{"id":933,"date":"2005-01-12T00:00:44","date_gmt":"2005-01-12T00:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=933"},"modified":"2005-01-12T00:00:44","modified_gmt":"2005-01-12T00:00:44","slug":"lessons_on_inno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=933","title":{"rendered":"Lessons on Innovation from Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carleen Hawn makes some interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/magazine\/89\/microsoft-fasttake.html\">points<\/a> on why Microsoft&#8217;s record of innovation is so &#8220;lackluster&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Not to mince words, Bill Gates&#8217;s researchers have placed a bunch of expensive bets on technologies that haven&#8217;t panned out. But the company&#8217;s failure also points to three much bigger lessons about innovation.<br \/>\nDefense is easier. And for now, it&#8217;s more profitable. Harvard Business School&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/clusty.com\/search?query=%22Clayton+Christensen%22\">Clayton Christensen<\/a> coined the expression the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/clusty.com\/search?query=%22innovator%27s+dilemma%22\">innovator&#8217;s dilemma<\/a>&#8221; to describe what happens when entrenched companies confront new technologies. Good managers instinctively direct people and investment toward &#8220;sustaining innovations&#8221; that protect established businesses &#8212; and away from new ideas that threaten current profitability. That&#8217;s why Microsoft spends a lot on Office and Windows.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> We have some local examples of protecting established businesses: Newspapers.  Despite general circulation declines, both Madison Newspapers (Capital) and the Journal Company continue to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.madison.com\/archives\/read.php?ref=wsj:2005:01:09:399862:BUSINESS\">invest<\/a> in niche print publications that keep the printing presses going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carleen Hawn makes some interesting points on why Microsoft&#8217;s record of innovation is so &#8220;lackluster&#8221;: Not to mince words, Bill Gates&#8217;s researchers have placed a bunch of expensive bets on technologies that haven&#8217;t panned out. But the company&#8217;s failure also points to three much bigger lessons about innovation. Defense is easier. And for now, it&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}