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What Microsoft products do you touch in your daily work in higher ed?
Are you an MS Office user? Do you work on a Windows machine? Is your e-mail and calendar Outlook? Sharepoint? Skype? Office 365?
I’m amazed at how many times a day most of us in higher ed touch Microsoft, and how little this Microsoft ubiquity seems to translate into higher ed mindshare.
Unless you are responsible for buying or provisioning Microsoft enterprise services, infrastructure or site licenses it is doubtful that you talk much about Microsoft.
That is why I think that it is worth taking 10 minutes of your time to read the letter that Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, sent out on Thursday to all Microsoft employees.
What do you think?
And more importantly for us, what do you think Nadella’s letter and the future of Microsoft have anything to do with the higher ed?
Some of the quotes that I pulled out of Nadella’s letter that got my attention include:
"Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world."
"We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more."
"We help people get stuff done. Stuff like term papers, recipes and budgets.” (Emphasis mine - as I was excited to see higher ed make it in).
What I’ve been trying to do is square this vision with how Microsoft talks about higher education.
Microsoft has a page Technology Enriched Instruction in Higher Education.
There are some resources and people on this page, and it is good to see that Microsoft is taking an approach beyond the narrower lens of software or hardware products that they sell.
What would Microsoft need to do to get more higher ed mindshare?
Do you see anywhere in Nadella’s vision that could benefit what you are trying to accomplish at your institution?
Where would you like to see Microsoft go?
