The Microsoft Way: The Real Story of How the Company Outsmarts Its Competition [Hardcover]

Randall E. Stross (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1996

The business success story of Microsoft taken from company archives and interviews with its leaders. This book sees the company's success not in predatory marketing, but in staying eager for ideas and responsive to the market. Randall Stross also offers thoughts on how Bill Gates can leave his mark on the 21st century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stross, an academic business historian, was given unlimited access to interview Microsoft employees and managers and to rifle through most of Microsoft's corporate records. His main conclusion? That Microsoft's phenomenal success is due in large part to its consistent insistence on hiring the smartest people, and that much Microsoft bashing is reflective of an anti-intellectual strain in American culture. Whether you idolize or despise Microsoft, this book is well worth reading--especially if you are in any way responsible for hiring the best and the brightest for your company.

From Publishers Weekly

To critics, Bill Gates's Microsoft Inc. is the apotheosis of brute-force ruthless marketing, but in this lively, independent-minded report, Stross (Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing) finds a different explanation for Microsoft's success: Gates's strategy of hiring the smartest software developers, keeping their allegiance with lucrative stock options, fostering an egalitarian creative atmosphere and perpetuating the identity of small working groups. A business professor at San Jose State University in California, Stross had unfettered access to Gates, his employees and the company's internal files, making this a privileged, revealing window on Microsoft's inner workings. He charts the firm's long, rocky struggle to win broad consumer acceptance of CD-ROMs, as well as the saga of Microsoft's bestselling multimedia encyclopedia, Encarta. Microsoft was caught unprepared by the advent of the Internet, and its failed attempt to outdo a small but feisty rival, Intuit, in the personal finance software market, demonstrates that Gates is far from infallible, yet Microsoft has swiftly adapted to an Internet-centered software universe, which to Stross signifies a company constantly learning as it grows.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Perseus Books (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201409496
• ISBN-13: 978-0201409499
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,391,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Half is really interesting, half is oddly personal, March 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Microsoft Way: The Real Story Of How The Company Outsmarts Its Competition (Paperback)

I've enjoyed reading most of this book and have taken a lot of interesting lessons away with me. The first 150 pages are especially good at illustrating how the company favored technical intelligence over business acumen and why some of the decisions made have paid off so well. This type of information readily applies to any work being done today and I would highly recommend it.

What I found odd was the amount of personal opinion included in the book rather than making this a more objective look at Microsoft. I'm not a Microsoft basher by any means - I use the products every day, program in VB, Microsoft's proprietary language, and genuinely like many of their products. I was just surprised to see the author include many personal opinions, blatantly claiming unfairness towards Microsoft when the context of the discussion already showed his point.

This personalization led me to reduce 4 stars to three. After a while it's just distracting and I had an urge to yell "Shut up and tell the story!" The story is very interesting, and I do recommend reading it. Just don't be surprised if you want to tell the author to shut up once in a while.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exonerating the "It Pays To Be Smart" Philosophy, November 29, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The Microsoft Way: The Real Story of How the Company Outsmarts Its Competition (Hardcover)

This is a `must-read' book for several different categories of people- businessmen, scholars, students and even philosophers- simply because it has a relevant message for just about everyone. However, it is scarcely what one would call a `conventional commentary', which may help explain why its central conclusion is so much at odds with conventional wisdom- that Microsoft (the software behemoth whose meteoric success in the brave new world of software technology is comparable only to the equally meteoric rise in the numbers of its detractors, who have accused the company of every conceivable unfair trade practice) did not acquire its dominant position through any illegal subterfuge or monopolistic bulldozing; rather, its success can be attributed to certain well-defined fundamentals, which, if understood and implemented properly (as Microsoft has obviously done), could well serve as the business model for other software companies, and perhaps for other companies that are likely to bloom in the uncertain economic future being shaped by rapidly emerging technologies.

As a social commentary, the biggest contribution of this book is that it offers a window to our lop-sided value system when we deal with fuzzy notions like `intelligence' and `smart'. As Mr. Stross, the author, points out, society's unfavorable perception of Microsoft is inextricably linked with the rampant anti-intellectualism pervasive in American society. This is not so far-fetched! After all, we accept without question that Michael Jordan should make hundreds of millions of dollars because he has the extraordinary athleticism to jump and shoot a basket ball better than anyone else, yet the American public has never quite come to grips with the notion that a group of `eggheads' and `nerds' (a description oft used for Microsoft employees) can rake in billions of dollars simply because they can think better than others. Perhaps the most telling conclusion of this book is also one we would do well to remember -that ``Microsoft's principal assets, in fact, are the collective craniums of (Bill) Gates and his employees".

However intelligence and smarts are by themselves no guarantee of success. And this is where the book becomes an invaluable resource as a business guide on ``How to manage smart people" and "How to look ahead and plan for tomorrow". The detailed account of how Microsoft dealt with the CD-ROM technology- investing millions of dollars into research and development for the production of its multimedia encyclopedia, MS Encarta and pushing for standards at a time when the fledgling technology was so new that there was no certainty it would even survive, - is a valuable case-study for the business student and historian on the challenges and risks (and subsequently the huge payoffs, if successful) involved in bringing new technology into the consumer marketplace.

In addition to these valuable insights into how and why Microsoft is successful, the book is a fascinating historical document, with riveting case studies. The battle for financial software market that Microsoft fought (and mostly lost) to a smaller, but nimble and quick-thinking Intuit, reads like a story. There are equally interesting accounts of how Microsoft tries to deal with the PC-TV merger and how it prepares itself for the uncertain future awaiting all in ``The Era of the Internet". We may, of course, choose to agree or disagree with Mr. Stross on whether to `convict' or `acquit' Microsoft of the charges often leveled against it- but we cannot help but accept his advice on what we should learn from Microsoft:

".....(we must) overcome our instinctive antipathy toward smarts.....We can see in their (Microsoft's) experience the attention they devote to thinking.....They act with provisional answers, knowing that experience will feed back to provide new input into an unending process of reevaluation and revision."

A simple lesson that could serve not only as a recipe for running a successful business but could well form the cornerstone of a personal philosophy in our daily life

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shows the intellectual nature of Microsoft, March 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Microsoft Way: The Real Story Of How The Company Outsmarts Its Competition (Paperback)

After the distorted and hateful stories we have seen, this book is a relief. It seems that at the present time Microsoft stands for all that is evil. The unholy alliance surrounding the Axis Powers of Sun Micro and Netscape paints a picture of world domination by Microsoft which is utterly absurd and totally false. It is unfortunate that Joel Klein of the DOJ is being educated by such an obscure economist as Arthur, formerly of Stanford and a Palo Alto law firm, whose members are writing briefs for the DOJ.. As a taxpayer I regret that we have to pay for these pointless investigations which are sponsored by competitors who would do better improving their products so that they could compete with Microsoft. Unable to compete however, they run to the DOJ. It is good to have a book that points out some of the mischief emanating from Silicon Valley and Redwood City. The book is recommneded readingfor all who do not despise Microsoft for its intellectual excellence.