From The Verge:
Microsoft has been working on a new HomeHub feature for Windows 10 to better compete with devices like Amazon’s Echo. HomeHub is designed to create a family environment for a PC with shared access to calendars, apps, and even a new welcome screen. Microsoft is even planning to support smart home devices like Philips’ Hue lights, to enable Windows 10 to act as a hub to control and manage smart home hardware. While we’ve heard about HomeHub before, The Verge has obtained internal concepts of exactly how Microsoft is imagining HomeHub will work.
Microsoft is aiming to include the new welcome screen, shared desktops, and easy calling in the Windows 10 update due in September. This update should also include improvements to Cortana, and support for third-party smart home devices. [...] Microsoft is tentatively planning to support Hue, Nest, Insteon, Wink, and SmartThings devices with its connected home app. Cortana will be used to send commands to devices, just like Amazon’s Echo.[...] Any devices that come with these new Windows 10 features will rely on PC partners to create.And that's the problem, right there, with Microsoft trying to become all of its competitors, overnight: Amazon Echo is a total package, with the consumer electronics front end already built to go with Amazon's cloud-based back end, which itself ties into Amazon's existing distribution infrastructure, and network of retail partners. Microsoft has none of that, really; even the software that's supposed to drive all of this is a work in progress, and the hardware is actually vaporware that third party OEMs have to design, build, and market.
Microsoft is all over the place, right now, trying to leverage their PC OS market share into, simultaneously, Google's business, Apple's business, and Amazon's business, all while trying to sustain Microsoft's own business. Time will tell if that's sustainable, but I have my doubts: after all, Microsoft (Mkt. cap. $532.35B) is actually smaller than both Google ($658.89B) and Apple ($824.28B), and only slightly larger than Amazon ($462.60B), but seem to be pursuing a strategy that requires them to become bigger than all three of these competitors combined. I'm not going to say that it's impossible, but I don't see how it would work, and the attempt has them wildly all over the place.
Even saying that Windows 10 is the common thread doesn't help, since it really feels like they're trying to force their OS to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every technological problem. Microsoft is like the proverbial handyman with only one tool available, treating every problem like a nail. Why is Windows 10 a better fit for Amazon's Echo business than Amazon's existing cloud-based computing, inventory management, and product distribution tools? How is Microsoft planning to build the network of retail partnerships that help make Echo work, when they can't even build the hardware that's needed for that job? Or are they just building it and hoping OEMS, retailers, and consumers all come to their HomeHub of Dreams?
What's the plan, here? Is there a plan, here?
The Tech media, like a lot of mainstream media lately, seems to be obsessively focused on The Latest Thing, and not really looking at The Big Picture, but they really should start looking at the big picture. Microsoft might be able to turn Windows 10 into iOS for PCs, or they might be able to turn it into ChromeOS, or they might be able to turn it into Amazon Echo, but I seriously doubt that they can do all three of those at the same time, while also chasing Steam's and PlayStation's businesses in the gaming space, and maintaining their hold on business workstations and laptop. Surely something's got to give; it's just a question of what, and when.