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Why has Ray Ozzie failed at Microsoft?
9 comments- TAGS:groove, Lotus Notes, Microsoft, Ray Ozzie
- IT TOPICS:Desktop Applications, Enterprise Software & Services, Operating Systems, SaaS & Cloud Computing, Software, Windows & Microsoft
Ray Ozzie, the creator of ground-breaking software such as Lotus Notes and Groove, has been anything but a hit at Microsoft. In fact, going by what Microsoft's chief software architect has been able to accomplish at the company, you'd have to say his tenure has been a bust. Most surprising of all is that pre-Microsoft, his greatest accomplishments were all about networking and collaboration, and that's where Microsoft continues to be beaten by the competition.
By any measure, in his work before Microsoft Ozzie was a software visionary. He worked on the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, developed the Lotus Symphony office suite, and then went off to form his own companies, where he developed Lotus Notes and Groove Virtual Office. You'd have to include him as one of the most influential software developers ever.
In April of 2005, Microsoft bought his company, Groove Networks, and made Ozzie chief technical officer. In June, 2006 he was elevated to chief software architect.
Given that the most important of his work in the days before Microsoft had to do with networking and collaboration, people (including me) expected that he would shore up those capabilities at Microsoft, which traditionally has not handled them well.
Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. Consider Groove itself. It had the potential to change the way that groups work and collaborate with each other. What has happened to it since being purchased by Microsoft? Not much. It exists, but that's about it. You can buy it on its own, or as part of Microsoft Office. But do you know many people who actually use it? Do you know anyone who does? When was the last time Microsoft made a product push for it?
Then there's the upcoming Web-based version of Office. It's very pretty to look at, and there's good reason to be pleased that Microsoft is finally allowing Office to be used via the Web. But it sorely lacks synchronization features, something that Google Documents has had for quite some time. In the versions of Web-enabled Office I've seen, it's confusing and impractical to share documents between your local PC and the Web-based version. Given that Ozzie's greatest breakthroughs were in collaboration software, this is hard to understand.
Finally, there's the mess of the "Live" brand. Live, at this point, is confusing mix of Web-based services and downloadable software that shares nothing in common except for a name. There are some very nice services there, such as Windows Live Sync, but no commonality.
So why has Ozzie not been able to make his mark at Microsoft? It has nothing to do with his vision or intelligence, certainly. Rather, it most likely has to do with culture. There are too many people protecting too much turf. And Microsoft has still not fully embraced the collaborative nature of the Web. Until that changes, no matter how brilliant he is, he won't make a major difference at the company.
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