Microsoft reorganizes

Even if the corporation's main aim is to benefit its shareholders, that unnecessary line is going to come across as alienating to employees, who probably care very little about how these changes will affect wealthy shareholders.

So in the past each part of Microsoft seemed to operate both as a independent business (and sometimes competitor with other parts of Microsoft) and part of the whole. This re-aligns the company as a systems company focused on delivering a specific solution.

A number of interesting thoughts ran through my head here. Perhaps the most profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the way, the PC is dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy of this being the 'post PC' era. Microsoft's reorganization is more about serving customers through a fusion of device + OS + product and less about serving customers as the supplier of "OS" or "Backend business management" or "gaming platform". That makes them a lot more like Apple and really puts Dell and HP in a sticky place. One wonders what the world would look like if Apple embraced people making cloned hardware.

So if I read the tea leaves correctly, Ballmer is attempting to capture Google's Android strategy for Windows with the inclusion of the desktop/laptop component where the monetization comes not from the OS but from the environment.

I don't know if Microsoft can pull it off but it reads like they want to be what Google and Apple would be if they merged.

I give it top marks for aggressiveness, and it seems they are ready to step out of the shackles the monopolist next door, painting Google with that particular scarlet letter in the US and elsewhere.

If I were Michael Dell, my first step after taking the company private would be buying Canonical and installing Shuttleworth as EVP of OS.

Microsoft doesn't want to sell you Word: they want to sell you the best method of composition. Microsoft doesn't want to sell you Powerpoint: they want to sell you the ability to make the best presentations. And so on.

They do make it reasonably pleasant to run Windows as a non-admin user though, and not the impossibility that was in XP.

What impressed me most about MS (worked with them around '97-2000) was that the company was divided into small divisions that had very precisely defined goals, and were able to operate somewhat autonomously (as long as they didn't conflict with core MS goals).

Moving from a federated empire to a Soviet-style, run-from-the-top dictatorship is not likely to end with much success.