"Easy and efficient integration" - are you joking ?

Posted Aug 16, 2007 5:50 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: "Easy and efficient integration" - are you joking ? by jordanb
Parent article: Linux Goes Legit (WindowsITPro)

In large corporations how it works is that nobody actually runs them.

It's fiefdoms in fiefdoms in fiefdoms. Only small companies can be run successfully by a individual or group of individuals. Once you get to a certain size then the single top-down management style doesn't work properly.

So each section of Microsoft is ran by different people. Different people with different attitudes, different goals, different perspectives. They probably enjoy quite a bit of independent authority in order to allow efficient use of company resources, as much as a large corporation can do.

The role of very-top management and CEOs are basicly to set the tone of the company. They steer things in a very general manner and leave the details to other people. This could be the partially be the reason why Bill Gates stepped down from CEO a while ago.. maybe his management style doesn't allow him to let go. I don't know.

But I think it's entirely possible that there are some portion of Microsoft that sees open source as the only long-term solution for their company well being. Other people see this as a way to lose customers to cut-rate competitors and are doing their best to actively undermine the other group.

In any, even if I am completely wrong, the point I am trying to make is that it's a big mistake to treat Microsoft (or any other corporation) as a single entity... It's not. There is no grand vision, strategy, or anything of the sort... besides earning goals and expectaions spelled out for investors.