my worthless suggestion: i don't think the "old-schoolers" will ever respect the "kids" (actually they don't seem to be that young) in the r&d labs until they

my worthless suggestion: i don't think the "old-schoolers" will ever respect the "kids" (actually they don't seem to be that young) in the r&d labs until they get their own credit in the "street" (market) - so things like integrating with windows/office/etc will always be hard if the managers think the direction goes against their interests, so.. .. put all the "edgy" projects into a special branch of the organization that depends only on the 'man' and: - give them full freedom to pursue the markets they see fit (this means they can go against established products etc) - let them adopt their own internal processes and tools (ye, that means macs and linux and ipods) - give them their own name if you don't want them initially associated with the microsoft brand - after proven success, start merging with the rest of the organization in a selective way (throwing away old processes that don't really work anymore, promoting the new guys into top positions, yada yada yada)