[Sigia-l] Strategists (What do they do that IA's don't?)

[karl fast]

> and so on. It's not marketing, it's thinking about the strategic
> issues of how things will evolve, where you will make money. It's
> what Microsoft is really good at.

Yes, they are good at it.

Internally, Microsoft talks about a "strategy tax." Good ideas are
sacrificed for a larger goal. For example, sometimes they will not
implement certain functionality in applications because it would
compete with another product. It might be good for users (or it
might not), but the good-bad question is irrelevant: it would
undermine their larger overall strategy so they don't do it.

I suspect that the strategy tax usually is done at the cost of
usability. But I'm just guessing. I'm sure there are examples where
paying the tax would benefit usability. 

I first heard this term in piece Dave Winer wrote. Recommended
reading (it's not long):

  Strategy Tax
  by Dave Winer, Apr. 30, 2001  
  http://davenet.userland.com/2001/04/30/strategyTax

  ...sometimes products developed inside a company such as Microsoft
  have to accept constraints that go against competitiveness, or
  might displease users, in order to further the cause of another
  product. I recognized the concept but had never heard the term.

  An example. Consider a company that develops both a Web browser
  and a word processor. The product team for the browser might get
  lots of input from users saying "We'd like a better editor in the
  browser." It would be natural to give the users what they want. So
  they put the feature in their project plan, but when it comes up
  for review, the CEO shoots them down. "They should use the word
  processor," he says.

Winer goes on to argue that companies should "have the courage to
compete" with themselves.

--karl