Microsoft's chief technical officer Ray Ozzie takes a look back at the past year on his blog - and then points to what might happen in 2006:
The response to the 'disruption' memo has been frankly overwhelming, in a very positive way. Having worked with Kevin, Jim, Jeff and Robbie this month to finalize ownership of the key services scenarios, I now look forward to engaging these individuals and their teams who will lead this user-focused transformation to service-enhanced software. As a certain core group of people are well aware, we're now in execution mode; it's going to be a fascinating year indeed! Separately, I look forward to working with my brother Jack and his nascent "concept development" group to rapidly incubate many ideas that have been spinning around in our minds – some for years. These won't initially be 'products' per se: they'll range from fun hacks testing out a concept, to highly useful solutions. We're talking about potentially setting up a website where you can download some of these things as they emerge; stay tuned.
While I'm always left in the cold by jargonistic phrases like "user-focused transformation to service-enhanced software", I'm interested in Ozzie's ideas for making the company innovative. How do you it? Looks like Redmond is using a familiar technique: small groups of people working on ideas that interest them (something that Google, now considered the biggest rival to MS, is au fait with). But Microsoft's not a young company: it's the establishment. Personally I don't think it can overcome the lethargy of success - but at the very least I'm interested in watching it try.
