3 ms·

Microsoft has the good stuff, just needs to be more popular/cool/get adoption/etc. A new CEO will have a chance at the start while he/she's still in the news,

Microsoft has the good stuff, just needs to be more popular/cool/get adoption/etc. A new CEO will have a chance at the start while he/she's still in the news, to make huge waves with radical actions that turns the perception of MS on its head. The new CEO could also do internal things like kill the performance rating shit. MS might not need much of an employee culture turnaround. It's the company's image that needs fixing.

einhverfr 13y ago
I think that is almost exactly the wrong way to approach the problem. Here is why. Microsoft has never lacked an astute understanding of the market. They have rarely been behind the curve in their domains. They had purchased hotmail before Gmail was even on the drawing board. They had been trying to market tablets for a long time before the iPad. But what they lack is a fresh perspective. The corporate culture is relatively ingrown and I think that's the big problem. Long story short that means their executions of plans tends to be... somewhat... problematic. Microsoft has what it needs, namely a lot of very talented people (some of which I still am in contact with). What it lacks is an ability to get those people in charge of getting all the little problems solved so that people will find the solutions useful. They have largely coasted through on momentum, using spare cash to purchase promising companies. To turn this around you have to turn the entire corporate culture around. You have to start encouraging cross training. Get the developers working front line tech support a week a year or something. Have the main developers do stints at Critical Problem Resolution or similar groups. Get folks in touch with the problems of the customers and what they are solving. More importantly, encourage Microsoft employees to use and study competing products. When I was at Microsoft the problem was an island mentality and this killed their early tablet efforts. That has to be turned around and it won't be easy.

einhverfr 13y ago

I think that is almost exactly the wrong way to approach the problem. Here is why. Microsoft has never lacked an astute understanding of the market. They have rarely been behind the curve in their domains. They had purchased hotmail before Gmail was even on the drawing board. They had been trying to market tablets for a long time before the iPad. But what they lack is a fresh perspective. The corporate culture is relatively ingrown and I think that's the big problem. Long story short that means their executions of plans tends to be... somewhat... problematic. Microsoft has what it needs, namely a lot of very talented people (some of which I still am in contact with). What it lacks is an ability to get those people in charge of getting all the little problems solved so that people will find the solutions useful. They have largely coasted through on momentum, using spare cash to purchase promising companies. To turn this around you have to turn the entire corporate culture around. You have to start encouraging cross training. Get the developers working front line tech support a week a year or something. Have the main developers do stints at Critical Problem Resolution or similar groups. Get folks in touch with the problems of the customers and what they are solving. More importantly, encourage Microsoft employees to use and study competing products. When I was at Microsoft the problem was an island mentality and this killed their early tablet efforts. That has to be turned around and it won't be easy.