Microsoft Corporation
One of the basic and underlying forms of strategic variation amid corporate organisations is the ability of the management to expand in the global market.. With globalisation as the bussword of the decade, global expansion is fast becoming a priority for firms of every sise. Although this is the case, corporate expansion is also amid the least recognised output of the inter-organisational environment, where incentives and constraints abound. Martin, Mitchell & Swaminathan (1998) reported that scholars studying global expansion have similarly recognised the impact of competitive forces on the market appeal constraint. This paper focuses on the global expansion strategy of Microsoft Corporation, a multinational computer technology firm who develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a range of software products for computing devices and how the industry adapt their product and services in the global market.
MICROSOFT BACKGROUND
In 1975, Bill Gates and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen saw the potential to turn a hobbyist’s toy into something more. Gates and Allen sold the first software language program, called BASIC, for the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) Altair 8800, the first ‘personal computer’. They became incorporated in 1981, and five years later released its first retail version of what the world now knows as Microsoft Windows, originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system. In 1990, kicking off its 15th-anniversary celebration, Microsoft becomes the first personal computer software industry to exceed billion in sales in a single year, with revenues of .18 billion and three years later named the ‘Most Innovative Industry Operating in the U.S’ by Fortune magasine as part of its fifth annual Study of America’s Best Cities for Corporate. Four years ago, due to doubts on the trustworthiness of their computing, Bill Gates issued a industry wide memo emphasising that Microsoft must lead the industry to a new level of trustworthiness in computing. Last year, Microsoft realigns into three new corporate divisions: Platform Products & Services Division, led by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin as co-presidents; Microsoft Corporate Division, led by Jeff Raikes; and the Entertainment & Devices Division, led by Robbie Bach. The organisation’s mission is to enable people and corporations throughout the global market realise their full potential. Their early vision – ‘A PC on every desk and in every home’ – must have seemed like science fiction. Now, looking back, international expansion helped realise that vision.
Global approach to Adapt Products and Services
A tenet central to attaining their mission and vision which include global inclusive commitment, which, for the industry meant thinking and acting globally, employing a multicultural workforce that createss innovative decision-making for a diverse universe of customers and partners, innovating to lower the costs of technology and other approaches. In line with this, global expansion approaches and methods for product and service adaptation were set and market entry to the global arena was started. The modes of international market entry and development are: exporting (indirect and direct), licensing & franchising, management contracts, collaborative ventures and wholly owned subsidiaries. A peruse of the corporation of Microsoft reveals that it uses an integration of all these modes of market development except management contracts to develop their overseas corporate.
As for the exporting mode of international entry, they maintain detailed information on the export control status of Microsoft products, as Many Microsoft products are subject to export restrictions under U.S. law because they include encryption technology. Collaborative ventures of Microsoft with other corporatees are always on the news. Microsoft’s first strategic collaborative venture with an enterprise that provides systems integration (SI) focusing on the financial field was with Information Services International Dentsu Ltd. back in 2001 (ISID Press Release 2001). Microsoft and Pivotal Corporation, a provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software for mid-sised enterprises, have announced an expansion in the firms’ long-standing corporate development agreement to jointly target the mid-enterprise market for CRM in 2002 (EDP Weekly’s IT Monitor 2002). The prolonged and extended association and connection will include highly targeted demand creation initiatives for the healthcare insurance and contact centre markets. Just last year, Bill Gates and Japan’s Toshiba Corporation President and CEO Atsutoshi Nishida attend a press conference on June 27, 2005 in Tokyo, Japan where they announced an expansion of the firms’ global relationship to improve the development and delivery of innovative digital consumer electronics products as well as personal computers by sharing each other’s hardware and software technologies (Kimura 2005).
More recently, in March of this year, EMC Corporation, a service provider for information storage and management, and Microsoft announced an expansion of their alliance to simplify the delivery of information lifecycle management (ILM) solutions for Microsoft application environments (Telecomworldwire 2006). Having subsidiaries and affiliates in all parts of the world is also part of Microsoft’s international expansion strategy. Microsoft has subsidiary offices located in 103 countries worldwide, including Hong Kong. Some of them are partly-owned, most are wholly owned by the corporation(Hoover’s Inc. 2006).
Reference
EDP Weekly’s IT Monitor 2002, Microsoft and Pivotal advance global alliance, Millin Publishing, Inc., 04 November.
Kimura, J 2005, Microsoft and Toshiba Announces Expansion of Global Relationship, Getty Images Inc., 27 July.
List of Microsoft Subsidiaries and Affiliates 2006, Hoover’s Inc., accessed March 12, 2010, <http://www.hoovers.com/microsoft/–ID__14120–/free-co-subs.xhtml>.
Microsoft and Information Services International Dentsu Agree on Strategic Co-operation to Expand Business in Financial Solutions 2001, ISID Ltd., accessed March 12, 2010, <http://www.isid.co.jp/english/news/ms.html>.
Microsoft Website 2006, Microsoft Corporation, accessed March 12, 2010, <www.microsoft.com>.
Telecomworldwire 2006, EMC and Microsoft announce expansion in alliance, M2 Communications Ltd., 06 March.
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