Will Microsoft stagnate into irrelevancy?
Through the Microsoft MVP program I’ve been involved with many different product groups over the past few years. I’ve always thought that the competition for resources between product groups was sometimes counterproductive. Sometimes it gets downright ugly. As I’m just on the periphery it’s been hard to get the big picture and fully form my opinions as to exactly what’s going on. Here’s an article by a former Microsoft employee that paints the big picture quite well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html
My hope is that Microsoft will change. I’ve met some brilliant people during my visits there. Because they are stuck in a silo most of their ideas seem to fall by the wayside or when implemented get changed so much in order to get accepted by the other silos they bear little resemblence to the original idea. I think Microsoft realises this and is struggling to change. Let’s hope it happens. Despite Microsoft’s many detractors I believe they were at one time an innovative leader of the computer industry and did much more good than harm.
Update: Here’s Microsoft’s response.