{"id":283576,"date":"2010-02-05T17:51:49","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T22:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xconomy.com\/?p=62049"},"modified":"2010-02-05T17:51:49","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T22:51:49","slug":"sack-ballmer-break-up-the-company-how-microsoft-could-innovate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/283576","title":{"rendered":"Sack Ballmer? Break Up the Company? How Microsoft Could Innovate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Software<\/a>, culture<\/a>, Analysis<\/a><\/div>\n

\t\t\"Microsoft\"<\/a>
\n\t\tGregory T. Huang wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Outside of official circles in Redmond, WA, the term \u201cMicrosoft innovation\u201d is often thought of as an oxymoron, sort of like \u201cArmy intelligence.\u201d People have been actively debating the issue of whether and how Microsoft can truly innovate in the tech world for at least the past decade.<\/p>\n

Enter Dick Brass (great name), who was a Microsoft vice president from 1997 to 2004. His op-ed in the New York Times<\/a> yesterday sharply criticized Microsoft\u2019s lack of innovation and has stirred the pot considerably, even prompting Microsoft to post a response<\/a>. But I haven\u2019t seen many people talking constructively about how to fix the problems. And Microsoft doesn\u2019t seem to admit that there are<\/em> any problems, at least officially.<\/p>\n

Brass used the peg of Apple\u2019s iPad tablet announcement to highlight what he sees as Microsoft\u2019s failings in tablet PCs, e-books, digital music, and mobile software. He calls Microsoft \u201ca clumsy, uncompetitive innovator\u201d that is \u201cfailing, even as it reports record earnings.\u201d And he points to two problems with the company\u2019s culture—problems that threaten Microsoft\u2019s future, if not its present.<\/p>\n

One is widespread political infighting that can doom innovative people and products that compete in some way with existing product groups. (The current Ray Ozzie situation<\/a> comes to mind.) I\u2019m sure there are benefits to this kind of competition, but you have to wonder whether the volatile mix of personalities and agendas at the company is stifling some of its more creative projects.<\/p>\n

The other problem is a software mindset that Brass says is stuck in the 1970s. \u201cPart of the problem is a historic preference to develop (highly profitable) software without undertaking (highly risky) hardware,\u201d he writes. \u201cThis made economic sense when the company was founded in 1975, but now makes it far more difficult to create tightly integrated, beautifully designed products like an iPhone or TiVo.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his response, Frank Shaw, Microsoft\u2019s vice president of corporate communications, gave the usual spiel about \u201cinnovation at scale\u201d—the idea that the company reaches a huge …Next Page »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Software, culture, Analysis Gregory T. Huang wrote: Outside of official circles in Redmond, WA, the term \u201cMicrosoft innovation\u201d is often thought of as an oxymoron, sort of like \u201cArmy intelligence.\u201d People have been actively debating the issue of whether and how Microsoft can truly innovate in the tech world for at least the past decade. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1747,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile","category-news","category-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}