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In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I express my disappointment in CEO Satya Nadella’s lack of addressing security issues during an earnings call.
Highlights
00:21 — Microsoft earlier this week reported its Q4 and full-year fiscal numbers. On the one hand, Microsoft reported some great cloud numbers; there’s no doubt about that, and I’ll touch on those. But I believe CEO Satya Nadella whiffed on an opportunity to address the security issues swirling around Microsoft.
01:03 — Quick recap: For its fiscal year Q4, cloud revenues were up 21% to $36.8 billion. For the full fiscal year ended June 30, it was $135 billion, up 23%. A phenomenal performance on cloud revenue. Now, here’s the problem. This was just tone-deaf and awful in how it treated its security business and the big challenges that have come to light this year.
02:45 — Now, this earnings call would have been the perfect time for Nadella to address: Here’s what we’ve seen, here’s what we’ve changed, here’s what we’ve learned, and here are the ways in which we, Microsoft, are going to make life better and more secure for you, our customers. Nadella opened up by saying we prioritize security above all else. Really? Is that the case?
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03:30 — You wouldn’t know this by listening to or reading the transcript of the Q4 call. Now, somebody said, well, that’s just how it does it. Okay, if that’s just how it does it, that’s fine. But don’t say, “We prioritize security above all else.” You either do, or you don’t. But saying it does not make it so. There was zero new information on this security overhaul.
04:19 — But what I thought was totally out of character for Nadella, for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect and whose accomplishments speak for themselves, was how he missed a great opportunity to set a new standard for how Microsoft talks about security.
05:13 — Microsoft took the number one position in the Cloud Wars Top 10 a few years ago from a bigger, better-entrenched competitor. It’s been outstanding in how it’s gone about a lot of stuff. I hope three months from now, when Microsoft reports fiscal Q1 numbers, or even before that would be even better, Nadella talks about what is going on with this big security overhaul.
