Introduction and Windows 10
As the clock struck 12 on January 1, 2014, Microsoft still had a soon-to-be-departing Steve Ballmer in charge, we had no idea who was taking over and Windows 10 was still known as Threshold. Since Satya Nadella was named Ballmer's successor on February 4, the firm has been rebranded as a "platforms and productivity" company and undergone a transformation that has seen significant changes at every turn.
Nadella's arrival and reshaping of Microsoft
One of the first decisions that had to be made was who would take over the reins from outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer. After much speculation that the selection committee would go for an external candidate, it was decided that internal was the way to go, and Nadella the man to take the firm forward.
With an $84 million (around £54 million, AU$103 million) pay packet, Nadella has set about shaping the firm by taking the company away from devices and products to focus on services, especially since the introduction of subscriptions for some of its products.
One of Nadella's first moves was an unpopular one as he cut 18,000 jobs across the firm, in what is the biggest jobs purge in company history as 14% of the total workforce were given P45s. Many of these positions were sacrificed at Nokia, specifically in its home territory of Finland, and are geared towards saving the company considerable amounts in the long run.
It didn't get any easier for Nadella later on in the year as he was forced to apologise over comments he made that suggested women should not ask for a pay raise and instead have "faith in the system". It's hard to judge Nadella's first 10 months in the job this early, although his decisiveness in making hard decisions has to be commended.
Windows 10 arrives
One of the key pieces of the puzzle that will make or break Nadella as Microsoft CEO was realised in September when the firm skipped the number nine and unveiled Windows 10 as its next OS.
Microsoft answered the prayers of users everywhere by bringing back a full Start menu as part of the new version of its OS that is already out as a developer preview. Windows 10 will also be on every single Lumia smartphone and link together with its Cortana voice assistant. An early release of Windows 10 is expected in January 2015 and we will find out then if Microsoft plans to offer it as a subscription-based OS to fit in with Nadella's new revenue model.
Subscription becomes the key
One of the biggest success stories of the year was the decision to roll out Office to the iPad, and in hours the product had shot to the top of the App Store charts. Just six weeks after its release, the Office for iPad family had been downloaded 27 million times before a paid subscription option was added in September to reflect the company-wide move to this model.
Since Microsoft began giving away licenses for an increasing number of its products, it's also rumoured that Windows 10 will be offered on a subscription basis with details to be ironed out before January. Subscriptions are a huge part of Nadella's plan to reinvent the firm as one that relies less on revenue from devices or products (licenses) themselves and more on rolling payments for its renowned stable of services.
The end of Windows XP… sort of
April 8, 2014, is a date that will go down in the annals of personal computing as the day Microsoft delivered the death knell to Windows XP by stopping security patches and support. Even though many organisations have moved away from XP, there is still a reluctance to use either Windows 7 or 8 with many waiting for Windows 10 – a situation that could cause a security headache. The UK government even agreed to pay £5.5 million (around $8.6 million, AU$10.6 million) for a year's extension to support for XP, reflecting the continued reluctance to move away from the outdated OS.
Azure, Surface and Windows Phone
Azure grows and grows
Nadella's posturing towards becoming a company that is focused on "productivity and platforms" means that its Microsoft Azure cloud offering takes on even more prominence than it had under former CEO Steve Ballmer. In line with its competitors, Microsoft has cut Azure's pricing on countless occasions throughout the year and has made it one of the key parts of its plans to rely on a subscription-based model going forwards.
Office 365, which arrived on a number of new platforms this year, includes a free 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage for the opening year before becoming a paid-for option after the first 12 months.
The growth is by no means only limited to consumer products and the Azure Government cloud, which was made generally available in December, caters for government customers that require a secure, locked-down version of the cloud service. Over 100 customers have already signed up and it gives Microsoft a real chance to throw down the gauntlet to BlackBerry.
Surface Pro 3
2014 will always be remembered as the time Microsoft tried to convince us all that we don't need a laptop anymore, and its Surface Pro 3 is the answer to the Apple MacBook Air we almost chucked in the bin. After the disappointing Surface and Surface 2 efforts it was third time lucky as the tablet/hybrid sold at twice the rate of the predecessor, and the Surface business had topped almost $1 billion (around £640 million, AU$1.23 billion) in revenue at the last check in October.
Skype for Business and Skype Translator
The Lync-Skype collaboration grew in stature after Skype voice, IM and video became part of the enterprise messaging service for the first time to bring a new level of collaboration to workplaces already using Lync. Bringing the two products closer together reflects the blurring of boundaries between work and home by making it easier to work from home using the popular enterprise collaboration tool.
Skype Translator got its beta release in the last days of 2014 with Spanish and English part of the debut offering that translates one language in text or speech into another. Eventually over 40 languages will be a part of the product and with even Klingon (from Star Trek) on the list, there are potentially hours of fun to be had. Should the translation feature be a success, there is scope for it to become part of Skype for Business and present a chance for more effective interaction with colleagues working across the globe.
Microsoft Lumia and Windows Phone 8.1
Nokia's presence on the Lumia line of smartphones was served notice as the first Microsoft Lumia smartphones were unveiled in October before the Nokia name was ditched entirely the following month. The demise of the Nokia moniker came just seven months after Microsoft finally tied up its deal to acquire Nokia's mobile business for a hefty $7.2 billion (around £4.6 billion, AU$8.9 billion) after several months of regulatory wrangling. Now all it needs to do is get its Windows Phone OS to turn heads.
To do this it unveiled Windows Phone 8.1 in April, and with it came Microsoft's answer to Apple's Siri and Google Now – the Cortana voice assistant. Since it was released in March, the virtual assistant has been hard at work trying to make friends by correctly predicting the outcome of World Cup and NFL games, and its arrival on Windows 10 will only strengthen its reputation.
Other business
We got a first peek at the Microsoft Band wearable wristband that works with all operating systems and packs so many features that its battery life struggles to cope for a day of normal use.
Towards the end of the year, Microsoft finally began to accept Bitcoin payments for digital content including games, apps and videos through its app store, with the success of the US rollout likely to dictate its progress across the world.
The open source community let out a yelp of excitement when the doors to Microsoft's .NET framework were thrown open to developers and it is now available on Linux and Mac OS X for the first time. It marked one of the first occasions that Microsoft truly recognised the open source community as a software development model that has its place in the industry as a whole.
Minecraft became a part of Microsoft's arsenal as it acquired the game's developer Mojang for a huge $2.5 billion (around £1.6 billion, AU$3.1 billion) to take on a title that generated $326 million (around £210 million, AU$400 million) in revenue last year.
Finally, Microsoft said a collective farewell to former CEO Steve Ballmer in August as the energetic ball of fun departed to take over the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers franchise from disgraced owner Donald Sterling.
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