Ozzie, Mundie pick up tech mantle at Microsoft
Published: 19 Jun 2006 10:25 BST
... part of the tech transfer has actually been into the mainline products.
So, many of the things related to even interfaces and searching and help and natural language and other things came out of research and are in Windows and Office-type environments. So, we have been a beneficiary. But, typically, the research work is helping us have differentiation and leadership positions in a number of new areas. Right now, I think Rick (Rashid) and Bill over the years have picked, I think, 55 different areas of research, and we did get broad applicability. And unlike some of the well-known ones in the past where they didn't really get the transfer into product, you know, we have.
I was just in Beijing a few months ago and participated in their anniversary celebration, and one of the things that they kept track of, just out of the Beijing lab was how many inventions they had actually transferred into product groups. And I remember, I think the number was 212 in their first seven or eight years of operation. So, from a standing start to there, that's an indication in one lab how they've been able to get this off the shelf in products. Because they don't create whole new products all the time, many people may not see the specifics, but you can't tell that they come from research and they come from product groups. But there has been a huge thing, and I'm quite comfortable with the portfolio of research activities now.
Ray, we started talking about your role, and how you're going to be taking on the broader role as the natural product cycles come up. Do you see a need for at some point in the not-too-distant future to have somebody maybe underneath you who is really just focused on search strategy and services and the kinds of services, for example, that Google is doing? Everyone divides the world, rightly or wrongly, between Microsoft versus Google. Doesn't there need to be somebody full-time sort of coming up with an answer to Google?
Ozzie: I don't know about coming up with an answer to Google. If you look at specific aspects of what our competitors do, I think when you say Google, you probably mean search or search and advertising more than most. Within one of our divisions, we have a very, very capable leadership group specifically focused on search, and specifically focused on advertising, and heavily networked into (Microsoft Research), which is where we have a search technology centre which is working very, very closely on innovations in advertising and innovations in fraud detection, innovations in search, algorithmic search, and so on.
So that, in and of itself, I would regard as more of a divisional leadership issue. In terms of a macro-level search strategy, in terms of if there is a competitor who is using multiple facets, that is, indeed, in my domain, and that is what I'm charged with.
How big a challenge do you see that being? Those responsibilities are being split up among several people — yourself, Craig, others. But you're taking over as chief software architect. How daunting does that task feel?
Ozzie: Well, if you look at my past, and the kinds of technological challenges that I've dealt with, one of the things that I truly enjoy is taking on things that are complex challenges, meaning they have many interrelated aspects that must work together, whether it's the technological integration or, frankly, the business challenges that are similar. When we were competing with Microsoft in a Notes versus Exchange, or this or that, there are all these issues of where do technology and strategy issues kind of cross, what should you be doing for the long-term, what should you be doing for the short-term. It's large, but to me it's not daunting. This is something that I can do where I can take all of the experiences I've gained in my 30 years in the industry and apply many or most of those lessons.
You've talked about the top couple of business challenges for the company as a whole. Do you have a similar sense for what are the top couple of technical challenges you need to tackle?
Ozzie: I think because the number of product areas is large, and the number of potential integration points is large, I do have a good sense. I've kind of formulated this over the past year, a little bit before I got here, but definitely since I've had more visibility into the organisation, in terms of what are the really important integration points between products, where the customer really benefits from those integration points, and how to prioritise the different integration things that are important versus less important. So I do have kind of a framework.
How will you and Craig work together? Where do your areas overlap?
Ozzie: The way that we kind of view this is, if you had a continuum starting a technology all the way from communications technology or semiconductor, and started shipping that to basic research, advanced development, product development, and maybe even solution development for customers, you're going from very deep technology all the way up to the end user. And where Craig and I overlap, Craig starts at the technology and his natural skill sets and interests really are on that side, and up through that development, and where I begin is in advanced development all the way through the customer, and that tends to be synergistic with my past, having worked on desktop applications, having worked on a platform for solutions, and I think we complement each other very well.
We both tend to have product incubations, concepts at least that we're trying to incubate that are both in the advanced development realm, and our groups have...
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