http://www.wired.com/2016/05/microsofts-smartest-move-yet-letting-go-smartphones/
缩 http://tinyurl.com/zho3zor
The Smartest Thing a Tech Company Can Do? Don’t Make a Phone
科技业最聪明的事情：别造手机
by KLINT FINLEY
MICROSOFT’S DAYS AS a smartphone company are coming to an end.
And that’s a really smart move by Microsoft.
微软智慧型手机的日子来到尽头了 放弃智能手机 对微软来说是明智的一步
Last week, the company said it would sell the mobile phone business
it acquired from Nokia in 2014 to manufacturing giant Foxconn. Now
Microsoft is laying off 1,850 as it shrinks its mobile hardware
division further.
上周 微软宣布出售2014年从诺基亚手中收购的手机业务 买家是制造巨头富士
康 这几天微软又宣布裁员1850人 因为它需要进一步裁减手机硬件部门的规模
Microsoft will still develop the Windows 10 Mobile operating system
and hints that it will still sell phones to corporate customers. So
it’s not giving up on smartphones entirely. But it might as well be.
The company was never able to get much of a foothold in the market
—so much so that last year Microsoft took a $7.5 billion write-down
on its Nokia acquisition. (It also laid off so many people in Nokia’s
home country of Finland that the government applied for economic
assistance from the European Union.)
微软继续在开发Windows 10 Mobile操作系统 它还暗示会继续向企业客户出售
手机 微软还没有完全放弃智能手机 但它最终可能会完全放弃 在市场上 微软
从来没有占据一定的市占 去年微软因为收购诺基亚将资产减值75亿美元 (微软
在芬兰解雇了一堆人 同时芬兰也向欧盟要求经济援助)
And yet, in giving up on smartphones, Microsoft is arguably a stronger
mobile company than ever. But instead of pouring money into making phones,
the company has figured out savvy ways to put more of its products on
other companies’ phones and mobile operating systems than ever. While
it’s obviously terrible for all the people who have been left jobless,
it turns out that at the height of the mobile era the smartest thing
most tech companies can do is not make phones.
放弃了智能手机 微软没有争议还是一家强大的移动企业 比以前更强大
微软没有单纯地投入到手机制造中而花了一堆钱 反而 它找到了许多精明的方
法将自己的产品植入到其它企业的手机 操作系统中 对于那些失业的人来说
处境的确糟糕 但是事实证明 在这个移动时代的最高峰 对于大多的科技企业
而言 最聪明的事情就是不要造手机
Fire-able Offense
Maybe the idea started in 2011 when Google acquired Motorola Mobile. Or
maybe it was earlier, when Google launched its line of Nexus-brand phones
and tablets in 2010. Or maybe it started in 2007 when Apple announced
the iPhone. After all, Apple’s strategy of controlling every layer of
the mobile experience, from the hardware to the operating system to the
app store, seemed to inspire the notion that success in the mobile
market meant building your own phone. Regardless of where it began,
many of the biggest names in the tech industry decided in recent years
that the best thing they could do was plunge into the phone-making
business.
天大的错误
事情也许可以回到2011年 当时Google收购了摩托罗拉 也许可以追溯到更早
的时候 比如2010年Google推出Nexus品牌手机和平板 如果进一步追溯 可以
回到2007年 当时苹果推出了iPhone 苹果的策略是控制移动体验的每一层
从硬件到操作系统到应用商店 看起来企业如果要在移动市场取得成功 只有
制造属于自己的手机 不管事情是从何时开始的 在最近几年里 许多大名鼎
鼎的科技企业都做出决定：它们可以做的最好事情就是进军手机制造业
To wit: Facebook partnered with HTC in 2013 on the HTC First phone,
which featured Facebook’s custom Android interface Facebook Home.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia Devices the next year brought the
company’s line of Windows Phone handsets in-house. Not to be left
out, Amazon announced its Fire phone a few months later.
看看 2013年Facebook与HTC合作推出了HTC First手机 它安装了Facebook的
定制Android界面Facebook Home 第二年微软收购了诺基亚 目标是让Windows
Phone手机进入到千家万户 几个月后亚马逊发布了Fire手机
Meanwhile, if you didn’t make your own phones, others thought it
stood to reason that you should at least have your own mobile operating
system. Mozilla, the makers of the popular Firefox browser, announced
the Firefox OS, and Canonical announced a mobile version of its Linux
-based operating system Ubuntu.
如果你没有自己的手机 别人就会认为：你至少应该拥有属于自己的移动操作
系统。火狐浏览器开发商Mozilla推出了Firefox OS，Canonical推出了基于Linux
的Ubuntu移动版操作系统
Needless to say, the results were rotten. Google sold Motorola to Lenovo
in early 2014. The HTC First flopped, and Facebook quietly pulled Facebook
Home from the Google Play Store. Earlier this year, Mozilla said it
would try to repurpose Firefox OS as an Internet of Things operating
system. Even Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been quite frank about the failure
of the Fire phone.
不用说 结果糟糕透顶 2014年年初Google将摩托罗拉卖给了联想 HTC First败
北而归 Facebook悄悄将Facebook Home从Google商店撤下 今年年初Mozilla宣
布将Firefox OS重新定位 瞄准物联网 亚马逊CEO贝佐斯也承认Fire手机是一
个失败。
“If you think that’s a big failure, we’re working on much bigger
failures right now — and I am not kidding,” he said in an interview
with Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron last week. “Some
of them are going to make the Fire Phone look like a tiny little blip.”
