M$ is fairly thick, it needs to be broken up into smaller portions.

Small startups are awesome to work at, after they grow into the 25-50 employee size it’s time to leave. The bureaucracy and management become stifling of innovation typically.

Here are some things thick-head Ballmer should do, but won’t:

- FOCUS is what management is missing. “If you’re unfocused and you’re trying to compete with a focused player, over time the focused player wins”

- Outside of its core products, Microsoft does too many things and fails at most.

- M$ needs to remove of all of the crap and just do a few things great, instead of trying to do them all. Sorry, M$ cannot be the center of the IT universe. Also, a follower doesn’t win. The big money is already made by others.

- Windows 7, it took three tries to get it right (after XP and Vista). Again, lack of focus.

- The world is passing M$ by, as management is asleep at the wheel.

There is no direction, just same ol’ crap. They create a new skin for the user interface and says its the latest and greatest innovation. Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Microsoft should focus on its core competencies and get rid of everything else. To anyone that has studied business history will know, when companies think they are omnipotent, they fail. Some survive in different forms (IBM comes to mind) and some fail (Kaypro, Digital to name a few)

To those that “know technology” you know that any company that has tried to “corner the market” by being all things to all people has failed. Even high flying Apple caters to a relatively small part of the market, they just do it very well, in fact they do it better than anyone. Jack Welch said it best, if you can’t be #1 or #2 in a market, get out!

Microsoft should take a lesson here