There's something that Microsoft is doing much better than Apple. Not only doing it better, but improving with each and every day that goes by. It is a cutting-edge activity for large corporations, something that few businesses today have even tried, let alone got right. But Microsoft has got it right and is reaping the benefits.
What is this mysterious activity I'm talking about?
Opening up.
Microsoft is opening up like no other company I have ever seen. Just take a look at all the detailed information about Office 12 and Windows Vista that is coming out on weblogs written by the coders and managers working on each project.
These weblogs are not professional PR. They are not written by flacks on behalf of the coding team. They are not full of dumb marketing speak and pointless slogans.
But they are full of detail, full of facts, full of stories of success and sometimes failure. When something goes wrong, these MS webloggers tell their audience about it, they fess up. Then they get back to work, and fix the problem.
