Dick Brass, who headed Microsoft’s TabletPC and E-book efforts a decade ago, has an interesting piece in the New York Times today. The issue he’s trying to address is the decline of Microsoft and the causes behind it. In his own words…
But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.
The flaw in his logic starts in the first paragraph. Microsoft hasn’t “brought us the future” in my lifetime.
Windows 3.1 wasn’t the future it was a copy of Apple. Word wasn’t the future it was a copy of Wordperfect. Excel’s the same with 1-2-3. Exchange and Lotus Notes. DirectX and OpenGL. Internet Explorer and Netscape. MSN and AOL. Etc…
Microsoft was never good at bringing the future as much as they were good at being fierce competitors. They could take a competitor’s product, match it feature for feature, then expand on that and sell it for a cheaper price. That’s how Microsoft has always succeeded. By, to quote the famous phrase, embracing and extending.
Which brings me to Mr. Brass’ theory on the cause of Microsoft’s decline…
What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation.
…
For example, early in my tenure, our group of very clever graphics experts invented a way to display text on screen called ClearType. It worked by using the color dots of liquid crystal displays to make type much more readable on the screen. Although we built it to help sell e-books, it gave Microsoft a huge potential advantage for every device with a screen. But it also annoyed other Microsoft groups that felt threatened by our success.
In this part I think he’s right and wrong. He’s right in that Microsoft has never developed a system of internal innovation but he’s wrong in thinking that’s the problem.
The problem is Microsoft has forgotten it’s role in the computing eco-system
Microsoft is not the innovator. They are the ones who bring other companies innovations to the masses. That’s why the company can’t deal with internal innovation. Because that’s never been it’s strength. People don’t expect innovation out of Microsoft and that includes their own internal department heads.
Which brings me to Mr. Brass’ second example…
Another example: When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn’t like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.
With all due respect the VP of the Office Group was right. The TabletPC was a bomb and it wasn’t poor Office integration that killed it. To Compare the TabletPC to an iPad is like comparing a wheel barrel to a Ferarri.
When Microsoft tries to “bring us the future” it doesn’t work.
If Microsoft wants to slow it’s decline it needs to dump it’s massive R&D budget into competing against actual products from other companies. That is where they can win.
At the same time Microsoft Employees need to realize that their company works best when they compete. Microsoft didn’t create the game console but Xbox Live is still the best online game playing experience. There’s a lot of innovation that can be done in Microsoft’s traditional role as competitor and Microsoft employees need to realize that and be proud of it. Rather than going off and trying to invent something new they should look at how to better something existing.
If they do I'm confident they'll succeed at it.
Addendum: Can anyone even think of a product category that Microsoft created and then succeeded in? Off the top of my head I can't.