Program Manager Syndrome, that is.

A few days ago I called for Microsoft to slash not 5,000 jobs but 50,000 to make the company lean and focused once more. Readers responded by asking which 50,000 Microsoft heads I’d like to see cut off? Wow, what a great question! So great, in fact, that it inspired this column and probably the one after. Because it’s not that simple to just fire half a company. It’s remarkably easy, in fact, to fire the WRONG half.

Restructuring Microsoft has to have a point beyond simply improving profitability, which was pretty darned good to start with. It requires first identifying the systemic problems inside the company that ought […]