One-to-One: Microsoft - Helping the World Innovate?

I had the chance to talk with … Don
Richardson at Microsoft
recently about their
Innovation Management solution to understand how Microsoft
it helping companies innovate. Don is responsible worldwide for
PLM, but has also been spending a lot of his time on the front end
of product innovation. Microsoft
has assembled a solution framework to help companies develop and
deliver new product innovation using their existing Microsoft
tools. Pretty compelling when you consider the lower ROI
of Microsoft solutions (particularly when many companies already
have corporate licenses). On the other hand, this is not an “off
the shelf” solution that you install. But Microsoft is using their
own experience with innovation to help others define their path,
and providing guidance and tools along the way.

What do they Do?
So you know Microsoft, and you probably know most of the tools
involved in their Innovation Process Management (IPM) solution. If
not, check with your IT group and they probably do. Tools
include:

• SharePoint
• XML Server
• Project Server
• Portfolio Server
• Project
• Rights Management Server
• InfoPath (for forms)

Not an exotic list of solutions, by any stretch, and much of it
is in house in the big Microsoft shops. It is really how Microsoft
has aligned the solutions and laid out the processes that provides
the added value. After all, Microsoft should know a thing or two
about innovation. They know about physical product
innovation as well as software, don’t forget that Microsoft
has a line of peripherals and of course the Xbox gaming system.
Many of us don’t think about that aspect of Microsoft as we
sit at our desks writing a blog in MS Word on a Windows Vista
machine (Vista 64 actually, I am trying it out on a new convertible
tablet PC.) But Microsoft has to walk the innovation talk on their
own as well. 

Back to the solution. The biggest part of it is SharePoint, that is
where the portal comes in and the majority of the process is
defined. If companies need to add some new software, extending the
use (or adding) SharePoint might be the largest part of it. Well,
SharePoint is the biggest software component. The biggest component
is the IP that Microsoft has developed and is sharing with their
customers (see flowchart below for the process flow, and where some
of the infrastructure solutions come into play.)

Source: Microsoft

What do they Offer?
Don explained that their big customers are starting to pull them
into conversations about “how Microsoft innovates.” This solution
offering is one way that Microsoft is showing the world that they
are good for more than Office and Windows. As Don puts it, this
shows Microsoft customers how they can get more business value out
of their software and their relationship with Microsoft.

Microsoft has a solution, but don’t expect to see an IPM
solution on the shelf anywhere, or even on a price list. It is more
of a guide and a set of tools that help companies down the path to
better innovation. But they have trained people on it, and the best
part of it is that they don’t charge for it. The only cost is the
infrastructure, which may already be in place. Hard to beat that.
And don’t look for a full PLM solution, either. Microsoft partners
like Dassault Systemes and Siemens PLM (and others like Aras that I

posted on a while back) will still be the solutions of choice
in those areas. Microsoft envisions their solution delivering the
projects to PLM for product development and engineering.

Who do they Work with?
Who doesn’t Microsoft work with? And they also work … well …
with Microsoft, which is a big benefit. They have a few proof of
concepts of this solution out and running in other companies
already, and are getting a lot of traction in conversations. Again,
don’t expect somebody to knock on your door and try to sell it, but
you should realize that Microsoft is taking a seat at the table in
regards to innovation. And unlike other areas like PLM, they are
sitting at the table directly as opposed to working strictly
through software partners. They will, of course, work through their
implementation partners because Microsoft is not geared up to offer
systems integration and consulting projects.

So that’s what I hear from Microsoft, I hope you found it
useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them?