I’ve been tossing this around in my head since I first read Andy Beal’s post from last week where <gasp> he was praising </gasp> Microsoft over what he thought was one of the most innovative things he has ever seen come from the company. Of course this wasn’t the same sort of excitement that got Robert Scoble crying a while back rather is was about a demo he had seen concerning a piece of software called Pivot.
Now I’ve read more than a few posts about Pivot and everyone, like Andy, have nothing but praise for the project except that Andy doesn’t think it will go much beyond a project level.
I have been playing with Pivot for about a week now, and can honestly say that its the first Microsoft product that I have been excited about in years! All I can think about is what it would be like if Microsoft combined Pivot with Bing’s search index. I mean can you imagine what that would be like? It would be the closest thing to a Google killer ever.
Unfortunately, I am afraid to to say that Pivot probably won’t progress that far. How do I know that? What’s my inside information? The cost that would be required to mashup Bing with Pivot is too large of a gamble for Microsoft.
Innovation dies when organizations are unable to fund a project to the end. Instead they get to a point where they can’t justify truly seeing it to full completion. This is a result of working within a corporate structure and culture that inhibits full innovative development.
Is it possible that Andy is right?
Has Microsoft lost the will to bet the company on a product that is outside of their cash cows?
After all we have seen the total screwup with the Kin and the killing of the Courier project, which had a lot of people just waiting to get their hands on it.
Is the Windows Phone 7 perhaps that bet the company moment or is it really Steve Ballmer’s swan song either way?
While you’re thinking about that here is the video with Gary Flake presenting Pivot.
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