Burning the Ships: Intellectual Property and the Transformation of Microsoft - Hardcover

Phelps, Marshall; Kline, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470432152 ISBN 13: 9780470432150

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2009

Synopsis

Now in paperback, the inside story of "the greatesttransformation of Microsoft since it became a multinationalcompany"

Marshall Phelps's remarkable eyewitness story offers lessons forany executive struggling with today's innovation and intellectualproperty challenges. Burning the Ships offers Phelps'sdramatic behind-the-scenes account of how he overcame internalresistance and got Microsoft to open up channels of collaborationwith other firms.

• Discover the never-before-told details of Microsoft's secrettwo-year negotiations with Red Hat and Novell that led to theworld's first intellectual property peace treaty and technicalcollaboration with the open source community
• Witness the sometimes-nervous support Bill Gates and CEO SteveBallmer gave to Phelps in turning their company around 180 degreesfrom market bully to collaborative industry partner
• Offers an extraordinary behind-the-scenes view of thehigh-level deliberations of the company's senior-most executives,the internal debates and conflicts among executives andrank-and-file employees alike over the company's new collaborativedirection

There are lessons in this book for executives in everyindustry-most especially on the role that intellectual property canplay in liberating previously untapped value in a company andopening up powerful new business opportunities in today's era of"open innovation." Here is a powerful inside account of the dawn ofa new era at what is arguably the most powerful technology companyon earth.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Burning the Ships: Intellectual Property and the Transformationof Microsoft

At the start of this decade, Microsoft was on thedefensive-beset on all sides by anti-trust suits and costlylitigation, and viewed by many in the technology industry as amonopolist and market bully. How was it going to survive andsucceed in the emerging new era of "open innovation," wherecollaboration and cooperation between firms, rather than marketconquest, would be the keystones of success?

This was the challenge facing Microsoft founder and ChairmanBill Gates. But "like Cortez burning his ships at the shores of theNew World," Gates decided to embrace the change that was needed. Herecruited Marshall Phelps-the legendary "godfather" of intellectualproperty who had turned IBM's IP portfolio into a $2-billion-a-yeargold mine-out of retirement and into the cauldron of controversythat was Microsoft. Only this time Phelps's mission was infinitelymore challenging than simply making money from IP. It was to helpreform Microsoft's "man the barricades" culture, encourage thecompany to abandon its fortress mentality around its technology andshare it with others for mutual benefit, and use intellectualproperty not as a weapon of competitive warfare but as a bridge tocollaboration with other firms instead.

Here, for the first time (and 500 collaboration deals later), isthe inside story of what one analyst has called "the biggest changeMicrosoft has undergone since it became a multinationalcompany."

In this book, authors Marshall Phelps and David Kline take thereader inside the dramatic struggle within Microsoft to find a newdirection. They offer an extraordinary behind-the-scenes view ofthe high-level deliberations of the company's senior-mostexecutives, the internal debates and conflicts among executives andrank-and-file employees alike over the company's new collaborativedirection, and the company's controversial top-secretpartnership-building efforts with major open source companies andothers around the world. Nothing was held back from this book savefor information specifically prohibited from disclosure byconfidentiality agreements that Microsoft signed with othercompanies. Indeed, the degree of access to Microsoft's innerworkings granted to the authors-and the honest self-criticismoffered by Microsoft leaders and employees alike-was unprecedentedin the company's thirty-four-year history.

There are lessons in this book for executives in everyindustry-most especially on the role that intellectual property canplay in liberating previously untapped value in a company andopening up powerful new business opportunities in today's era of"open innovation." Here is a powerful inside account of the dawn ofa new era at what is arguably the most powerful technology companyon earth.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Burning the Ships: Intellectual Property and theTransformation of Microsoft

"Told with a litigator's attention to detail, Burning theShips recounts the journey that forced Microsoft to face itsown 'succeed or die' moment. It's a powerful high-stakes lesson instrategy and survival that speaks volumes to business leaders ofall stripes about the courage required to embrace radical businesstransformation."
–William J. Amelio, President and CEO, Lenovo

"Intellectual property does not show up on your balance sheet,and your board of directors would not recognize it if it were setout on a table in the lobby. But do not kid yourself: in an era ofever-commoditizing supply and distribution, IP is the essentialfabric out of which your competitive advantage will be fashioned.Burning the Ships gives you an insider's look into how this engineof economic returns operates and what you can do to maintainit."
–Geoffrey A. Moore, author, Crossing the Chasmand Dealing with Darwin

"It would be difficult to overestimate the influence thatMarshall Phelps has had on corporate thinking in regard tointellectual property. Simply put, he is the one we look to forguidance in such matters. Burning the Ships will be widelyread in Japan and Europe as well as America."
–Michio Naruto, former vice chairman, FujitsuCorporation

"Phelps and Kline offer us a first look at tomorrow's businessstrategy, which of necessity involves the collaborative use ofintellectual property. Don't miss out on the chance to see whatfuture business leaders will be thinking about."
–Nathan Myhrvold, CEO, Intellectual Ventures

"Academics have spilled a good deal of ink over the past fifteenyears on the question of how intellectual property can be deployedto enhance innovation and enterprise success. Finally we're gettingthe skinny on this vital issue—not just from someone who'sbeen in the trenches, but from Marshall Phelps himself, the man whorevolutionized and set the standard for the management ofintellectual property across the whole information technologysector."
–Wesley Marc Cohen, PhD, Frederick C. Joerg Professorof Business Administration, Professor of Strategy, Economics, andManagement, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, FuquaSchool of Business, Duke University

About this edition

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0470432152
• ISBN 13: 9780470432150
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 186