Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie - The best of both worlds

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, and Ray Ozzie Microsoft's CTO and Chief Software Architect, are from opposite ends of the spectrum, but complement each other perfectly. Steve is animated, excitable, charismatic, and a salesman at heart. Ray is quiet, analytical, introverted, and a technologist at heart. Both are incredibly smart, passionate, pragmatic, and in private, very funny guys. Microsoft has lots of people in both camps, and everywhere in between. And we need them all.

Pragmatism is important when you are responsible for a company with $50 Billion  in revenue and 70,000 employees. Ray has done several startups that were agile and quick to respond to market changes. But he also understands the advantages of size and staying power. Balance and pragmatism is the key.

Knowledge @ Wharton, the magazine of the Wharton School of Business did an extensive interview with Ray on a wide range of topics.  It is a long but interesting look at how Ray is making changes at Microsoft. Here are some of the golden nuggets;

The online web based service versus the offline client based application;

I don't believe a single model is going to solve all problems. Computers within an enterprise, for example, are very tethered. In the enterprise model, it might be that running applications off a service with a high bandwidth connection to that desktop is the perfect thing. Some professionals are highly mobile and the best architecture for them is to have things delivered to a mobile device and replicated up to the service.

In the docs and spreadsheets realm, I believe there are certain uses of spreadsheets in particular, where the sharing model [enabled by] using it up on a service could be really useful. I think that there are other scenarios where you want it on your laptop. As a company, Microsoft views this as an opportunity -- to deliver the aggregate productivity value in all places.

On the transition from software to web based services to Software plus Services;

When you look at the transformation from mainframes to minis, minis to PCs, PCs to LANs, LANs to the web, the web to where we're going -- which is services -- there were some companies that recognized the threat/opportunity and managed that transition. Some changed their business model and thrived.

On Microsoft facing "The Innovators Dilemma" and entering new markets;

We have navigated the waters in different transformations within the industry. Everybody takes for granted now that we're an enterprise server company. [Years ago] there was no presence in enterprise at all. Xbox is fairly successful now. How we transformed game consoles into connected game consoles [with the] surrounding online service was truly innovative. Even though [the Sony] PlayStation and [Nintendo] Wii both have net connections, if you look at what people can do with their friends using Xbox online, it's dramatically innovative. And now we're transforming that to include the PC, so PC people can play against Xbox people. And because the Xbox is connected to your TV, we're using it to deliver HD video.

I believe fundamentally that where there is software opportunity, it is consistent with Microsoft's DNA.

Now back to the innovator's dilemma. Whenever someone has a very successful business, there is absolutely a risk of innovator's dilemma. I believe it's too soon to tell whether there is a significant risk of that kind of disruption in [Microsoft's] core businesses -- simply because we're in the early days of understanding the role of web-based productivity versus PC-based productivity.

I am not one to believe that suddenly you snap fingers and everything that you do on the PC is doable on the web. You shouldn't just take things [you do on the PC] and put them [on the web]. You should figure out what they're good for [on the web] and what they are good for [on the PC] and weave them together. Based on my experience, I believe that this represents more opportunity than risk.

On criticism about not being more direct and outspoken about where Microsoft is going in the future;

Very good question. There are always trade-offs. This is a style thing -- I tend to like to back up things that I talk about with concrete deliverables. Otherwise, you state things and if they are too far out, it just doesn't resonate well. It's perceived as trying to over-hype something that you aren't delivering.

I have been trying to work internally on some fairly interesting things and we will talk about them as they become more real. We're out there talking about what the most important things are to deliver for the company today, which are Office and Vista. Those are the primary things we are talking about right now.

Are we ready right now to talk about how to change the game in search or how Microsoft might weave services into our various offerings? No, we're not. But we will.

Ray has been quietly working the past two years on a new vision and architecture for Microsoft that we call the Client/Server/Services continuum. The idea is to provide the user with the best possible experience wherever they are, however they are connected. The hard part is finding the balance between functionality and user experience, and keeping everything synchronized on your desktop, laptop, cell phone, and web browser.

Windows Live and Office Live provide a glimpse into where Microsoft is going. The recent announcements about building two $500 million data centers provide further clues about the future. Ray will be the keynote speaker at MIX 07 in Las Vegas on April 30th. The MIX conference is for developers building advanced applications and it is the perfect forum for explaining the new architecture and vision. It should be fun.

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Comments

[Lloyd Budd]

I think there are a lot of people that will have as little to do with Microsoft as possible as long as Steve Ballmer is at the helm.

On the other hand Ray Ozzie's leadership has changed many opponents into partners.

[Danial Jameel]

Hello Don,
Ozzie is the individual most believe responsible for guiding microsoft towards the Web 2.0 light. However his recent comments at the Goldman Sach's symposium about 'Google being the command line of the internet', no mention of Msn Live or any defined strategy and also from Paul Degroot (analyst with direction on microsoft) predicting MSN Live to be finished by year end presents a gloomy picture for Microsoft's web 2.0 approach.

Just wondering what your take on the future of Microsoft and the internet (esp. Web 2.0) is?

Danial Jameel
www.ureporting.com