Memo to Microsoft

Microsoft is getting ready to undergo a sea change, at least that is the prevailing spin. On the other hand, Microsoft has been spouting that there were going to be major changes, fundamental changes, since Bill Gates first underestimated the power of the internet in the nineties. Will this time be any different? There seems to be a better than even chance, because this time Bill Gates is stepping down and his replacement, Ray Ozzie is a completely different type of person.

Reportedly, the amount of F-bombs dropped by Bill during a software presentation was inversely proportional to the quality of the software. Make it through the demo only receiving half a dozen F-slaps from Bill and the engineer could go away feeling satisfied. Bad software, say Microsoft Movie Maker, likely garnered an NC-17 rating just for language. Word is that engineers worried about the quality of the product would spend marathon sessions watching Kevin Smith movies just to inoculate themselves against the onslaught of repeated F-bombs. Wait, the part about Kevin Smith movies is something I just made up.

In any event, Bill’s replacement doesn’t sling around vulgarities left and right, enjoys debugging programs with the engineers and believes in a much more lean and modular type of programming. Undoubtedly this approach, the wandering of the halls, the approachability, will help morale at Microsoft but if the company doesn’t want to be squashed into very profitable irrelevance something more than a change in Chief Software Architect is needed.

It is easy to point to Microsoft’s recent failures, the company tried to take on Google, in fact went so far as to add the equivalent of all of Google’s hardware according to one Microsoft employee, but hasn’t captured the share of search expected. Nor has the company’s advertising revenues shot through the roof. The Plays for Sure gambit, making a DRM available to all, has been beaten soundly by the iPod and iTunes combo. A superior player may have been created but no one bought it and a replacement for the iTunes music store just never made the scene. The list continues, any hot new thing that Microsoft has wanted to be a part of, free web based mail, phone software, etc. has been less than successful. The one exception is the Xbox, and that success has been moderate at best.

The problem isn’t with the software, if Office and Windows show us nothing else they indicate that the software Microsoft produces is palatable to he vast majority of people. The thing keeping Microsoft from being wildly successful with their latest ventures isn’t the software, or even the hardware, it is the company’s nature.

Microsoft has for years, depended on appropriating technology from outside sources. The classic example is Bill Gates screaming, “I want a Mac on a PC!” The company is widely derided among the Mac community for those types of actions, the Gadgets of Vista look a lot like Widgets of OS X* and such, but it is a viable business model when the technology is not readily available to the masses. Sure, Xerox invented the GUI and Apple perfected the mouse based interaction model but it was Microsoft who brought the idea to the unknowing masses.

That is where the modern reality parts company with the marketplace of a decade ago. In the modern world people communicate with a frequency unimagined just a few years ago. Blogs cover every innovation that someone deems worthwhile. If there is a feature compelling enough in OS X to motivate people to switch computers they will make the jump before Microsoft has the ability to implement the changes in its OS.

Let us use iTues as an example. In the long, long ago any competing application made by Microsoft would have easily routed iTunes and doomed the app to Mac obscurity. Instead of a free download users would have been asked to go and pay for iTunes or at least pick up a copy. Users who didn’t want to go to the trouble would have simply had the Microsoft equivalent pre-installed on their next computer purchase. Microsoft could’ve made a perfectly crappy knock-off of iTunes and people would have been not only satisfied with it but stunned by the usefulness of the new program. Google is another such example, the internet took away Microsoft’s ability to rely on consumer laziness to drive people to using the company’s rival search engine.

The changes foisted upon Microsoft by the internet and rapid dissemination of information mean that people are no longer forced to wait for Microsoft to do “something” great. They can go and get something better right this second. These dissatisfied with IE can hop on the Firefox bandwagon with no physical barriers separating them from the tail chasing browser.

For Microsoft to stay relevant and avoid becoming a company that makes the Xbox and used to control the computing world the company must realize that the days of people waiting for Microsoft’s new hotness while being blissfully unaware of computing advances happening elsewhere are coming to a screeching halt. The modus oparendi of copying others work and incorporating into the latest release of Windows are over. People don’t have to wait for a program from Microsoft to do something new, they are already using the functionality provided by another company.

The really troubling for Microsoft is that once people start doing things one way it is difficult to get them to do said things in any other fashion. This has been Microsoft’s biggest ally in keeping people in the Windows fold but it will soon become the Redmond Giant’s largest worry. Used to using Google? You’ll keep using Google. To effectively lure a user from Google to MSN search the search results will have to be an order of magnitude more accurate.

In the end Microsoft must change from a company with a model predicated on watching what others are doing and trying to do the same thing, the “me too” model of pharmaceutical companies, to a company sincerely devoted to innovation. That will be quite a trick for the folks in Redmond. The company has grown large and bureaucratic, two death knells for rapid fire outside of the box innovation. Of course counting Microsoft out is something only the most foolish would consider, if any company can divine a way to be both huge and nimble, bureaucratic but driven by brilliant individual contributions it will be Microsoft. Good luck with that.

*Which in turn look a lot like Konfabulator Widget’s which look a lot like (according to some) the Desk Accessories from the early Mac OSes which, in turn, were a lot like having a calculator on your desk which is what everyone used anyway.