I'm not sure that's a bad thing, if I'm honest. Strong top-down direction can work (e.g. Steve Jobs at Apple) but it can also cause ossification (e.g. Blackber

I'm not sure that's a bad thing, if I'm honest. Strong top-down direction can work (e.g. Steve Jobs at Apple) but it can also cause ossification (e.g. Blackberry) where a company won't sacrifice an existing product to move forward. Windows server has obviously lost the app server market, for a majority of companies. MS has adapted to that new reality by supporting Linux servers. I'd say that is to their credit. Look at other companies who have been slower to adapt to the new cloud world (e.g. Oracle) and you can see the costs to their long term viability.