【英语科技】Lex专栏：站在峭壁上的微软

Whither Microsoft? This should be the year of Windows 7, as consumers and businesses embrace the third big upgrade in a decade to the world’s most popular PC operating system. Fat profits are guaranteed. Yet the share price of the second-largest technology company by market capitalisation languishes at the same level at which it has bumped along since 2001. In the big technological battle for hearts, minds and market share, Microsoft is notable mainly by its absence.

The company that practically invented smartphone software will have the first iteration of Windows 7 for mobiles ready only in the autumn. Even then it will be playing catch-up, and has already been overtaken in market share for new device sales by Android, Google’s open-source alternative. Early designs of touchscreen tablets using Windows are finally arriving, but not before Hewlett-Packard felt it necessary to buy Palm for the phone maker’s software.

In media, Microsoft plugs away at a battle everyone else accepts is lost to Google: search. The fight is moving into display advertising – a $17bn market in the US alone – and from there into the broader TV landscape. Microsoft has had some success with the Xbox as a media centre, and the new motion sensing device due in November might start to narrow the formidable lead built by Nintendo in gaming. But this is another market Microsoft has failed to define, with Apple and Google racing ahead in connecting the digital living room. The company’s online arm, meanwhile, remains a serial lossmaker.

Windows and Office still produce prodigious cash flow. But mobile phones, tablets and TVs are where the habits of use in cloud computing – and therefore the future of software – will be set. After a decade under the leadership of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft is dangerously absent where it counts. Shareholders have little more than a minor series of dividends to show for it. They should ask where the company’s future lies.

微软向何处去？今年本应该是“Windows 7年”——消费者和企业迎来了世界上最受欢迎的个人电脑操作系统十年里的第三次大规模升级。丰厚的利润得到了保证。但这家全球市值第二技术公司的股价却萎靡不振，维持在2001年以来一直徘徊低迷的水平上。在正在上演的争夺情感、理智和市场份额的技术大战中，微软因它的缺席而引人注目。

作为实际上的智能手机软件的发明者，微软却要到今年秋季才能准备好手机版Windows 7的首次换代。即便到那时，它也只能扮演迎头赶上的角色。目前从新设备销售来看，竞争产品——谷歌(Google)开放源代码的Android操作系统在市场份额上已经超过了微软。使用Windows的触摸屏平板电脑的初期设计终于揭开了面纱，但在此之前，这款软件的发明者、电话制造商Palm，已经被惠普(Hewlett-Packard)收入囊中。

就媒体业务而言，微软在一场战争中苦苦挣扎，尽管其他所有人都认为它已经输给了谷歌——那就是搜索。战火正蔓延至展示广告(display advertising)领域——这个市场单在美国就有170亿美元的规模——并由此进入更广泛的电视领域。微软的作为多媒体中心设备的Xbox取得了一些成功，定于11月推出的新动作感应设备可能会缩小它和在游戏领域遥遥领先的任天堂(Nintendo)之间的差距。但媒体是另一个微软未能取得主导地位的市场，而苹果(Apple)和谷歌在连接数字化的起居室方面却在大步前进。与此同时，微软的在线部门仍在连续亏损。

Windows和Office仍在产生巨大的现金流。但人们对“云计算”的使用习惯将养成于手机、平板电脑和电视这些领域，因此这些领域也将是软件业的未来所在。危险的是，经历了史蒂夫?鲍尔默(Steve Ballmer)的十年领导后，微软在自身占据举足轻重地位的领域缺席了。除了一系列微薄的股息之外，股东们一无所获。他们应该问问，微软的未来在哪里。

译者/李裕