Microsoft is letting its developers and managers blog. It humanizes a $ 40 b company when you see the tension of the Live product manager Sanaz Ahari as the launch demos have hiccups. Sam Ramji of its emerging business team in a honest post asks SaaS startups what they would like to see from Microsoft for them build their offerings on its stack. Don Dodge, also in the emerging group talks about a number of innovative new startups in his blog here.
But when Don says the "last 4 years have been brutal" and talks about Microsoft's R&D activities and calls it the "world's biggest start-up" you realize, after all, it is a corporate blog. Continues the "we are still innovative" tone Steve Ballmer set at Gartner IT Expo a couple of weeks ago and the Live PR campaign this week with Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie.
Metrics coming out of the Valley (here and here) show new start ups through use of open source, cheaper Intel machines, global labor, cheaper broadband, SaaS get launched at a fraction of what they were during the late 90s. Microsoft has averaged around $ 7 b a year for the last 3 years. To paraphrase the old Sam Adams beer commercial Microsoft probably spills more R&D dollars than all startups put together.
Few start ups have the luxury of just spending 15% of revenue on R&D as Microsoft and other major vendors do. Even fewer startups can spend twice that much in marketing and sales when they would desperately like to given their lack of brand.
Sounds a little like midlife red Porsche syndrome. Microsoft, enjoy your Porsche and other trappings. The teenagers are jealous - just not about to call you cool - or a start-up.
