The Microsoft culture tends to squash true innovation, says CNNMoney.com's John Dvorak. That's the upshot for the enterprise about today's news that Halo developer Bungie, acquired by Microsoft in 2000, is splitting off to become an independent company again. The Web is ablaze with news reports on the split, but the most interesting piece of the Bungie/Microsoft story was Dvorak's analysis.
"Part of the reason the product is so good is that Bungie Software, acquired by Microsoft in 2000, pulled itself away from the corporate compound in Redmond, Wash., and moved into its own facilities. It even established its own key-card security system to keep other Microsoft folks from gaining entrance. I'm convinced that the way Microsoft is currently managed, this kind of isolationism is the only way a successful product can be developed at the company. This is largely due to a corporate culture based on micromanagement and meddling."
He says that product after report gets ruined by such micro-management (pun intended), and offers, as one example out of 100, the "checkered history" of FrontPage.
To be fair, Dvorak calls out the fact that this is hardly a "disease" specific to Microsoft. IBM nearly killed itself off in the 1980's from the illness. He predicts that Google is sadly also heading down this path.
Also see: Halo 3 mania – the biggest pre-ordered game, ever
Visit Microsoft Subnet for more news, blogs, opinion from around the Web
Subscribe to all the Microsoft Subnet bloggers
More Microsoft Subnet blog posts
Will the real Microsoft Online initiative please stand up
AT&T joins Microsoft in opposing Google/Doubleclick
Corporations rushing to Vista – NOT
The militant Microsoft
The Microsoft Subnet blog is the official blog of the Network World's Microsoft Subnet community, managed by editor Julie Bort. Microsoft Subnet is the independent voice of Microsoft customers and is your gateway to daily Microsoft news, blogs, opinion, books, prize giveaways and more. Visit the Microsoft Subnet index page daily, and while you are there, subscribe to the Microsoft newsletter. The newsletter includes news generated by the Microsoft Subnet community as well as other Microsoft news stories published by Network World.
|
|
Bungie: Creative ’sharks’ can’t survive at Microsoft
Microsoft bought the leading 3D/animation company SOFTIMAGE in 1994 and sold it to Avid four years later. Now Bungie. I explain this phenomenon here:
"Bungie: Creative ’sharks’ can’t survive at Microsoft"
http://counternotions.com/2007/10/05/bungie-creative-sharks-cant-survive-at-microsoft/