Windows 8 plans leaked and why it doesn’t really matter for Microsoft

Once you see PowerPoint Slides with the watermark “Microsoft Confidential  – Under NDA” you could guess that there might be an interesting back-story. Over the last few days a range of highly confidential presentations from Microsoft about the next version of Windows have spread on the internet. Now I don’t know if Steve Ballmer has been throwing chairs or not but either way I believe this is absolutely no strategic problem for Microsoft. Embarrassing yes, but not of significant strategic importance.

The Features of Windows 8

Let’s start with a few details of these documents, you can find the full documents at “Microsoft Kitchen” but here is my brief analysis:

1. Microsoft envies Apple and the Mac OS
2. There will be stronger cooperation with hardware manufacturers to provide a better overall customer experience
3. Focus on Experience based Differentiation
1. “Partners are able to customize Windows in alignment with specific hardware and software offerings to create unique, integrated, and branded experiences.
2. Customers who are shopping for a new computer are able to clearly see the value of Windows 8 product offerings and are able to choose a Windows 8 PC that best matches their personality, interested and lifestyle.
4. Development focuses on improving efficiency, on/off transitions, diagnostics and management as well as resilience
5. There will be an App Store called “Windows Store”
6. There will be a stronger integration with Microsoft Cloud Services

Is this the ultimate strategic disaster with all this information about Microsoft’s most important product out in the wild? I don’t think so. Maybe this is the best that could happen to Microsoft and the Windows franchise.

There is nothing new under the sun

Many of the ideas and concepts described in these documents are definitely new for Microsoft and Windows. But they are not new in the IT industry. There is Apple and Mac OS X with an integrated hardware-software experience, we have application stores on various platforms and we have standalone applications that integrate cloud services on the desktop (i.e. Dropbox or the Upcoming Google OS). And of course efficiency and on/off transitions have a lot of potential on Windows – that’s something that every Windows user is aware of.

If you are observing the IT industry closely, most of the “news” in these slides already exist and many could have guessed which trends have gained enough traction to be considered in a future version of the operating system.

Yet creating PowerPoint slides is one thing, delivering the software is another story. But maybe now that these documents are available online, Microsoft can focus on executing, instead of planning.

Planning distracts from execution

I once heard the unconfirmed story about the CEO of one of the major Swiss pharmaceutical company who said after the final review of the companies 5 Year Strategic Plan:

“Great, now let’s pack everything up and send it to our competitors because it doesn’t matter if they know it or not. What matters from now on is execution.”

Definitely a bold statement but there is some truth to it. I believe that too often planning substitutes execution and instead of working on the fastest track to bring something to the market, companies focus on the most sophisticated planning exercise that creates the most beautiful and thought-through PowerPoint slides.

With your plans well known, you can focus on execution – and delivering all the ideas, concepts and improvements that have been put together in PowerPoint Slides. And now that the world knows what to expect in Windows 8, Microsoft can (and hast to) focus on execution. And the recipe for success is simple: Create a user experience that is better than your competitors and you don’t have to worry about customers.

Would you publish your product roadmap?

Now of course you don’t have to publish your strategy documents and your product roadmap. But I think it would be an interesting thought experiment who your organization or team would change its behavior when all its plans would be. What would change if you are suddenly confronted with a published version of your strategic plan/product roadmap and the only thing left to focus on is executing and implementing the ideas?

And once this question is answered, the next question is: What’s stopping you from doing that right now?