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Why indeed?

Robert Scoble is a technical evangelist who used to work at Microsoft. He now has his own company, but he still does talk about his former employer and a small debate at the WSJ with Dave Winer about Is Microsoft Driving Innovation Or Playing Catch-Up With Rivals? shows that he still has a soft spot in his heart for all things Redmond. In that discussion, he starts out by agreeing that Microsoft isn't particularly innovative, but wants to assert that little things count:

For instance, I remember when they improved the error messages you get in Internet Explorer, or when they improved fonts in Windows with ClearType technology. That improved our lives in a very tiny way. Not one that you usually read about, or probably even notice.

Dave Winer disagrees and notes:

Further, the one thing they used to do better than most tech companies, empathize with the user, is now a weak spot. I was an exclusive Windows user myself until mid-last year, when I switched to the Macintosh, because the malware situation had become so awful on Windows. I feel Microsoft could have done something about this before it became so bad, but they didn't.

I think one of the most telling points Dave made was this:

Reminds me of a question Bill Gates once asked me, when Windows was new, and he was trying to get software developers to create products for it (I was a Mac developer at the time). He asked how many people had asked for my product before I created it. None, of course -- that's how innovation works. You have to create things they don't teach in school. If you can take a college class about it, it ain't innovation.

That directly points to the driving philosophy of Microsoft: copy someone else's success. But as Dave later points out "Today's Microsoft isn't even good at copying." Robert disagrees, but mildly - he can't really find much to counter with.

In Windows Vista there's an RSS aggregator in the sidebar that I keep on screen. Is that an innovation? I think it's cool and will bring millions of people into the RSS world.

I'll answer that: no, it's not innovation. It's just copying.

Well, Robert still seems to be strong on Microsoft, but I think the ground is starting to slip. Back in April of this year he asked an interesting question in the course of discussing how how Microsoft could improve::

Once Windows users try OSX, why would they want to use Windows anymore?

Indeed.. why would they? I'm not sure Robert realized how real his question was back then, but maybe he is starting to now.

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