For all those watching the AOL/MSN/Google M&A game, Microsoft’s recent reorg, covered here (NYT), is worth noting. The company is creating three divisions, and the one I find critical is what is called “Platform Products and Services”. This division combines Windows and MSN, and that is an important shift – the two are increasingly interdependent. Applications like Office are now in a separate division, as are Entertainment and Devices.
Ray Ozzie (speaking with MSN chief Yusuf Mehdi at Web 2.0) is now reporting to Bill Gates and overseeing all three divisions integration with the web. Interesting as well.
I was starting to think that perhaps Microsoft was going to let MSN go and focus on evolving Windows to the open Web OS, independent of MSN’s content focus. Now, I’m not so sure. More considered thinking when I get off this book merry go round….
Could it be that MSFT is recouping following a brutal blow to what appeared to be the only “vision” it had left? For the last several years, it seemed to me that Mr. Gates expressed the area of Voice Recognition as the area which really stimulated him, which he fancied on his solitary campouts, giving him that glazed, billionaire pioneer look.
Then we all gawked as Gate’s secret weapon, goto Voice Rec man Kai-Fu Lee, defected to Google (and for his language skills, apparently!). Sad visionary! Nothing wrong with a reorganization following a stumble, just to figure out which tack to take next — or to decide to disorganize/break up. So which is this?
It’s pretty clear by the explanations of the divisions and the background of the new groupleaders that MS is betting the farm on consumers’ seamless adoption of tech just like cotton – “the fabric of our lives.