Microsoft's lost 10 years

What a great way to start a new year reading this reflection on Microsoft's lost (not a typo) 10 years. I find myself laughing, nodding, agreeing with this dude. At least on the following:

Microsoft Should Have Fired all the MBAs

The new millennium's first 10 years is really Microsoft's lost decade. It is a decade of shattered dreams. Microsoft 2000-2009 is a casebook study why no company should allow its ranks of MBAs to swell too large. The company's 5,000-plus layoffs should have sacked 95 percent of the MBAs rather than the many good, hard-working employees sent packing. I repeatedly hear Microsoft employees privately complain about there seemingly being one MBA -- or lawyer -- on campus for every other employee.

I'm so hard on the MBAs (and lawyers), because Microsoft's problem during 2000-2009 wasn't lack of the aforementioned vision but of execution. Somebody had a good idea, Microsoft started to bring it to market and the project was cut clearly for some business or legal reason. A close examination shows a common trend: Repeated starts, stops, realignments, more starts and major directional changes or closure of many good projects. It's like some business dude spent too much time plowing through spreadsheets when he or she needed to get out into the real world.

Maybe because I'm a Design Researcher, and I love my job:

Innovators focus on the customer and creating something that people didn't know they needed. Apple has done this repeatedly over the years. Creating something people didn't know they needed is an axiom of good design and not easily achievable when the focus is on responding to competitors, which are a distraction. Google is Microsoft's biggest distraction. Microsoft leadership recognized Google to be a competitor long before it ever was. But Microsoft followed Google rather than leading with innovation. It's a stupid, sorry mess.