Microsoft’s Cross-Device Plans are Already Feeling the Squeeze (Premium)

The rippling after-effects of Microsoft’s mobile defeat continue to haunt the software giant. And while I understand and even laud its attempts at making Windows work better with Apple’s and Google’s mobile platforms, I have to wonder if this renewed focus on mobile won’t also fail.

The reasoning here is simple enough.

Apple already rewards users who stick within its ecosystem with seamless cross-platform capabilities, like the ability to send and receive text messages from iPads and Macs, and to share files between all of their devices via iCloud.

Google, too, is upping its in-house game: The firm will soon allow Chromebook users to resume web browsing sessions that were begun on Android. And it already provides some cross-platform capabilities, like the ability to send and receive text messages from the Chrome web browser.

What’s most interesting about Google’s approach to me, however, is how it neatly highlights the limitations of Apple’s tunnel vision. With the Apple approach, you need to buy in to (literally) an expensive family of Apple hardware devices in order to benefit most from its strategy. But Google doesn’t really care what hardware you use. It only cares that you use its online services and its Chrome web browser.

And that, folks, is genius. It allows users to pick the PC or hardware that appeals most to them and still take advantage of the Google ecosystem. There’s lock-in, for sure, but not to the degree—and the cost—that Apple imposes. Most important, Google’s soft lock-in promotes something I feel is very important: Choice. Freed from having to pick from a limited selection of Apple Macs and devices, customers can simply pick the hardware that works best for them.

Taking that a step further, it also behooves Google to make Chrome OS, and the Chromebooks which run on that platform, to be as good as possible. And when an individual chooses Chromebook, they will most likely do so because they feel it’s the right choice. Not because they have no other choice.

Let’s compare those strategies to what Microsoft is attempting.

As part of its newly-coined Modern Life services initiative, Microsoft is once again admitting to the reality of the marketplace: Its customers often use Windows on PCs, but they sometimes use Macs and even Chromebooks. On mobile, Microsoft is nowhere to be found: Its entire customer base is on Android and iPhone.

And so Microsoft has had to adapt. In addition to simply bringing its apps to others’ mobile platforms—an effort that is obvious today but was actually controversial in some circles just a few years ago—Microsoft is now evolving these apps to be more integrated on the back end.

This isn’t just about document sync. And the goal is to move past basic “anywhere/everywhere” access to files via OneDrive. To allow users to work on one PC or device and then “pick up where they left off” when they use a different device. A sort of document sync with benefits, if you will.

We see basic versions of this functionality today in the Office mobile apps on Android and iOS. And Microsoft promised to add more pervasive capabilities for those hardy few who use Microsoft Launcher on Android. (That is not available yet.)

The problem? Microsoft’s solutions are not particularly seamless. Worse, they rely on customers to explicitly choose certain Microsoft mobile solutions. These range from the understandable (like the Office mobile apps) to the implausible (Edge mobile) to the highly unlikely (someone replacing their Android home screen with Microsoft Launcher). It’s a high bar.

Put another way, where Apple’s and Google’s cross-devices solutions are seamlessly integrated and even hard to avoid, Microsoft’s require the user to somehow learn about what’s possible and then do the work to find, configure, and use those solutions.

You may be thinking that this isn’t an insurmountable challenge. And Microsoft will continue pushing its mobile solutions on Windows 10 in what I can only assume will be ever-more-aggressive ways going forward. And there is, of course, an army of Microsoft and Windows enthusiasts who will proselytize these capabilities to anyone who will listen.

Fair enough. But Microsoft will need to rely on more than just the Windows 10 user base, only a fraction of whom will succumb to the allure of the shrill ads in that system. For this scheme to succeed, Microsoft will need to lean on its biggest and most important market: The enterprise.

And that’s where things get sticky, frankly. Things have changed a lot in IT since the heady days of super-gluing USB ports to ensure that users couldn’t connect their iPods and potentially steal corporate data. Today’s IT is a lot more touchy-feely, overall. And now the user comes first. This is the world of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or, for the lucky, Select Your Own Device and We’ll Give It To You. So to speak.

Point being, the days of IT enforcing which PCs, devices, software applications, and services that their users have access to has pretty much disappeared. And in a world in which users can make their own decisions, they are increasingly walking away from Microsoft. Which they naturally associate with work, as opposed to leisure time or fun.

What’s kind of ironic about all this is that it is Microsoft that championed this change. In doing so, and in fully supporting what used to be rival mobile platforms, it has effectively ceded a huge portion of the personal computing market to Apple and Android. And ensured, if not hastened, the decline of Windows. Which, by the way, is now just a constituent part of its Modern Life & Devices group alongside those Modern Life Services I mentioned earlier.

Microsoft faces other challenges, too, of course. There are third-party solutions, like Air Text, that work much like the solutions Microsoft is building. But Air Text, as well as Google’s Messages web app, also work better: As anyone who’s used the integrated text messaging functionality in Windows 10 today can tell you, it’s great. When it works. But it’s flaky, too, and messages often appear late or not at all.

Microsoft is ostensibly trying to fix this: It announced a new Windows 10 app called Your Phone back in May that will allegedly cure all ills. But like so many Microsoft promises, this one has shown little sign of life. And with development of the next Windows 10 version now winding down, I’m curious if we’ll even see this app in final form in calendar year 2018.

The software giant will likely figure it out. But the issue more complex than just the availability of the solution. And while it treads water, the rest of the industry is racing ahead with more seamless and obvious solutions to the same problems Microsoft is now tackling.

Look, silly-sounding or not, “Modern Life Services” is happening. The only question is whether Microsoft can play a major role.