Mountain Lion's little details and the big picture at Microsoft

Hi All:

Here are a couple of excellent articles referred to me by our Vice President, Arnold Woodworth:

The Little Details of OS X Mountain Lion at Tidbits

And now a devasting picture of Microsoft from Vanity Fair magazine:

In December 2000, Microsoft had a market capitalization of $510 billion, making it the world’s most valuable company. As of June it is No. 3, with a market cap of $249 billion. In December 2000, Apple had a market cap of $4.8 billion and didn’t even make the list. As of this June it is No. 1 in the world, with a market cap of $541 billion.

How did this jaw-dropping role reversal happen?

One Apple product – iPhone – has higher sales than all of Microsoft's products combined.  More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975.

a management system known as “stack ranking”—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate.  Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer