Microsoft’s October’s event is just over a week away, but a number of rumors and leaks are—as expected—making their way through the news cycle and blogosphere.  More on those rumors later, but first, the larger purpose is to analyze Microsoft’s decision to hold a massive event to release a variety of products and services simultaneously as consumer-facing technologies Apple and Google do.

Some people wonder, “What’s the alternative?”  Others just view large press-focused events as the de facto norm for an American technology company.  Both positions would be absolutely valid and true.  The only possible remaining concern that resides outside of these viewpoints is the sizable portion of Microsoft’s enterprise and business (especially including small business) clients that rely upon some mix of consumer devices in their adopted technology mix.

At the present time, Windows 10 is unarguably hitting critical levels of success.  Windows Phone’s transition to Windows 10 has an unprecedented amount of consumer and journalistic following despite less than 3% market share.  HoloLens could make or break augmented reality adoption in the near term.  The new Office 2016 is successfully fighting against the inroads made by Google Docs and other multi-user enabled cloud productivity services.  And so on and so forth.

Despite this great positioning, Microsoft has key weaknesses.  The Windows Store is growing but desperately void of productivity, commerce, and social media applications that keep businesses running.  Test productivity applications are being deployed to Android instead of Windows, even by Microsoft because of the larger amount of technical and feedback telemetry available from more sizable markets.  Windows Phone even lacks a few key productivity features that every other platform (Windows 10, Android, OSX, iOS, Linux, web) has, such as the ability to fully integrate with Exchange for managing email alias accounts and shared inboxes.

These problems are just the tip of the iceberg, and they aren’t solved by synchronizing advancements as a part of a public relations timeline.  Instead, they’re solved by pressing diligently for solutions and deploying those solutions as soon as feasible.  Businesses rely upon that type of service and support.

As a simple conclusion to avoid obfuscation through tangential overload, it can be said that Microsoft needs not worry about strategically timed leaks, fueling rumors, and building hype around events like their competitors do.  What they need to focus on more are strategic development plans, fueling on-time development, and building hype around moving forward with productivity innovations instead of continually hitting the reset button to “new” versions of software that are stripped of features in order to compete with the Apples and Googles of the world.

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