The speculation and rumors circulating around the possible purchase of e-Bay by Microsoft shows that problem which has been the company’s Achilles’ heel from day one.

Microsoft has a real problem with innovation, and has always preferred to buy, and then modify, someone else’s code. The very first product out the door at Microsoft, before there was a door, was a product of an unknown company, which was then tweaked, and the proper name (Microsoft) put into all the right places in the code. So it has been, down through the years, that Microsoft buys and slaps its name on software that started life elsewhere. The most recent product in this long line is the product known as Windows Defender, that started life as Giant Antispyware, from the Giant company.

Perhaps this approach is the way that Microsoft keeps its people from having to ‘do the grunt work’ ,  thinking that all its own people need then do is some final tweaking.  While this method may work for software, it has not been proven to work with entire business entities. I doubt that anyone at e-Bay wishes to be ‘tweaked’ into the Microsoft way of doing things. It’s clear that Jerry Yang did not think that having his employees ‘adjusted’ into Microsoft was a beneficial choice for them.

Humans are funny that way, they can be molded, but the shape doesn’t always keep.

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