Microsoft iPad mania: New OneNote app today; new Lync app soon
Summary: The iPad-optimized version of Microsoft OneNote is out, and the Lync mobile client for the iPad, iPhone, Android and Symbian phones is coming “shortly.” — The early warning indicators were right.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands in a crowded week for Microsoft: the company previewed the Windows Store and its kill-switch app controls on December 7-8, shipped what may be Silverlight 5's last major release on December 9, and on the same day replaced Andy Lees with Terry Myerson atop Windows Phone. Against that backdrop, leading with an iPad-native OneNote rather than a Windows-bound release is a telling sequencing choice.
The Lync promise matters more than the OneNote ship: a single mobile client spanning iPad, iPhone, Android and Symbian extends Microsoft's enterprise communications franchise onto every major competitor's hardware, and it feeds the swirl of speculation about whether full Office will follow to the iPad.
First-order effects
- iPad owners get a native OneNote client today, and IT departments standardized on Lync get a committed path to supported mobile clients across iPad, iPhone, Android and Symbian rather than Windows devices alone.
Second-order effects
- The platform list quietly squeezes BlackBerry: Symbian makes the Lync cut while Research In Motion does not, weakening BlackBerry's remaining enterprise-messaging foothold.
- Every OneNote install on an iPad is an argument inside Microsoft that its franchise lives in the apps, not the OS — pressure that lands directly on the Windows 8 and Windows Store pitch previewed the same week.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Microsoft's center of gravity shifts from OS-bound licenses to cross-platform services, with the success of its own tablet platform judged against the same users its iPad apps now serve.
- Enterprise unified communications consolidating around Lync across device ecosystems would further erode handset-OS lock-in as the basis for corporate purchasing decisions.
The trend: Microsoft is decoupling its productivity and communications franchises from its own operating systems, meeting users on whatever device they already own.