If the thesis of this article is correct, the most important stride Microsoft has made has not been industrial design or touch-interfaces - it's that they have

If the thesis of this article is correct, the most important stride Microsoft has made has not been industrial design or touch-interfaces - it's that they have learned to have their products leverage advances from elsewhere in the company and have their divisions work together towards a coherent vision. Unfortunately, this is at odds with much of what I know about Microsoft, and this was the core complaint of Dick Brass' "Micrsoft's Creative Destruction", which was one of the more widely-discussed (and in my opinion, spot-on) Microsoft doom-and-gloom stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html It is clear that Windows Phone 7 has benefited a lot from Zune...but they are in the same division, with some of the same leadership. If different Microsoft divisions can actually work together to advance a clear and coherent vision about the future of computing, Microsoft will rise to once again be a dominant power in new and emerging areas of the industry. However, if Microsoft remains a group of independent fiefdoms each looking to advance the careers of their own management, Microsoft will continue to be a super-profitable enterprise company that is mostly irrelevant in new markets. Sadly, I think that the author is looking at the Zune->Windows Phone example and inferring a broader trend where there is none.