Moving Slowly
Heard anything from Microsoft lately? After seeing all those Evolve! commercials about how important it is to upgrade to the latest version of Windows and Office for some damn reason or another I’m starting to think that Microsoft is slowing down. Even Scoble is talking about it.
Of course, this is Microsoft I’m talking about here. I bet, behind the scenes, that Microsoft is reorganizing, is trying to shift (regain?) focus. Hopefully they’re learning from the Open Source community about speed of execution and adoption. Hopefully they’re not creating work and over-emphasizing process. What are customers looking for? What are developers looking for? Is there a way to satisfy both groups and make money? That seems to be a particularly good way to about things. What’s a business model that will continue to make money into the future forever? If you think that business model is “add features every year and they’ll buy it” I’m starting to think you’re wrong. If you think it’s “give me money for these perfectly reproducible bits” I know you’re wrong.
Does that mean that maybe Microsoft should pursue a more startup-ish model? Small, agile teams entirely focused on delivering their one or two products/services? How can they operate strategically? Is there something in the way birds flock and agile methods work that can be used in that situation? Now that we can give agile methods some time to breathe with regards to project management and software development, is anyone working on business process agility in this brave new context? They have to be, right? Solve that problem and you could be rich.