Lack of continous innovation can steadily decrease the image of a company. Well, Microsoft seems to have realized that. It is quite surprising that, a player who has been this mature (probably, they have a CMM Level 5) is realizing this very late. (I often feel our awareness levels are really high that we realize things very soon but take very little steps in correcting for the mistakes)

But the realization may have come at a good time. (Raise to Google for that!) As one would expect, they are working towards short-mid-long term plans for various lines of business, they have.

It shows how farcical, things like ISO, Capability Maturity Model etc turn out to be when the company is large. One can excuse non IT companies having disparate IT systems but lots of IT companies too have disparity because of their large size.

This should be a shot in the arm for Microsoft as it takes on Google which seems smarter in introducing product updates. They regularly do it... their Labs, appreciation of personal innovations, their early releases in beta... you know, that shows a dynamic enterprise. Microsoft probably took a few lessons in 'Adaptive Management' from Google Managers.