How Microsoft Competes

27 January 1996

journal article
research article
Published by Taylor & Francis in Research-Technology Management

Vol. 39 (1) , 26-30
https://doi.org/10.1080/08956308.1996.11671033

Abstract

Today Microsoft owns the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on 170 million computers. Beyond the genius of co-founder/CEO Bill Gates, what accounts for the company's dramatic success? From two years of on-site observation and interviewing at Microsoft headquarters, the authors identify seven complementary strategies that characterize how Microsoft competes and operates: Find smart people who know the technology and the business; organize small teams of overlapping functional specialists; pioneer and orchestrate evolving mass markets; focus creativity by evolving features and “fixing” resources; do evetything in parallel, with frequent synchronizations; improve through continuous self-critiquing, feedback and sharing; attack the future! Moreover, Microsoft's “synch-and-stabilize” approach to product development enables the company not only to build an increasing variety of complex features and end-products for fast-paced markets with short life cycles, but also to shape evolving mass markets and foster organizational learning.

Keywords

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