4 ms·

I guess the truck-load of revenue isn't sufficient because investors still expect Microsoft to push fresh and innovative products. They certainly have the peopl

I guess the truck-load of revenue isn't sufficient because investors still expect Microsoft to push fresh and innovative products. They certainly have the people and the business units to do it (look at all the ideas that Microsoft Research goes through every year). The question is, how do you get a really original and fresh idea at Microsoft to make it past the cannibalistic obstacle course we've all heard about? Surely MS has the spare cash to throw around to "test" ideas like Courier on the market, so why don't they? It seems like a much more sure thing than Zune. Then again, perhaps that experience has made them more risk-averse. If you were Ballmer and wanted to promote stock growth, what would you do -- if you could try anything at this point?

m0nastic 16y ago
I honestly don't know what they were thinking with the Zune. What's amusing is that by all accounts it's a really nice portable media player. Microsoft basically finally made a nice portable media player just after the point where growth stopped in portable media players. Courier I find interesting. I was one of the people who thought the demo looked really interesting. It totally spoke to me as a device that if it operated the way it did in the video (which is a big if), I'd have had a real use for. But I don't know if that means it would have actually been successful as a product. I think if Microsoft thought they could build it, and that it would be successful, they'd have done so. The fact that they scrapped it (or did whatever it is you do with a product concept video that you never actually said was going to be a product) shows me that they don't understand that market, or don't think it exists sufficiently. I think part of the problem is the way Microsoft Research is structured. According to Bill Buxton (who is kind of my dream "wish he was my uncle"), Microsoft Research is basically tasked with incubating long-term technologies. In this video, he talks about how some of the stuff he's been working on over the past decade is now starting to get used in shipping projects: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/CES-2010-NUI-with-Bill-Buxton/ http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/CES-2010-NUI-with... While I think that's awesome for Microsoft to be that forward-looking, I think they also need a more short-term skunkworks. Maybe not as radical as Google's "20% time", but I think something that shortens the amount of time between "concept and prototype". Windows Phone 7 seems like a pretty good idea. It's a fairly novel approach to interface design; but it didn't just spring up. Microsoft basically plodded through ten years of bad mobile strategy and pissed away their technology lead until even they couldn't pretend that they were headed in the right direction. If you contrast that with Palm, who also developed and launched a completely new platform in a relatively short period of time, I think it's obvious that Microsoft works in glacial time. Then again, Palm's gamble hasn't really paid off either. I think Microsoft couldn't possibly bet too big on mobile. I know it's trendy, and I'm certainly not being profound, but I don't think it's ludicrous to consider it the largest growth market in computing for the next decade. I think the problem (which the original article points out, is that Google has pretty much screwed their existing business model by giving away Android).
- JamieEi 16y ago
  MS has started several labs groups that fit in between long-term academic research and product groups. For example, I work in Office Labs (www.officelabs.com). Our goals are something along what you describe in the Office / IW space.
  - m0nastic 16y ago
    I find this promising. Although, I can't honestly think of a Microsoft product with less of a need for radical new ideas than Office (Unless replacing PowerPoint is on the agenda). Looking at the site you mentioned it definitely seems like you guys are working on cool stuff; I just hope this sort of thing is going on within other product groups.
- thesethings 16y ago
  Sidebar: I smiled when you described Bill Buxton as "wish he was my uncle," because amongst friends I call Paul Graham, Tim OReilly, and Kathy Sierra, "Uncle Paul," "Uncle Tim," And "Cousin Kathy." It started because I was getting slightly made fun of for quoting them so often... like I knew them. So I kinda upped the joke ante by saying stuff like, "Uncle Paul always says ______."
gruseom 16y ago
Fund a thousand startups and make it clear that they can cannibalize whatever they want. And make it easy for MS employees to get in on the action.
lsc 16y ago
> I guess the truck-load of revenue isn't sufficient because investors still expect Microsoft to push fresh and innovative products. This is the key, I think, to Microsoft's behaviour. and I think it's a mistake on the part of the investors. Microsoft is an /excellent/ cash cow, and not so great of an innovator. If I was the majority shareholder of Microsoft, I'd demand that they make their first priority delivering me a giant dividend cheque. Sure, Microsoft still has some good people, and they should keep those people busy moving windows forward, and maybe even doing some original research... but, at this point in their development, they are a cash cow. they need to realise this and start issuing nice fat dividends, rather than trying to 'buy' parts of the console gaming or internet search markets.
loewenskind 16y ago
>I guess the truck-load of revenue isn't sufficient because investors still expect Microsoft to push fresh and innovative products. I'm sorry, but when has MS ever done this? Office. I'm struggling to think of a single other example ever. Everything they've ever done, as far as I can tell, has been to take what others have done and make either a cheaper (as in, how much will it cost me to use it) copy of it or used their existing monopoly to force it in place. One has to expect that when a companies model works like this that they won't be able to keep up at some point. I think the zune was the first incident of this happening. As someone mentioned elsewhere Zune showed up at the party years late, so even though it was decent and cheap everyone had moved on.

