“At Microsoft a lot more positions still need to go to achieve efficiency and focus. 15,000 more is my magic number. It’s not personal. But to achieve efficiency and resolution of what to focus on with determination, we need a whole lot less people and to publicly admit there are opportunities we will focus on and others we are okay walking away from.

via Mini-Microsoft: Microsoft Has Turned The Corner

Interesting. And sort of goes along with some of the feelings I’ve had recently about Microsoft. Sort of.

Over the past few months I’ve talked with many, many MSFT employees. On a one-on-one level all of them seem to say the right things, admit problems the company has on the consumer front, and have good ideas for the future.

But at the same time, most admit that on the macro level, things still take way too long to get done. Perhaps a huge 15,000 job cut, while drastic, would help resolve some of the bureaucracy issues that have long plagued the company.

But you still have situations such as MSFT’s Vice President of Developer and Platform Evangelism, Walid Abu-Hadba, saying things like “Most of what Google does is defensive.”

That’s just a pretty pathetic thing to say. And does not seem like something a company who has turned any kind of corner would resort to. And it’s hilarious because it’s obviously Microsoft being defensive.

Sure, some of what Google does is defensive, just like any other company. But if VPs at Microsoft really try to dismiss Google like that, just like in the past, that’s a problem.

Hopefully, the guy was just caught talking out of his ass for a second. But he went on to talk more nonsense. Like how when Google does Android, it’s simply meant to distract competitors from attacking it in search. But when Microsoft does Silverlight, that’s them extending their overall goals. What a truly awful attempt at spin.

But the last part of the quote at the top is key, I think. Microsoft needs to realize it doesn’t need to be in every game. For example, Zune. Sure, the new Zune HD looks cooler, but what the hell is the point? It’s a iPod touch competitor that is 2 years too late. The new iPod touches are going to add cameras and then where will the Zune HD be? Nowhere, again.

A cloud version of Office is obviously the right move. It’s Microsoft thinking about the future, rather than resting on its money-making laurels. It will be very interesting to see what the business-model is around that.

Some people get so pissed off when we in the media trash Microsoft. And those people love to point out how successful their business still is. That’s absolutely true — for now. But computing will transition, and if Microsoft just sits there and doesn’t evolve the same thing will happen to the company overall that is happening to Internet Explorer. A long, slow decay.

Microsoft basically stopped development of IE after IE6, and really fucked itself (well that and trying to force its own proprietary bullshit view of the web with its browser). By the time IE7 came out, the competitors had the knife already inserted, and just kept pushing. And they’re still pushing. And IE is still bleeding.

It cannot allow that to happen to its core businesses. We’re talking Windows. We’re talking Office.

Indications are that Microsoft does have some interesting plans for the future. But it still needs to execute. Which is far from a sure thing, as Mini-Microsoft points out.

So is Microsoft turning the corner? Maybe. But instead of being a car, Microsoft is a big fucking boat. And turns are very, very slow.