Great Platforms - [8:46 AM]
Scobleizer: "Instead, let's just go back and be a great platform company." - Robert believes Microsoft needs to get back to its' roots; become a great platform company, again. I'd argue that it's never lost the position of great platform company. There are probably a few factors that have led Robert to make that kind of statement. Microsoft is a huge target, it has a gigantic bullseye painted around corporate headquarters. Ever ten year old hack hates them for some weird reason, which usually start off with "It's not open source", or "It's not secure", and if you ask them point blank to explain themselves better you usually get some strange drivel they heard from someone else that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I digress. Microsoft is still a great platform company and will continue to be for a long time to come, as long as they reverse their continuing trend of becoming more like IBM or GE. Microsoft has allowed mediocrity to slip into the shop, but you'd have to get some of that with a company the size of a small city. I can tell you first hand that two of the three upper level management folks on the Visio team are completely worthless in their roles and I wonder how they ever rose to such positions of power. Two of three, seriously. These are the guys driving future development of a wonderful product. Now I have to believe if you have that sort of mediocre leadership on a tiny team what's it like in other divisions of the company? I think Microsoft has gotten so caught up in maintaining a certain level of profit they've lost touch with the customer and they've forgotten about innovation. Longhorn could be a turning point. Guys like Robert have fresh eyes coming into the game. He's critical when he needs to be and supportive of his platform. I think that's a great combination and it's something Microsoft needs more of. I also think Microsoft need a cultural revolution. It's time to grow up a bit. It's still too college campus, center of the universe, like. That's why I'm no longer there. Move to Redmond or be out of a job. Here's a company with 55,000+ employees that couldn't bare to have four remote employees. They don't know how to use their own technology. There are a lot of disconnects like that within the company. Any large company is going to have it, it's inevitable. I'm rambling, time to get on to real work.
Okie-dokie, time to get on with this weeks movie line. Sorry I'm so late, I've been learning some new stuff, diggin' in a bit, and it's distracting me from the more important things in life, like movie lines. 
