Dan Gillmor. Microsoft piggy bank tops $40 b. What if Microsoft took $300 m and provided a $3 m grant to 100 small independent companies doing the most innovative software on Windows? What if they promoted their products to customers? There are still lots of things that Microsoft doesn't do. Could this restart the PC upgrade cycle? I think it could. The great part about this is that Microsoft would make back that money in less than three years through upgrades. The PR bonanza would be huge.
However, this won't happen. Microsoft has now yielded to NIH disease. They think that the $5 b a year that they squander on R&D will actually yield a real innovation — it won't. Hey Ballmer: most of the smart people in the world of technology don't work at Microsoft. Real innovation is going on right now in the trenches, as it always has. However, it is growing slower than it should because the air supply has been turned off. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]