Jayson and I were having a conversation the other day about Microsoft and innovation. There are many people who think Microsoft has lost the ability (or never had the ability to begin with) to innovate in their newer products, where as , Microsoft and steveb himself both claim they are innovating more than ever. No matter which one is right, it is obvious that innovation in this context is a very ambigious word.

To take over the OS market, to defeat Word Perfect on their on their own battlefield, to destroy Netscape who had, what? 99% of the browser market and to drive Active Directory over Netware, etc, etc shows me that they once innovated. And innovated very well. For those who whine about buying technology, copying, stealing, whatever crap, well, steveb doesn't like you anyhow and neither do I. Now go away.

Back to the story. Innovation today? That's a different story. It has to so hard to innovate when you have 20 years of backwards compatibility affecting every single line of code you write, every product you release. Looking at the lashback from all the whiners about Windows XP SP2. Windows XP SP2, while far, far from perfect was a valient effort by Microsoft to improve the OS's security while affecting as few people as possible. Same with Windows 2003 Server.

Public response?
'My solitaire is broken, waaah'

Industry Response?
'My app that I wrote that relies on things that I should not have been doing anyhow doesn't work anymore, waaah'

Wait till they see the changes in Office 12. There are alot of nice things coming down the pipe, but the limiting factor hardly seems to be the technology anymore, more oft than not, it is keeping that pile of antiquated requirements so we don't break something that worked on NT 3.51.

What does this have to do with today? Not alot. Is there an answer? Sure. I would like to see billg get up one day and decide Microsoft is so far off the path of what he wanted that he doesn't want to be there any more. Break out and start a brand new company. Hell, call it 'Harder than Microsoft' for all I care. And leave steveb where he is. It seems alot of the trouble Microsoft is in legally and morally many times comes from Steve's opinions, attitudes and actions. From what I can see of billg, he only wants to make the machine more what we want the machine to be, including helping provide the developers with what they need to accomplish it. billg has a passion for the technology. steveb has a passion for what Microsoft can provide him. I don't think steveb would care if Microsoft was a lumber yard, as long as they were the biggest most important lumber yard, so he could be important by association.

And now this is the person who is leading Microsoft. Microsoft who is in a position to more radically change the computer space than just about anyone else.