waffle

(See: “Measuring Our Work by Its Broad Impact“)

At the highest level, we think about innovation in relation to its ability to have a positive impact in the world. For Microsoft, it is not sufficient to simply have a good idea, or a great idea, or even a cool idea. We measure our work by its broad impact.

In fact, and to wit, since we’re so consistent in using those terms, we regard the Zune and Windows Mobile 6.5 as resounding successes due to the transformative work they’ve done lately in redefining their industries, ushering in virtually every revolutionary trend for the past few years. Our customers, the broad groups of people who are so content with our innovation that they need only look out for the Microsoft brand when they buy mobile phones or media players, surely agree. We are pleased with the broad impact we manage to acheieve while selling tens of Zunes daily, and we don’t regret for a minute how we relegated great or cool ideas to lower positions on its or Windows Mobile’s priority lists.

After all, if you don’t have any users, and if you’re not being innovative, what’d be the point in maintaining stillborn and carcinogen platforms, desperately touting their superiority on some imaginary scale and refusing, flesh-wound style, to admit huge flaws that are causing users to leave the sinking ship?

Now, you could argue that this should have happened faster. And sometimes it does. But for a company whose products touch vast numbers of people, what matters is innovation at scale, not just innovation at speed.

The mean guy who was obscuring ClearType’s development for a number of years was actually subconciously doing so because he was deeply pondering technical issues of adoption at screen sizes between 2″ and 200″.

Another point worth addressing is Dick’s assertion that Xbox is “at best an equal contender in the game console business.” Fact is, Xbox 360 was the first high-definition console. It was the first to digitally deliver games, music, TV shows and movies in 1080p high definition. The first to bring Facebook and Twitter to the living room. And with Project Natal for Xbox 360 launching this year, it will be the first to deliver controller-free experiences that anyone can enjoy—a magical experience for everyone that Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Time magazine each named one of the top inventions of 2009.

Fact is, it was the first at doing a lot of things. That’s all that matters. First first first. I wonder if any of our competing consoles were first with anything this generation, like some new control scheme, media format or general art style of personal avatars. Hm. Um. Nope. Not a looker among ‘em. Trust me.

And they weren’t more powerful or more popular either. What’s that? Popular means “broad impact”? No it doesn’t. If it did, it’d look pretty stupid right now.

There is always the opportunity to do more, to move faster, to bring products and services to the world in new and interesting ways, and we embrace this. But thanks to the contribution of Dick and others on the ClearType team, ClearType certainly stands as an example of how it works well.

The unearthed story of ClearType’s multi-year detainment in arbitrary development hell at the whim of a manager sends a clear message: Microsoft’s management structure works well, has no impact on the quality of the products and certainly doesn’t need to change.