I don’t deny getting borged is a real fear among small companies, but I still think you are being too alarmist about the Bungie issue (even more so regarding Softimage, which looked like a very utilitarian adquisition). For a start, we don’t know the terms of the original adquisition: this separation could be something contemplated from the very start, subjected to timed revisions and such (given Bungie’s nature, it seems logical to me that both parties would have accorded this eventuality by then: it was very clear what Bungie’s mission was).

Once more, I’d remit you to any current creative individual or team working at Microsoft currently being under the spotlight because of their projects becoming fruitful. When interviewed, they seem to be quite happy where they are.

I am not aware of any teams leaving Apple, BTW, are you?

And, anyway, are creative teams meant to stay forever in a given organization? Even Apple has some of their people leaving to try new things out there from time to time. Having a flux of people, teams, even adquired companies come, stay for a while and be fruitful, and go, seems fine to me. Microsoft is experimenting with several interesting technologies thanks to the existing creative teams inside the organization: that table computing thing, HD Photo, etc.

Not that one isn’t aware of the internal criticism that arised from the Vista teams about team and project management and such, but it is curious to see how enthusiast about being there the people behind Microsoft’s most creative developments of late are.

The article is really about the ability of Microsoft to retain creative teams within the organization, not about the success/failure of their respective products. Both Bungie and Softimage felt it necessary to leave MS and they did.

As for Bungie, it is the same thing: the Halo trilogy worked as the XBox flagship game. Now that the core of the franchise is finished and any related thingies can be delegated to other game companies’ programming teams, letting Bungie free is a valid decision: Microsoft won’t get tainted if Bungie’s next big game happens to be less than stellar, it will keep on getting Bungie games for their console, and will be a prefered partner for marketing and distribution.

Exactly.

Game consoles: money loser. Windows Mobile: money loser. Zune, DRM etc: money loser.

Office: profit center, but has to compete with equal products that are free (OK, it has managed this SO FAR). Windows: profit center, but the margins are going south. Every time China or Brazil threatens to upgrade from Windows to LINUX, MSFT has to do VERY deep discounts. If American companies ever latched on the third world game plan…..

MS has similar attempts in search, advertising, online apps/services, digital music, etc. They are not paying off. They haven’t been for a number of years now. The Street doesn’t seem to think this is sustainable.

Ironically, MS should have seen Sony’s weakness when they conceded the personal music player market to Apple. Sony has lost its edge and isn’t worth wasting almost a billion dollars a year over.

- James