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Plaupius on 07 February 2010
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bobobologna said:
DirtyP2002 said:
bobobologna said:

I think you are getting a bit too defensive about Microsoft.  I think the main argument is that Microsoft isn't fostering an environment where innovative ideas can thrive, not that they should be front runners in everything they do.

Cleartype taking 10 years to get out?  Doing a horrible job with making their apps compatible with tablets (and now failing to do the same for capactive touchscreens based on finger inputs)?

Sony get's blasted all the time for being a disconnected company, and I agree with those criticisms.  Their divisions have largely in the past been completely ignorant of each other instead of working together.  Now we are hearing that different parts of Microsoft are going so far as to sabotage each other.  It's ridiculous if true.


It is about healthy growth. Sustainable growth is more important than anything else. Look, Apple bet their company on touchscreens and portable devices, imagine how bad Apple would look right now if the portable devices would have failed. Apple is bigger than ever before, because their bet was paying off.

It is very hard to be on every possible market. MS still has the OS and office software that makes a lot of money, but they try to get on other markets as well. Look at the Xbox 360 and the videogame industry. MS brought some innovations to this industry like Xbox Live, Video on Demand on a console, Xbox Live Arcade and digital distribution of games, HDD drives, Sky / Canal+, Netflix and now Project Natal. It really takes a lot of effort to push innovations and to market them, becuase at the end of the day, they want to make money with it. It took MS almost 10 years, 5 billion USD and thousands of hours to establish the Xbox brand.

I think MS has a very "pro innovation culture" in their company. Look at the MS courier for example. They had this idea and created something awesome IMO, now it would take again billions of USD and years of time to establish this and get this on the market. Of course you have to find partners that develop software for this and you have to find distribution partners as well.

Now you have to do this again with the MS surface... Don't get me wrong, I would love to see MS making the courier affordable for everyone. I would get it day one, but it is not that simple. The idea / innovation is just one thing, to get it out at the right time is not easy. That is why I don't blame them.

For those of you who don't know surface:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0

and MS courier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp-MdI

 

I do blame them.  You completely and conveniently ignored the articles posting about ClearType.  And tablet PC inputs for Microsoft Office.  Where the hell is Windows Mobile 7?  Why does Windows Mobile 6.5 suck ass with finger inputs when Google and Apple have already put out great interfaces for mobile phones?

It's cool that Microsoft is dreaming about the Courier and Surface.  I dream about fusion power someday.  Why isn't Microsoft doing things it can and should be doing?

The article clearly specifies examples where different divisions of the company were SABOTAGING each other.  I don't know how anyone could defend that.

For some reason DirtyP2002's responses are not showing, but anyway. The MS PR guy talking about the scale of change they bring with their innovations is just pure smokescreen. In a well running company, it would be unheard of to have an innovation taking 10 years to be implemented at all. There is just no excuse for it. Of course, looking at what MS has produced in the last 10 years in the operating system space could give you an indication of why it has taken so long. Anybody remember what Vista was originally supposed to be like? It really seemed to be the product that would lead MS to a new path, but one by one all groundbreaking new features were omitted. So it is no wonder ClearType, too, got postponed. It's kind of a wonder that it survived at tall, to be honest.

Then, talking about the manpower and resources needed to bring new innovations into market and make them succeed. Microsoft has MUCH, MUCH more resources, both manpower and money, than Apple, Amazon, Nintendo, Google etc. How come the competition is able to take innovations to market in a fraction of the time it takes Microsoft? Are they that much better at innovating, or could the OP actually have a lot of merit? Could it be that Microsoft is divided into lesser divisions and two major established divisions (operating systems and Office), and that the established divisions fight tooth and nail to maintain their position, even at the expense of other divisions and ultimately, at the expense of the whole company? It is actually very telling that most of the innovation in last years has come to market from the EDD, which is not yet established in the same way but also does not threaten the operating systems and Office divisions. Your view that no company would undermine new innovations is very naive. Companies are run by people, and people care most about their own well being. Microsoft seems to be too big to be really controlled by the CEO and the top management, so middle management can and will care only about their own survival. Like I said before, it is sad and a shame really as Microsoft could do so much more and so much better.