That Dreaded Word: Unification in "Hardcore Software" — new story on creating a product plan when faced with an overwhelming desire for company strategic alignment 1/ …rdcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/058-that-dre…
2/ I have a lot of difficult lessons and stories to share in this writing. Some of the more challenging have to do with the "battles" or internal balancing acts over strategy versus empowerment versus execution.
When we set out to plan "Office10" (became Office XP) we had many!
When we set out to plan "Office10" (became Office XP) we had many!
3/ Conventional wisdom is/was Microsoft was filled with different factions battling each other for supremacy (that hideous org chart cartoon comes to mind). What such wisdom fails to capture is any growth business in business software will face "rock and hard place" challenges.
4/ In fact, a business lacking in challenges between groups is either not thinking big enough about products or not building products for a new layer of technology.
Different eras had different ways of dealing with this reality.
Different eras had different ways of dealing with this reality.
5/ IBM famously had groups set out on missions to compete, but only at the highest levels was there knowledge of competing efforts.
The HP Way often had competing groups and then one day one project would just get cancelled.
Even today, Google has their unique approach.
The HP Way often had competing groups and then one day one project would just get cancelled.
Even today, Google has their unique approach.
6/ Microsoft from the earliest days had an expansive vision for a product line. This c. 1981 video says "a full line of system software not just one or two products, and all of our products are designed to work together…a full line."
7/ Microsoft aggressively built out new products in most every conceivable category. That was the easy part.
What happens then when products start to overlap or go after similar scenarios?
In direct to consumer products what ultimately decides a winner is usually distribution.
What happens then when products start to overlap or go after similar scenarios?
In direct to consumer products what ultimately decides a winner is usually distribution.
8/ In enterprise products with account teams, like Microsoft was growing in the late 90s, customers *demand* coherent answers on products.
It is easy to think customers want choice and flexibility or that customers will look at your overlapping product line and "figure it out".
It is easy to think customers want choice and flexibility or that customers will look at your overlapping product line and "figure it out".
9/ In practice customers love to talk about how much they want choice and flexibility.
But time and again they buy safety and assurance. It was no accident that MSFT's enterprise agreement "benefits" were called "Software Assurance".
But time and again they buy safety and assurance. It was no accident that MSFT's enterprise agreement "benefits" were called "Software Assurance".
10/ So what do you do when the market and technology base is rapidly moving and your product line has many products that customers demand should be integrated, efficient, coherent?
Oh and your company DNA is about being efficient, reusing code, and having one grand architecture.
Oh and your company DNA is about being efficient, reusing code, and having one grand architecture.
11/ Call it unification, synergy, efficiency, or just strategy but you work..and work..product groups to develop a coherent, integrated, and synergistic product line.
The reinforcing function are enterprise customers demanding the same from you.
The reinforcing function are enterprise customers demanding the same from you.
12/ Office was at the end of the food chain (and Windows), so to speak. It was always up to Office to take underlying technologies and "present" them as end-user features that showed off our unified product line.
13/ This post goes through the complexities of data storage—should Microsoft unify data storage with Exchange (the email product) or SQL (structured data) or enhanced files (Windows server).
Sound straight forward?
Sound straight forward?
14/ Aside from an inability to align by ship dates, these were not trivial businesses in their own right. In fact Microsoft had grown multiple $1B stand-alone businesses to go with the $10B Windows and Office businesses.
Replumbing, rewriting these was "disruptive".
Replumbing, rewriting these was "disruptive".
15/ This might all be lost on everyone as just random internal battles if it also wasn't happening with the arrival of the internet. The internet added a whole other variable—and each billion-dollar business had to figure out a strategy viz. internet technologies too.
16/ Any product manager would say the best plan is one that is clean, simple, and everyone understands. But at any scale, how can a plan have room for strategies that might overlap and/or not work out? Not everything can be perfectly planned and executed…especially at scale.
17/ Office10 ended up with a plan that seemed to do several things twice. Would they all finish? Would customers like choice and flexibility or would they demand coherence? Is that the most effective way to develop products? That's this post.
18/ If you are thinking this is an old school problem, everything I just described sums up the difference between AWS v. Azure v. GCP in cloud.
Each of those have strategies on a spectrum from choice to flexibility to coherence. They are very different. Kind of interesting.
Each of those have strategies on a spectrum from choice to flexibility to coherence. They are very different. Kind of interesting.
19/ This is a detailed post with some significant artifacts, such as the full product vision/plan for Office10. Have a look and consider subscribing so as not to miss a story in the evolution of the PC era. // END …rdcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/058-that-dre…
PS/ This was a pretty detailed post to put together. This is me right now.
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