Interesantísimo debate en el Wall Street Journal (y además en abierto), titulado «Is Microsoft driving innovation or playing catch-up with rivals?«, y con dos participantes de auténtico lujo: Robert Scoble, hasta hace muy poco Technical Evangelist y blogger oficial de la compañía, y Dave Winer, ferviente crítico de la compañía.
Nadie comenta. ¿Sera que nos importa un pimiento el futuro de Microsoft?. En mi opinion son historia (gloriosa, pero haitoria).
I was just writing about this.
And what say you to the topic?
Hi Paul! This time I wasn’t saying anything, just pointing my readers to the debate (sometimes I prefer lo leave certain things up to my readers’ judgement, particularly in topics where I’m usually too outspoken). But since you mention it, here’s my take on the debate: I basically agree with both Robert and Dave. From Dave, what I get is that Microsoft clearly has a problem: is too big and bureaucratic, and is not being able to stifle innovation across its main business lines. Most of the innovation on these lines (OS and Office) is purely incremental, as Robert says, and the basic ideas have been grabbed from elsewhere. There are, however, some lines where Microsoft has been able to behave innovatively, but thse represent a tiny percentage of the company’s revenues. In time, the objective importance of products such as the OS and Office is decreasing more and more, and those little lines where Microsoft is being truly innovative (those that probably correspond to the famous «Google’s 20%) might become important, at least if Ray Ozzie is right. From my humble perspective, Microsoft is being way less innovative that what corresponds to a firm with its huge resources, and that’s a big sin they might end up paying at some point…
Great perspective. Sorry to write in English, you can respond in Spanish, I can speak but would embarrass myself trying to type in it.
I think the piece most people get stuck on is they forget how big Microsoft is (as you pointed out). We have so many businesses and with a $7b R&D budget (largest of any technology company) along with some of the best scientists in the world, many of our newest innovations incubate inside a lab until we really feel the market is ready for them.. and that doesn’t do our image justice.
I like your blog, only having just subscribed you’re really going to forc me to improve my Spanish! :)