SEATTLE — Microsoft is serious about making its most lucrative business, Office, relevant to mobile users. What is less clear is how much money it will be able to make from them.
西雅图——让Office这个公司最赚钱的业务对移动用户构成吸引力，是微软(Microsoft)十分看重的。至于能从他们身上赚多少钱，就不得而知了。
On Monday, the company announced partnerships with nearly a dozen makers of tablets based on Android, Google’s mobile operating system. The most prominent of those deals is with Samsung, the largest maker of Android devices, which plans to ship Office, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, on some of its tablets during the first half of this year. Just recently, Microsoft cut a similar deal to load Office onto Samsung’s new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge phones. Microsoft said Dell would also put Office on its Android tablets. Nine other companies, mostly regional hardware makers in other countries, will do the same.
周一，微软宣布将与十几家基于谷歌(Google)移动操作系统Android的平板电脑制造商合作。这批交易中最引人注目的就是它与最大的Android设备制造商三星(Samsung)之间协议。该公司计划于今年上半年，在公司的一些平板电脑上装载Word、Excel、PowerPoint和OneNote等Office软件。前不久，微软刚刚达成了一笔相似的交易，要在三星的新款Galaxy S6和S6 Edge手机上装载Office软件。微软称，戴尔(Dell)也会在其Android平板电脑上装载Office。另外还有九家公司，其中大多是其他国家的地区性硬件制造商，也会这样做。
The deals are yet another illustration of how Microsoft has changed its philosophy about mobile. The old Microsoft fought the mobile technology duopoly of Android and Apple’s iOS by withholding its Office applications from them. The new Microsoft is doing everything it can to get Office into the hands of people with those devices.
这些交易也再次说明，微软关于移动设备的观念发生了何种转变。原来的微软，为了对抗Android和苹果(Apple)iOS对移动科技的垄断，一直不肯在相关设备上安装Office应用。而新的微软，却在尽一切可能，让使用这些设备的人们能接触到Office。
“It goes to show we are truly reinventing ourselves,” Peggy Johnson, executive vice president for business development at Microsoft, said in an interview.
微软商业发展执行副总裁佩吉·约翰逊(Peggy Johnson)在采访中说，“它会表明我们真的在重塑自己。”
Microsoft’s top priority at the moment is clearly more use, not sales. The company is letting mobile users run Office on their phones and tablets free, in the hopes of eventually luring them to buy premium features available through an Office subscription service. Ms. Johnson said there had been 80 million downloads of Office on iOS, which powers iPhones and iPads.
微软目前的首要任务无疑是更多的使用量，而非销售量。微软正在让移动设备用户在他们的手机和平板电脑上免费使用Office，希望最后能诱使这些用户通过Office订阅服务，购买相关的高级功能。约翰逊表示，在用于iPhone和iPad的iOS系统上，Office的下载量达8000万次。
This so-called freemium approach to making money is the standard for countless app start-ups today. It is, however, a bit riskier for a company like Microsoft with a colossal, mature software franchise like Office, one that brings in billions of dollars in revenue a year.
这种通过所谓的免费增值模式来赚钱的方法，是当今无数应用程序初创企业的惯用手段。不过，对于拥有Office这样大型而成熟的软件的微软而言，风险就会大一些。Office每年可以带来数十亿美元的收益。
Microsoft does not seem worried that giving away a functional version of Office for mobile will kill its business. And it certainly does not seem to be slowing the pace of its efforts to make Office a mainstay for Android and iOS users.
微软似乎并不担心，为移动设备提供一个可用的Office版本将对其业务造成致命危险。而且它无疑还会继续努力，让Office成为Android和iOS用户的首选。
“We’re comfortable with the model as it stands,” Ms. Johnson said.
约翰逊说，“目前来看，我们对这种模式挺满意。”
评论
打印
