Microsoft's office: Why insiders think top management has lost its way

"I personally know two women got promoted to be managers, not because of their performance, but because they each is a higher manager's mistress. In short, Microsoft's is a fear-based culture. How could Microsoft not fall rapidly?"

"I'd attend a meeting where we needed 3 or 4 relevant people to discuss something but 30 or more would show up, to represent their group's interests, even if they had no real idea of what was going on. It was nearly impossible to reach any consensus, all decisions ultimately got made by whatever interested PM had the most clout - often not the PM with the most expertise or relevance"

" I recall the sole-sucking Business Process Reviews we'd go through. The culmination would be a Bill/Steve meeting. It was the 30 people developing 98 slide powerpoints with 2 point font (again, no exaggeration). It was game over for me once I sat through that."

As you said, everyone will end up here. There's virtually no way a rational company can avoid it. It's textbook Innovator's Dilemma. Eventually you're faced with a situation that there is a new product/service that is cannibalizing your product. You can hasten the cannibalization of your cash cow and maybe succeed in this new space (or maybe not), or you can milk you cash cow for all its worth. If you do the math its almost always better to NOT hasten your own demise for an uncertain future.

But even if you were to break them up, there's really no good way to break them up that really helps all that much. Windows and Office? Nothing else can really exist on its own. Now you have two big monsters that have the same problems, but spread out in two companies.

I think you have to let nature take its course. Which probably means some breakout technology that lets them continue their cash cow while providing new scenarios. If Windows 8 can actually merge the desktop, tablet, and phone in a way never even envisioned, that would be a shot. But it's such a long shot I wouldn't hold out much hope.

That also means that ways to fix or prevent it have been researched extensibly. It's doable, just take a look at Drucker. Of course, it's also often not done.

Microsoft should spin off everything except Windows and Office. Let all those divisions and products sink or swim on their own merits. Ultimately they will get more value from the ability for some of those units to have a breakout success than the marginal benefit they get from twisting all products to serve the "Windows Everywhere" strategy. Not that "Windows Everywhere" is inherently a bad strategy, but if you have a CEO lacking vision, and a glut of middle management politics, it just makes sense to gut the inefficiencies and scar tissue in the middle of the organization and give the rank and file the opportunity to rise to their abilities.

This would also play to Ballmer's strength as a salesman. I get the feeling he looks at how Apple is thriving on a closed ecosystem ("OS X Everywhere") and wants to succeed in a similar way, but he is utterly incapable of it. If he were to focus on Windows / Office and say how can we sell more of this on its own merits I think he would be more successful.