I disagree with a lot of this article - firstly, I wouldn't call Microsoft extremely diversified. Sure - they have a lot of products - but the cornerstones are

I disagree with a lot of this article - firstly, I wouldn't call Microsoft extremely diversified. Sure - they have a lot of products - but the cornerstones are Windows and Office. Microsoft is fixated on their platform - Windows, Office. Almost every other play Microsoft has is really a funnel for revenue into these (and their closely associates). Microsoft's play is all about "seamless, easy integration". That is, you get SQL Server, it runs on Windows, it integrates nicely into VS.NET - which is integrated into your IE browser. To innovate, Microsoft needs to move beyond this. They may have the best engineers in the world, but it's hard to break away if the mentality around these products persist.... Everything needs to work with Outlook, or Live Messenger, or search, or whatever. Microsoft is all about pre-canned and all the advantages and disadvantages that brings. On the other hand, these are hugely profitable products for Microsoft. It's hard (and perhaps reckless) to let go of this as a strategy. In my view, Microsoft needs to break itself up a little in order to create niches and to innovate. This means - don't integrate everything - open things up - attack markets that aren't already Microsoft mainstays. The microformats and social network integration as an idea is fine - very semantic web - but Microsoft simply couldn't execute it at the moment. It would get tangled up in this machinery.