Opinion The men from Manipal

But Manipal’s alumni have stepped up to the crease at a time when their companies’ traditional strengths have been eroded by increasing competition in a rapidly changing technological landscape. Nokia has sold its once-premier handset business to Microsoft and now makes a slender living from networks, a segment which its brand is not readily identified with. Microsoft, which made its billions from the sale of operating systems pre-installed on PCs, is seriously threatened by the rise of Android, MacOS and Linux, and the associated form factor wars. In April, on Nadella’s watch, Microsoft did the unthinkable — it decided to give away Windows free for small mobile devices. The company’s future seems to lie in new areas like software as a service, not in the operating systems with which its brand is so closely identified.

It is time for radical change in both companies — a sharp change of tack coupled with steadfast continuity in brand value. As the weekend astrology columns in newspapers sometimes suggest, “it is time to leave behind the old and embrace the new while remaining centred on one’s inner self”. One doesn’t have to cast the horoscope of Microsoft and Nokia to appreciate the difficulty of the task facing its new leaders. While we celebrate them today, we must have the grace not to pillory them afterwards, if they fail. Because the odds they face are indeed formidable.

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