The Tryon Street Journal

I was glad to read today about Microsoft’s willingness to…

1. Accept that they’re not the dominant player in many of today’s fastest-growing segments of tech, and
2. Hire and listen to outsiders with more entrepreneurial ideas of how to move the big elephant in the right direction.   

Granted, when you’re sitting on billions in the bank, I can understand why it’s hard to do this.  Not only is Microsoft bringing in fresh blood in product groups such as online advertising and Xbox, but their 2005 hire of Chris Liddellas CFO has proved a prudent move.  (I can personally vouch for Mr. Liddell.  When I was leaving Bill Gates’ house after the intern dinner just after Mr. Liddell was hired, I quizzed him about investment banking vs. corporate finance, as I was pondering my post-college path.  He was very helpful.) 

What Robert Guth’s WSJ articletells me is Microsoft is willing to adapt and change in this web 2.0 world we’re in.  This is music to my ears, because the precise reason I didn’t stay on after my summer in Redmond was the company’s couch-potato attitude toward the market.  It was apparent that they knew they had a cash cow in the OS and office suite segments, but weren’t willing to be pro-active at protecting that monopoly with innovation in those products.  On top of that, MS was coming in 2nd or worse in ancillary groups such as mobile and the web. 

But it sounds like Microsoft is now making wholesale changes in strategy, from the inside out (or in the case of hiring, outside in).  It’s going to be interesting to observe.  Here is one indication change is in the air:

Mr. McAndrews says Microsoft wants him to continue building an ad business much as he did before. Still, he says he wants input in the form of technology and other resources from Microsoft that aQuantive didn’t have on its own. They “don’t want to mess with that formula,” he says. “On the other hand, I want to mess with it some.”