| One of the reasons Microsoft is unlikely to pull it off is precisely that they are one of the world's biggest companies. When Apple bought NeXT, Steve Jobs had a tight cadre of very talented people who he trusted greatly. It was basically his invasion force. Apple at that point was in crisis, and wasn't particularly big. Market cap: $2 billion. Revenue $7 billion, down from $11 billion two years before. Employees, 9,300. They were doing basically one thing, selling computers, and they were obviously fucking it up. Microsoft is much larger ($250 billion market cap, 92,000 employees), and they're still fat and sassy on their monopoly rents from Windows and Office. Few there feel any reason to change. The company is so much larger than Apple was that just getting a handle on it is a massive task. Actually turning it around is a very tall order. Even though Apple was much smaller, it was something like 7 years before things really started to take off. Even if somebody could turn Microsoft around as quickly, how will they get the board and the investors to sit still for such a long period? Jobs could do it because Apple was his baby and Jobs was Jobs. But who has the mojo to do it with Microsoft? A much more likely path is the one Yahoo is on: slow decline plus musical CEOs as a variety of highly paid people rearrange deck chairs over and over. |
I guess at IBM is was obvious things had to change - it might take a while before MS gets to that point.