion mobile
devices in the world and this number is expected to grow to 5
Billion within the next three years. I for one am pleased with
Microsoft’s recent efforts to bring an all ‘hands on deck’ approach
to extend software to the device. It reminds me of 1999 when Gates
sent his famous memo explaining to all product groups that
Microsoft had underestimated the potential of the internet and
every product had to have an internet play by the end of year. One
could speculate the folks at Microsoft are in a very similar
position today with the device market however while they are behind
they are certainly not out of the game and the release of Windows
8, Office 2013, SharePoint and SkyDrive Pro clearly demonstrate
their competitive edge in the cloud and thus getting onto the
device.

Many look at these new 2013 releases as attempts to bolster the
Microsoft Cloud strategy. What they may be overlooking is how the
cloud enables Microsoft software to reach the eventual 5 Billion
device users. Every large technology company has what some consider
the brightest minds in the world pursuing this device market. If
you’re using a device yourself or your company has plans to enable
users with device enabled software in tablet or handheld form I
submit you are be one of may whom might benefit from the 2013
releases.