Microsoft's innovation mission explained

"Innovation" as usual

"In the context of Microsoft, that's where the company works with startsups and business and industry partners to bring ideas into the company and where it exports ideas and thinking."

Microsoft already have a track record of exporting the ideas of small innovative companies. And they have a history of losing or settling court cases to prove it.

"The best things in life are free"

"But you can give them to the birds and bees. I want money. That's what I want."

Also (Copied in entirety from http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2007/02/11/soca-we-just-want-your-money/ )

"I’m reminded of Sir Alan Sugar giving a lecture about management way back in the 1980’s. He was mocking the catch-phrase/mission-statement culture, memorably saying, " ‘Pan Am takes good care of you’, ‘Marks and Spencer loves you’, ‘Securicor cares’ . . . at Amstrad, ‘We just want your money’." "

He was in the computer industry at the time, so it's relevant. And look at how we feel about Amstrad products now. (Well. For some of us, that was our first computer. A shame it was such a turkey.)

Microsoft has one idea. "We just want your money."

Spinning right round

Personally I completely fail to see why anyone would bet the business on the generous offers of ``free tools (strings attached)'' from a marketeering-driven company with a very long track record decidedly bent against everyone else's innovative ideas unless it thinks it's cheaper to borg them. Especially not when there are no-strings-attached tools available for free.

The difference is one of a very shiny american SUV with millions of optional extras and possible features (all for-pay) that half the time doesn't work but you can't do anything about it because the bonnet is welded shut, versus, well, a pre-roverised landie. The latter doesn't look at shiny but you can fix just about everything and even rivet stuff on the outside, making the thing more useful without detracting from it looks. For an engineer, looks is a nice bonus, but function, both can-do and will-do, is king. micros~1 is not in that business.

credible?

so his credibility comes from having worked for some companies before they failed or requires The Miracle of Steve to return and fix them.

BizSpark is a nice idea - and I can even understand you having to pay after 3 years (heck, if a startup makes it to 3 years it's probably a success!) but their Azure pricing model sucks and the platform has a bunch of issues. Visual Studio and solution deployment is great for enterprise software deployment but not really agile enough for a very dynamic web delivery

They really need to split their enterprise bloatware from their consumer/web stuff (but make sure there is compatability so users don't have to choose between Outlook or Windows Live Mail...