While this might be the right thing for Microsoft, close to ten thousand people lost their jobs through a memo.

Last wednesday Satya Nadella sent an email to all of Microsoft announcing what basically translates to ‘Ballmer messed up’. If you remember back in 2014 right before Steve Ballmer retired as CEO, Microsoft acquired Nokia for about $7 billion. I’m guessing the decision was made either because there were rumors that Nokia was going to make Android phones, or because Ballmer was taking a bold bet that the acquisition might actually help Windows phone succeed. Either way, it was a failed acquisition.

The direction Microsoft is taking is well thought out. They’re making the hard decisions and biting the bullet. We have to appreciate the fact that Nadella is moving on from fighting the smartphone war. There’s an obvious winner here, and it’s the iPhone. When people think of their next phone, it’s almost always an iPhone. The rest of the world uses Android.

Here are three ways I think Microsoft should go in order to stay relevant:

1- Advertise Windows software for the Mac.

2- Make a gaming console that is years ahead of it’s competition.

3- Help revive the web app development.

Advertise Windows software for the Mac.

One of the selling points of the Mac is that it can run both Windows and OSX simultaneously. Microsoft should take this and use it against Apple. Users who want to stick to the Windows ecosystem but love the Mac hardware will be glad to hear it, if it’s easy enough to install, and it aligns with Microsoft’s new “Windows as a service” vision.

Make a gaming console that is years ahead of it’s competition.

There’s only one way to blow Sony out of the console wars, and that’s to ‘wow’ gamers with something truly revolutionary, and would take Sony years to try to catch up. Seeing Microsoft’s efforts in the VR and AR feild makes me thing they’re on to something, but so is Sony.

Help revive the web app development.

The reason why Microsoft lost the smartphone war was because they could not convince enough developers to write native code for the windows phone platform. If they stand behind the latest web standards and enabled developers to get access to more native device features, web developers will be tempted to write apps that run not only on windows phones, but also on any android phone. It’s hitting two birds with one stone for all web developers, and it would push Apple to update Safari on mobile to meet the demand.

The bet that the smartphone is over, is wrong. Focusing on the Internet of Things, augmented reality, cloud processing, and virtual assistants is plausible, but not enough. Now get up, dust yourself off, and try harder Microsoft, some of us think you can make it.

Oh yea, and make better trackpads while we’re at it.

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