Chris Pirillo interviewed a Microsoft employee about work on a project called “Salsa”. Watch the video and then ask yourself the following questions.
Would you consider the research and development Microsoft is doing on the social networking aspects of email communication to be innovative?
My answer: Yes. Just from this short video I can tell Microsoft is one of the leaders in terms of investment in the way established communications methods, such as email, can be mined for increased usability, efficiency, and added value.
Why isn’t Microsoft recognized for innovation to the degree that they are, in reality, actually innovating?
My answer: Because they hide this stuff inside their monstrous corporation and don’t release it for the world to play with!
I have been reading about innovative enterprise collaboration research from Microsoft for years, but it seems that very little of these products actually get released into the wild. Microsoft is still stuck in its old behavior pattern of keeping products locked up internally and working to incorporate every desired feature before releasing the product to the public.
That worked with operating systems (except maybe Vista, the scourge of my computing life) and office suites because they were used primarily by individuals perform siloed tasks.
Collaboration and communication software, on the other hand, is used to perform work across groups of people and the tool’s efficacy is largely determined by how well it integrates into human social behavior patterns.
Microsoft needs to kick these in-development projects out of the next and see if they can fly in the real world.
Microsoft needs to leverage the desire of its users to collaboratively participate in the development of their own solutions, collecting feedback from users and incorporating this voice of the customer into the next revision.
Take the lid off, Microsoft, and let us see what you’re cookin’!
