Ina Fried of ZDNet wrote about Microsoft’s attitude towards Google. Ray Ozzie, the company’s Chief Software Architect, noted that Microsoft is trying to catch up to Google in several areas, such as search engine usability and advertising sales. As usual, Microsoft is buying small, innovative firms and rolling their products and services into Microsoft’s value chain and offerings.
My IS 7010 students should note Ozzie’s comments regarding a strategic inflection point. It’s quite typical for CXOs to use hindsight to find a SIP that they should have identified as it happened. Grove’s comments in our textbook are excellent in that regard, and they are highly recommended reading.
