A fascinating op-ed in the New York Times on the failure of Microsoft as an innovator. It's written by a former Microsoft brass, Dick Brass, a vice president at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004.
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.
I also like the accompany graphic, seen above, by Maye Webb.
[Via]