An Army Of Davids Helps Microsoft

reports that the project is doing just fine:

I want to know what Ray Ozzie has been reading lately.

In Glenn Reynolds' new book, An Army of Davids, Reynolds explains in a quick, compelling, easy-to-read fashion how technology has enabled a de-centralization of things like news reporting and product development. How regular, everyday people have been able to do – quickly – what it used to take big, monolithic companies years to do.

By using open dialogue, easy means of communication and a community spirit, quickly forming groups of people, using individual unique skills and wisdom, can solve even complex problems. (In his book, Reynolds cites the dramatic story of how passengers aboard United Flight 93, on Sept. 11, 2001, quickly gathered, took a vote, and thwarted years of centralized planning by al Qaeda to crash a plane into the U.S. Capitol or White House.)

Now, Ozzie shows us how Microsoft has turned to the public – engineers, developers, anyone else who is interested – to help them do in weeks what could have easily taken months or years otherwise. Microsoft has established a public discussion group (not too unlike the Linux developers' group on Usenet) to help it move forward on Live Clipboard.

If only Microsoft had taken that approach on Vista!

Before the dot-com bust, IBM embraced open source software and the Linux community, and was cushioned quite well from the bloodbath the industry faced from 2000 to 2004. Left for dead, Sun Microsystems has embraced open source and is showing new signs of life.

With its back to the wall in the face of new threats and competition, and embarrassments such as its Vista delay, Microsoft may want to start issuing copies of Reynolds' book to its employees. Ozzie may be on to something.