One Reason Why Microsoft May Not Make Search a Success
June 26, 2008
The Bill Gates “noise” echoed in Kentucky. I read PCMag.com’s “Exclusive: The Bill Gates Exit Interview” here. The interview merits your attention. I zoned out with references to “the platform” and choked when I encountered this comment: “Everything in computer science is to just write less code.” And I was baffled with references to a “natural user interface”. But I am a Kentucky hill billy.
I tried to avoid reading about “Bill Gates’ Web Experience”. Michael Krigsman does work I enjoy, but I was hooked. Mr. Krigsman pulled the best bits from a PDF of an email exchange here. I discovered that this was a “flame” among Microsofties. You can read SeattlePI.com’s take on the exchange and learn why the PDF has confidential stamped on it.
I read the emails and ignored the complaints about Mr. Gates’s problems using Windows XP. What’s new?
The email put the PCMag.com interview into perspective for me. Here is the key line in the email thread. One Microsoftie writes, “I am owning the website issues.” [sic].
Now, for me the telling comment is in a response to this person’s attempt to provide leadership, accept responsibility for the mess, and fix the problem. Ready, here is what a Microsoft employee identified as Mike Beckerman wrote: “I don’t know what it means to ‘own website issues…‘”. I have added the emphasis.
Now my observations:
- I am no leader, but I recognize that the person stepping forward to assume responsibility is walking and talking like a leader. Leaders are good because good leaders make things happen. For a colleague not to know what it means to “own Web site issues” is snide. In some organizations, the comment would be close to insubordinate.
- When colleagues cannot cede control, preferring to keep the status quo, the management process is in danger of veering off track. The email exchange took place in 2003 and now it is 2008. The Yahoo deal flopped. Vista is an issue for some. The enterprise search and Web search initiatives are spinning their wheels. I would assert that these are examples of flawed management and a refusal for colleagues to sort out their differences and find a leader to guide them forward.
- Google may have some challenges ahead. But if this email exchange is accurate (it may be a hoax for all I know), Microsoft may have some trouble closing the gap with Google in advertising, search, and cloud-based services. Google is a great many things, but so far it has avoided the headwind caused by employees who disregard a plea for changes from the fellow who founded the company.
Hopefully, I won’t have to read any more about Mr. Gates’s retirement, which I believe, has him on the Microsoft campus two or three days a week. Oh, the problems identified in the 2003 “flame” emails are still around. No one was able to fix them. Well, there is always next year, which is what IBM said about OS/2.
Stephen Arnold, June 26, 2008
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