I think this may be the response to your Kempin memo:
Message 6592821
Kempin is another story. His goals are simple - he owns the OEM business and he wants that business to be as profitable as possible. No one has ever accused him of having any strategic vision. As far as I can tell he is almost single-handedly responsible for the general negative perception of MSFT business practices among the OEMs.
I have heard from various mid-level MSFT people that Ballmer and Kempin have had long-standing disagreements on this issue, but no senior MSFT executive has ever talked about this with me. But the mid-level people, who have been with MSFT for a long time, have given a pretty consistent story. They tell me that Ballmer and Kempin don't get along at all, to the point where Kempin and Ballmer don't even show up at the same meetings, even though Kempin nominally works for Ballmer. They also tell me that the product side guys, notably Maritz and Allchin, have argued for a long time that Kempin's policies are bad long-term strategy.
You are assuming that Kempin speaks for the Company when he identifies potential competitors and assesses their abilities. He may be one side of a debate he lost. He may be trying to puff up his own ego or make himself look good when he says that Compaq would never be able to get an OS off the ground (let's hear what Pfeiffer has to say about that to his people outside the courtroom!). True, this may all be speculation, and even Rude Dog says that Chairman Bill supports Kempin. But it does not follow that his assessment of the competitive landscape is accurate, even assuming his memo is totally unbiased, or, for that matter, even if it is accepted as gospel at Microsoft.
The point is, who knows what the memo means? It could mean anything. |
