Whilst the Economist chooses to sing the swan song for telecoms this week, Business Week decides to focus on Microsoft and the recent exits of some high profile employees. Whilst the piece contains many accurate facts, its presentation is rather one-sided. It doesn't talk about some of us who've joined the company in recent years and why we might have done so. One accusation is that Microsoft isn't innovating and that consequently it isn't an exciting place to come and work. Well I'd like to analyze that from my own vantage point, sitting inside the Enterprise Framework and Tools product unit of the Developer Division.
From where I sit I see lots of innovation. In fact, I see a product unit which is leading the future of software engineering. With a team that includes Keith Short, Jack Greenfield, Steve Cook and Stuart Kent, (not to mention me), and with a vision to revolutionize the way software is developed, we are delivering on the company's mission of enabling customers to realize their potential. It's only two days since I listed the innovations in our MSF methodology. And I've got no doubt that this innovation is troubling our competitors. When you couple that to the Domain Specific Languages tool (Corona) launching next year and the longer term Software Factories vision, you have the most innovative and far reaching work in software engineering happening anywhere. If you were an undergraduate looking for a career in the future of software engineering, why would you want to work anywhere else?
There are around 30 million people working in this profession worldwide. They are amongst the highest paid people on the planet. By global standards of wealth and poverty, there is no such thing as a poor software engineer. The cost of software development is a major drain on the World's economy. We develop software today with a similar craft model to how they developed automobiles in 1905. In EFT, we firmly believe that the software business has the same economic upside in the 21st Century that the automobile industry had in the 20th Century. That's a 200 fold increase in productivity! With MSF, DSLs and Software Factories we're leading that change and inventing that future.
One day, I think we'll look back and see that innovation as important - others have already commented. If you can build software 20 or 50 or 200 times faster on the Microsoft platform, why would you look anywhere else for your technology solution?
[Update: Om Malik offers us some balance and points at Brad Feld who thinks 2006 is a good year for Microsoft and Paul Kedrosky rates the stock a buy. ]