m0nastic 16y ago

I honestly don't know what they were thinking with the Zune. What's amusing is that by all accounts it's a really nice portable media player. Microsoft basically finally made a nice portable media player just after the point where growth stopped in portable media players. Courier I find interesting. I was one of the people who thought the demo looked really interesting. It totally spoke to me as a device that if it operated the way it did in the video (which is a big if), I'd have had a real use for. But I don't know if that means it would have actually been successful as a product. I think if Microsoft thought they could build it, and that it would be successful, they'd have done so. The fact that they scrapped it (or did whatever it is you do with a product concept video that you never actually said was going to be a product) shows me that they don't understand that market, or don't think it exists sufficiently. I think part of the problem is the way Microsoft Research is structured. According to Bill Buxton (who is kind of my dream "wish he was my uncle"), Microsoft Research is basically tasked with incubating long-term technologies. In this video, he talks about how some of the stuff he's been working on over the past decade is now starting to get used in shipping projects: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/CES-2010-NUI-with-Bill-Buxton/ http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/CES-2010-NUI-with... While I think that's awesome for Microsoft to be that forward-looking, I think they also need a more short-term skunkworks. Maybe not as radical as Google's "20% time", but I think something that shortens the amount of time between "concept and prototype". Windows Phone 7 seems like a pretty good idea. It's a fairly novel approach to interface design; but it didn't just spring up. Microsoft basically plodded through ten years of bad mobile strategy and pissed away their technology lead until even they couldn't pretend that they were headed in the right direction. If you contrast that with Palm, who also developed and launched a completely new platform in a relatively short period of time, I think it's obvious that Microsoft works in glacial time. Then again, Palm's gamble hasn't really paid off either. I think Microsoft couldn't possibly bet too big on mobile. I know it's trendy, and I'm certainly not being profound, but I don't think it's ludicrous to consider it the largest growth market in computing for the next decade. I think the problem (which the original article points out, is that Google has pretty much screwed their existing business model by giving away Android).

JamieEi 16y ago
MS has started several labs groups that fit in between long-term academic research and product groups. For example, I work in Office Labs (www.officelabs.com). Our goals are something along what you describe in the Office / IW space.
- m0nastic 16y ago
  I find this promising. Although, I can't honestly think of a Microsoft product with less of a need for radical new ideas than Office (Unless replacing PowerPoint is on the agenda). Looking at the site you mentioned it definitely seems like you guys are working on cool stuff; I just hope this sort of thing is going on within other product groups.
thesethings 16y ago
Sidebar: I smiled when you described Bill Buxton as "wish he was my uncle," because amongst friends I call Paul Graham, Tim OReilly, and Kathy Sierra, "Uncle Paul," "Uncle Tim," And "Cousin Kathy." It started because I was getting slightly made fun of for quoting them so often... like I knew them. So I kinda upped the joke ante by saying stuff like, "Uncle Paul always says ______."

gruseom 16y ago

Fund a thousand startups and make it clear that they can cannibalize whatever they want. And make it easy for MS employees to get in on the action.

lsc 16y ago

> I guess the truck-load of revenue isn't sufficient because investors still expect Microsoft to push fresh and innovative products. This is the key, I think, to Microsoft's behaviour. and I think it's a mistake on the part of the investors. Microsoft is an /excellent/ cash cow, and not so great of an innovator. If I was the majority shareholder of Microsoft, I'd demand that they make their first priority delivering me a giant dividend cheque. Sure, Microsoft still has some good people, and they should keep those people busy moving windows forward, and maybe even doing some original research... but, at this point in their development, they are a cash cow. they need to realise this and start issuing nice fat dividends, rather than trying to 'buy' parts of the console gaming or internet search markets.

loewenskind 16y ago

>I guess the truck-load of revenue isn't sufficient because investors still expect Microsoft to push fresh and innovative products. I'm sorry, but when has MS ever done this? Office. I'm struggling to think of a single other example ever. Everything they've ever done, as far as I can tell, has been to take what others have done and make either a cheaper (as in, how much will it cost me to use it) copy of it or used their existing monopoly to force it in place. One has to expect that when a companies model works like this that they won't be able to keep up at some point. I think the zune was the first incident of this happening. As someone mentioned elsewhere Zune showed up at the party years late, so even though it was decent and cheap everyone had moved on.