After the announcement that Microsoft will be laying off 18,000 workers I was listening to This Week in Tech #467 where they proposed breaking up Microsoft and I have to say I agree. There is a toxic corporate culture within Microsoft and it’s far to entrenched to change at this point, maybe I’m wrong but stack ranking only leads to coworkers and divisions fighting each other instead of working together and building the best product possible. Maybe Satya Nadella can get rid of stack ranking and clean up the culture but it’s a bit to much for one man, and besides he’s already got enough to clean up from the mess Steve Ballmer left on his way out. I just think first you get rid of stack ranking then break up the company into three parts all owned by Microsoft as a holding company.
Ok so what should Satya Nadella do in my opinion? Well like I said first abolish stack ranking company wide, that would be a major step forward in it’s self. Next break the company into three separate companies all owned my the Microsoft corporation which would become a holding company and general guiding hand for all three. The way I see breaking it up is like this, 1) Software 2) Hardware 3) Could, I know what you’re thinking “what about enterprise?” well each company would have a division for consumer products and a division for enterprise products, so there is no need to have a separate company for enterprise alone.
1) Software. This would be Windows, Office, and all the other software products they currently offer and will offer in the future.
2) Hardware. This would be Xbox, Nokia, Surface, and all other hardware they offer.
3) Cloud. This would be not only things like OneDrive & Office Online & Azure, but Bing, Skype, MSN Messagner, and all the web based products. I know I’m setting this one up for taking over but one company is always going to do better than the other, sad fact of life.
Personally I think this is the best way to ensure that Microsoft has a future that will be more than a second class citizen of the tech world, of course it will never happen, even if Satya Nadella wanted to do this the board (which has Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer on it) would never let this happen. So while it’s fun to talk about, I’m afraid that everyone in the upper levels of Microsoft has been drinking the kool-aid for far to long and they won’t split the company up until it’s far to late and Microsoft is a tech dinosaur.