Ray Ozzie envisions Microsoft's future without computers

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 16:17 IST
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Seattle: Microsoft's software chief Ray Ozzie has asked the company to explore the world beyond PC's. He suggests that the company should start exploring the depths of the Internet world and also the different dimensions of Wireless devices rather being just a Computer oriented company. The Software chief aged 54 announced his retirement last week said , "Those who can envision a plausible future that's brighter than today will earn the opportunity to lead." He said that Microsoft which always concentrated on computer and software products have to move from their safe zone and try new concepts that will bring back Microsoft into the market which is right now fallen behind Apple and Google in the rapidly growing phone and tablet computer sector . Ozzie in a memo posted on his personal blog said "Close our eyes and form a realistic picture of what a post-PC world might actually look like, if it were to ever truly occur." His message comes after exactly five years after Ozzie made his initial mark on Microsoft with his 'Internet Services Disruption' memo, which is regarded as Microsoft's manifesto for moving toward "cloud computing," where data and software are supplied over the Internet rather than installed on machines. He goes on to praise other competitors for their seamless fusion of hardware and software services which is a big hit with Apple's iPhone and Google's Android phone system, which are proving more popular with consumers than Microsoft's own offerings. Instead of a tech world founded on PCs and software which Microsoft essentially created, Ozzie urges Microsoft to think about "cloud-based continuous services that connect us all and do our bidding" and "appliance-like connected devices enabling us to interact with those cloud-based services." Ozzie wrote in his blog that the world is set into galvanic action where the it is no more depended on PC's, CD-installed programs, desktops, folders & files rather it is changing its tastes to powerful app-capable phones and pads, innovative services and websites. He further explains that all this is possible because of the emerging concept of "Cloud Computing". He postulated that the technology was simple and less complex and revolutionizing the PC world around this concept i.e., the mainframe and the server world will bring simplicity and approachability to end users. But he also noted that complexity was inevitable with a growing number of apps, sites, and services. In the future, Ozzie wrote, designers will have to deal with "connected companions" that we'll wear, we'll carry, we'll use on our desks & walls and the environment all around us. Service-connected devices going far beyond just the 'screen, keyboard and mouse': humanly-natural 'conscious' devices that'll see, recognize, hear & listen to you and what's around you, that'll feel your touch and gestures and movement, that'll detect your proximity to others; that'll sense your location, direction, altitude, temperature, heartbeat & health."