Good little article in The Economist about the coming battle between innovation and entrenchment in Microsoft. Should the company continue defending its market share in operating systems (with an increasing market share in servers) or should it morph into a powerhouse of innovation with Robert Scoble as the face of the open and friendly games-and-consumer-electronics version?
Cory Doctorow remarked (when he was in Oslo a few weeks ago) that Microsoft is an example of a company where great people together create something that is not that good (actually, he used stronger words than that). As I have said before, it is reminiscent of the old IBM. The people I have met from MS have been friendly, technologically astute – and very enthusiastic about everything their company is doing, to the exclusion of much else. The Economist’s article adds another wrinkle to this. Worth reading.