“如果你认为它是一个大失败 我们现在正在围绕更大的失败(按:可能的失败)
卖力工作 我没有开玩笑”上周贝佐斯在接受《华盛顿邮报》采访时说 “当中
的一些产品会让Fire手机看起来只是一件小事”
On the Phone
Yet no one would accuse Amazon or Facebook of suddenly becoming less
relevant just because their mobile phone ventures flopped. Facebook
now controls three of the most widely used mobile apps in the world
–Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and the standard Facebook app. Amazon
is still an e-commerce and e-book giant; it also powers many of the
apps used on smartphones every day through its wildly successful cloud
services.
进入手机
即使亚马逊和Facebook在手机冒险中失败了 也没有人会认为它们的地位不稳固
了 在全球应用最广泛的移动APP中 Facebook至少控制了三个 它们是Facebook
Messenger, WhatsApp和Facebook APP 亚马逊仍然是电子商务 电子书巨头 今天
智能手机使用的许多APP都是用亚马逊云计算驱动的
Today’s most successful tech companies, excepting Apple and Google,
have realized that the future lies not in controlling the underlying
mobile platform but in being on everyone’s phone, whether that phone
runs Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS. Yes, those are the two most
valuable tech companies of all, but the rivals closest behind have
discovered more value in not trying to compete directly with the top
two giants.
除了苹果和Google 当今的许多成功科技公司都已经意识到：未来并不依赖于对
移动平台的控制 而是进入到每一个人手机中去 这些手机运行Google Android或
者苹果iOS系统 没错苹果Google是全球市值最高的科技企业 但是紧随其后的企
业们发现：不需要与两大巨头直接竞争操作系统也可以找到更多的价值
Facebook, for one, ultimately saw more value in owning WhatsApp, which
was available on a mind-boggling array of different devices, than building
its own mobile platform. Microsoft hasn’t quite given up on Windows
phones, but it’s certainly headed in the same direction. When Satya
Nadella took over from longtime CEO Steve Ballmer, he ditched his
predecessor’s “devices and services” tagline and rebranded Microsoft
as a “productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and
cloud-first world.” That’s a mouthful, but it gets at an idea that
Microsoft isn’t as interested in selling gadgets as it is in selling
the tools that people use to get work done.
例如Facebook最终通过WhatsApp找到了更大的价值 WhatsApp已经进入到海量设
备中 多得难以置信 它带来的价值比自己打造一个移动平台更大 微软并没有放
弃Windows手机 它跟facebook走向是一致的 鲍尔默担任微软CEO多年后 萨提亚
·纳拉德（Satya Nadella）接下CEO职位后 他抛弃了前任提出的“设备和服务”
口号 重塑微软品牌 现在微软的定位是：为移动第一、云计算第一的世界提供生
产力和平台的公司 也就说微软对销售设备的兴趣并没有销售应用工具那么大 人
们用来完成工作的工具
Under Nadella, Microsoft finally launched fully functional versions of
Microsoft Office for iOS and Android. It snapped up well-designed mobile
apps that already enjoyed cult followings on Android and the iPhone, such
as Acompli (the basis of its much-praised iOS version of Outlook), Sunrise
Calendar (now being integrated into Outlook), and the Wunderlist task
manager. And it released acquired coding tools to make it easy for
developers to create apps that run not just on Windows/a but every
platform.
在纳拉德的领导下 微软为iOS和Andorid开发了具有完全功能的Office 它抢购了
一些设计优秀的移动应用 这些在Android和iPhone上流行的应用 比如Acompli（颇
受称赞的iOS版Outlook就是用它的技术开发的）Sunrise Calendar（现在已经整合
到Outlook ） 还有Wunderlist任务管理器 它还推出了编码工具（也是收购来的）
让开发者制作APP可以变得更容易
In short, Microsoft decided the best plan was not to make its own phones
but to be on everybody’s phones. Today it’s the world’s third-most
valuable company, trailing only Apple and Google parent company Alphabet.
简单来讲，微软决定他的最佳策略不是自己制造手机 而是进入其他系统的手机中
今天 微软仍然是世界第三大企业 市值仅次于苹果 Alphabet
Not that tech giants aren’t getting out of hardware entirely. Google
sold Motorola but acquired Nest and still manages the Nexus line, among
other hardware initiatives. Amazon still has the Echo, its Kindle
e-readers,and its Dash buttons. Facebook has the Oculus Rift. Microsoft
has the Xbox and its Surface tablets. But these are all ancillary
products compared to the smartphone, still the hub of most people’s
digital lives.
事实上 巨头们没有完全退出硬件 Google虽然放弃了摩托罗拉 但它收购了Nest
仍然管理著Nexus产品线 还有其它硬件项目 亚马逊拥有Echo, Kindle, Dash按钮
Facebook有Oculus Rift 微软有Xbox和Surface 但是和智慧型手机相比 这些只是
辅助产品 目前智慧型手机依然是人们数字生活的中枢
In the meantime, makers of the latest generation of popular apps show
little interest in hardware. There’s not much talk of Snapchat phones,
Pinterest headsets, or Tinder watches. They’re not trying to create
their own mobile operating systems to load with self-interested bloatware.
Instead, they’re just making apps that people just can’t resist using,
regardless of what type of phone or watch or tablet they happen to own.
与此同时 最新流行的APP对硬件兴趣不大 我们没有听说Snapchat手机 Pinterest
头盔或Tinder手表的消息 它们不会尝试打造自己的操作系统 安装自己的软件
相反它们只是开发用户无法拒绝的APP 不管你的手机是什么 手表是什么 平板
是什么
This new generation of companies, in other words, realizes the smartphone
wars are over. The winners are clear. Microsoft knows it, too. Now it’s
showing it understands where the real promise lies by deciding to move on.
换句话说 新一代企业知道智能手机战争已经结束 输赢已经很明显 这一点微软
自己也知道 当微软决定前进时 它已理解到希望在哪里