Microsoft: A lesson in crushing innovation
02/04/10 06:49 AM Filed in: Innovation
| #in
While Apple
continues to gain market share in many products,
Microsoft has lost share in Web browsers,
high-end laptops and smartphones. Despite
billions in investment, its Xbox line is still at
best an equal contender in the game console
business. It first ignored and then stumbled in
personal music players until that business was
locked up by Apple.
Why did this happen ?
1.Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation.
2. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.
3.Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It’s not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft’s music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.
* This is from an article in the Opt Ed Section of the NY Times by Dick Brass a former Microsoft insider. There are lessons to be learned here and if you allow issues like these to remain unresolved it can take a company down. When was the last time you really said "wow" to a Microsoft product ?
Why did this happen ?
1.Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation.
2. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.
3.Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It’s not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft’s music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.
* This is from an article in the Opt Ed Section of the NY Times by Dick Brass a former Microsoft insider. There are lessons to be learned here and if you allow issues like these to remain unresolved it can take a company down. When was the last time you really said "wow" to a Microsoft product ?
