Ray Ozzie Visionary or Liability?

The big news last week was that Bill Gates would be leaving Microsoft in July 2008.  I thought about this on my way home from  TechEd and came to the conclusion that Bill leaving wasn’t why I had such reservation on this announcement. What really got me thinking was the fact that a relative new individual to Microsoft, Ray Ozzie, would be taking the bulk of his old responsibilities.

Ray, if you don’t know, has been on the forefront of technology in his previous work assignments.   He is considered a visionary by many as he successfully steered several companies in creating new innovative technology. (Groove, Lotus Notes). Ray joined Microsoft in 2005 when Microsoft acquired groove. Now as he takes the helm at Microsoft as its Chief Software Architect he continues to push the envelope of innovation, ushering Microsoft into the self titled “ Internet services” era with a full head of steam, but is that a good thing for the number one software company on the planet?  

This services model consists of global scale hosted services which can be consumed by home users and businesses alike.  These services today are largely funded by an advertising model, which up to this point appears to not have proven profitable.  In fact Microsoft seems to have bought into his vision so heavily and is spending another 500 million dollars in 2007 to further this services vision of Ray’s through its “Live” initiatives.

Now the problem with vision (a fancy word for gamble) is that it comes with lots of risk. You are largely building things with a concept of where you think the future will be and sinking large quantities of money, time, and infrastructure into something that may never pan out.  Personally all I have seen come out the “Live” brand of internet services to date is an unfocused confusing cluster of applications that will go largely unused and seems to be wasting more money and time chasing the likes of ebay and Google rather than adding value to Microsoft bottom line. 

Is this what we can come to expect from the legacy of Ray? Do you as a stock holder, potential investor, or consumer of Microsoft software care that Microsoft is spending half a billion dollars on hosted services to enable Rays vision?  Is this vision where you think Microsoft should be headed?  And lastly I ask, is Ray a visionary or a liability to Microsoft, spending money on services that may never pan out, wasting valuable time that could be spent furthering and innovating in its core software areas?

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