April 25, 2006
we need to re-invent
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Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s high profile blogger, went on a blog holiday for the past week and it obviously gave him time to do some serious thinking.He has posted a marathon post which posits five ways to improve Microsoft’s image both internally and externally.
What are his five suggestions?
* A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.
* buy every [Microsoft] employee a top-of-the-line Dell machine with dual monitors running Windows Vista. And do it now.
* Change employee behavior through public compensation change logs.
* Get rid of corporate speed bumps.
* Force marketers to explain their decisions — in public on their blogs.
I'm still not sure what Microsoft's "Big Idea" is. Except maybe protecting what they already have, of course. Maybe that's enough. Maybe it isn't. Time will tell. I wish them Godspeed. Posted by hugh macleod at April 25, 2006 12:53 PM | TrackBack
What Microsoft needs to do is switch to a Linux/BSD kernel and focus on providing a productive user experience. Similar to what Apple did with OSX.
That would shake up the market and Microsoft.
Posted by: Simon Cast at April 25, 2006 2:31 PMI'm not sure MS knows what their Big Idea is right now either. If its just protecting what they have, then its not going to fly. A Big Idea needs to be something everyone can buy into...investors, employees, customers, and even non-customers.
Who care's about protecting what MS already has? Investors are seeing no growth, many employees are unhappy, and certainly customers, many of whom have been victim to MS bullying tactics have no vested interest in helping them stay in shape.
The problem with getting too big is that you need increasingly bigger ideas to keep everyone motivated. At some point, there just aren't any taller mountains to climb.
Thanks for Tom's precis! Scoble's post typifies all that is wrong with him. Volume, volume, volume. I went to his page assuming a long post would take me a few minutes to read and lost the will to live very quickly.
He may have some good insights in there, but whereas he can spend a lot of his day producing it, the audience has far less time to digest it and, I would argue, will give him less credit than he may deserve because of the impression of flabby thinking that such lack of concision suggests.
Some might argue that this is a metaphor for Microsoft.
Posted by: john at April 25, 2006 8:17 PMHe he! How can you buy everyone a Dell machine running Vista, "now!" when it's not going to be released until ...
Posted by: phil jones at April 26, 2006 3:54 AMMS should stop marketing and start innovating. Does ANYBODY read those idiotic ads with people wearing dinosaur heads? Does MS understand that they are calling their OWN customers dinosaurs because they haven't immediately upgraded to the latest release?
US car companies used to release a "new" model every year that only differed from the previous model because of a bit of chrome and slightly bigger tail fins.
One day they woke up and discovered the Japanese had stolen the market.
Posted by: geoff lane at April 26, 2006 8:12 AM