Submission + - Microsoft Declining (nytimes.com)
Greg Hullender writes: Former MS VP Dick Brass (full disclosure: he was my boss for a while) writes in today's NY Times that Microsoft has lost its edge due to a combination of internal politics and lack of vision. He describes how ClearType took ten years to get into MS products because some groups simply didn't want change at all while at least one group would only accept it if the whole ClearType team was transfered to them. He describes some of the troubles of Tablet PC, in particular the Office team's fierce resistance to it. (To this day, it's hard to use Office on a Tablet PC.)
I note that he omits at least one problem that he himself caused; one of the biggest headaches with Tablet PC was simply logging into it. Trying to use handwriting recognition to input a password was nearly impossible. The most natural solution would have been signature verification, but one of the key members of Dick's staff was determined to use fingerprint recognition instead, and successfully blocked any attempt to even evaluate signature verification. As is often the case at MS these days (meaning, the last ten years), no amount of rational argument had any impact on this person, nor could upper management be bothered to take a position. Ultimately, nothing at all was done, and that pattern repeats all across the company. Dick definitely got that part right
I note that he omits at least one problem that he himself caused; one of the biggest headaches with Tablet PC was simply logging into it. Trying to use handwriting recognition to input a password was nearly impossible. The most natural solution would have been signature verification, but one of the key members of Dick's staff was determined to use fingerprint recognition instead, and successfully blocked any attempt to even evaluate signature verification. As is often the case at MS these days (meaning, the last ten years), no amount of rational argument had any impact on this person, nor could upper management be bothered to take a position. Ultimately, nothing at all was done, and that pattern repeats all across the company. Dick definitely got that part right
