Gates Address The Challenge After Underling Makes It Relevant

Bill Gates sent out a memo last month to Microsoft Corp senior executives stating how the company must change its ways and find a way to offer a greater level of customer service and beef up the technology and services offered for online consumers. But the driving force behind Gates preparing the troops for "The next sea change" isn't so much the next sea of change. It's actually Microsoft's chief technology officer, Ray Ozzie, who was integrated as part of the company with the purchase of "Groove Networks," his Massachusetts-based former company. Ozzie actually embraces innovation. He is the driving force behind "Lotus Notes" in 1989 and sees exactly what Google, Yahoo, and similar companies have going for them that Microsoft is lacking, and why they should be concerned. His memo last month to Microsoft Corp senior executives stating how the company must change its ways and find a way to offer a greater level of customer service and beef up the technology and services offered for online consumers was seven pages. Gates' compared it to 'The Internet Tidal Wave memo' he wrote 10 years ago, which laid down the challenge to the team producing the Internet Explorer Web browser to strive to overtake Netscape, the premiere and dominate web browsers. I don't have a problem with a manager taking a subordinates initiative and using it as their own. I even understand when a manager takes credit as if it was their own original idea. But Bill Gates seems to only take the initiative to address a need for his company to do a better job of taking care of its customers because a former competitor who he happened to buy into his own organization took the initiative to address this problem. Gates has been famous for almost ignoring his competition while they were in their upstart stages, and either buy them out when their technology becomes a threat, or bully the sellers or consumers into using his Microsoft products or else. This does come out looking like a visionary leader, but a manager who lets the visionaries under his thumb generate ideas that he will give a yea or nay at a whim.