Monday, December 14, 2009

Sorry Ray, They Like Their Kingdoms

In a Computerworld article today they posited that Ray Ozzie may be giving up, or forced out, at Microsoft.

Don't cry for Ray just yet, he was after all blessed by Bill and is sure to get a nice pay check before leaving.

Microsoft is not a sharing/caring organization. It is a silo/kingdom group of people/organizations. Always was and always will be. They like to hire sales people to feed that belief too. Intelligent people with no sales ability, not going to hire you, no sir, best to keep going with what hasn't been working for them for a while.

I admit I don't know Ray, but did apply for roles at Groove during it's brief stint as a business because it was a new way to share, maybe an improvement on Domino, maybe not, but I liked the idea. So did many other people as can be seen on the internet with social networks and instant sites.

There is something about people that get sharing and collaboration and those that do not. Microsoft doesn't get it, Lotus got it, Google sort of gets it in a Borg type of way.

So is it any surprise that Ray's hope he could enlighten Microsoft hasn't panned out exactly? Not really. Could he have wanted to take over from Steve Balmer as CEO and that isn't going to happen now so he will leave?

I can see how Ray being CEO, could, I repeat could, have changed Microsoft for the better. But now we will wait and see what happens next.

If you see Ray at Lotusphere by some chance make sure to get contact details, he'll be hiring again soon and you might not get another opportunity.

3 comments:

  1. I remember the days of DOS and Windows 3.1 when MS used underhanded tactics to prevent alternatives from working -- like Novell DOS.

    I remember them "partnering" with competitors to suck dry or shelve competing technology.

    As long as MS is still Balmerized, I see no change on the horizon. Their game plan continues to be a scorched earth, destroy the competition by any available method mentality.

    It has continued to puzzle me how Ray Ozzie could ever, in his wildest dreams, fit in with that type of modus operandi.

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  2. If true, current day case in point:

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10414963-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

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  3. Keith,

    Alas Ray will never become CEO.

    You need to say really, really stupid things, and jump around the stage of your own company conference and howling like a monkey to qualify....

    ReplyDelete