Microsoft’s Creative Destruction(-)-微软的创新灾难

补记：这是从CodeProjects的邮件里读到的新闻，编辑完后才注意csdn的首页已经有了。这下正好比较自己差在什么地方，难得的机会。

翻译练习，原文地址http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html?pagewanted=1

 

 

Microsoft’s Creative Destruction

 

微软的创新灾难

By DICK BRASS

 

Dick Brass was a vice president at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004.

 

AS they marvel at Apple’s new iPad tablet computer, the technorati seem to be focusing on where this leaves Amazon’s popular e-book business. But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.

      就在大家对苹果公司新发布的iPad平板电脑惊奇的时候，technorati似乎在关注这个新玩意儿会将Amazon的电子阅读置于何地。但是更重要的问题则是，为什么美国最著名、最成功的科技公司微软再也没有引领我们的未来，无论是平板电脑如iPad，电子阅读如Kindle，智能手机如黑莓和iPhone，搜索引擎如Google，数字音乐如iPod和iTunes，流行的Web服务如Facebook和Twitter。

Some people take joy in Microsoft’s struggles, as the popular view in recent years paints the company as an unrepentant intentional monopolist. Good riddance if it fails. But those of us who worked there know it differently. At worst, you can say it’s a highly repentant, largely accidental monopolist. It employs thousands of the smartest, most capable engineers in the world. More than any other firm, it made using computers both ubiquitous and affordable. Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Office applications suite still utterly rule their markets.

      一些人乐于看到微软的增扎，因为这几年流行观点为微软塑造了一个顽固的独裁者形象。如果微软遇到失败将是一件令人拍手称快的乐事。而我们这些曾在微软工作的人知道，事情并不是这样。微软最坏也不过是一个无意的独裁者。它拥有数千名世界上最聪明，最有能力的工程师。对计算机的普及推广方面，微软超过其他任何公司。Windows操作系统和Office组件在市场上依然占据着统治地位。

The company’s chief executive, Steve Ballmer, has continued to deliver huge profits. They totaled well over $100 billion in the past 10 years alone and help sustain the economies of Seattle, Washington State and the nation as a whole. Its founder, Bill Gates, is not only the most generous philanthropist in history, but has also inspired thousands of his employees to give generously themselves. No one in his right mind should wish Microsoft failure.

      微软现任CEO史蒂夫鲍尔默依然继续为公司带来丰厚的利润。仅仅在过去10年里，微软的利润就超过了1000亿美金，为西雅图市，华盛顿州乃至整个美国的经济做出了贡献。它的创始人比尔盖茨是历史上最为慷慨的慈善家。不仅如此，他的行为还鼓舞自己的员工投身于慈善事业。任何人都不应该诅咒微软的失败。

And yet it is failing, even as it reports record earnings. As the fellow who tried (and largely failed) to make tablet PCs and e-books happen at Microsoft a decade ago, I could say this is because the company placed too much faith in people like me. But the decline is so broad and so striking that it would be presumptuous of me to take responsibility for it.
      但是微软在走向失败，尽管它的收益再创新高。作为10年前在微软参与平板电脑和电子阅读器研发中的一员（并且失败了），我敢说这都是因为微软在像我这样的人身上投注了过多的信任。但是微软的衰落是如此全面而惊人，要我一个人为此负责显然是武断的。

Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator. Its products are lampooned, often unfairly but sometimes with good reason. Its image has never recovered from the antitrust prosecution of the 1990s. Its marketing has been inept for years; remember the 2008 ad in which Bill Gates was somehow persuaded to literally wiggle his behind at the camera?

      微软已经变成一个笨拙的，毫无竞争力的改良者。它的产品总是被人讥讽嘲笑，虽然这些批评通常不太公正但有时候却是很有道理。微软的形象还没有从20世纪90年代的反托拉斯起诉中恢复。微软的市场营销在数年中都毫无作为；还记得2008年微软的广告吗？不知谁说服了比尔盖茨真的让他在镜头前摇头摆尾。

While Apple continues to gain market share in many products, Microsoft has lost share in Web browsers, high-end laptops and smartphones. Despite billions in investment, its Xbox line is still at best an equal contender in the game console business. It first ignored and then stumbled in personal music players until that business was locked up by Apple.

      当苹果用各种产品不断获得市场，微软在浏览器、高端笔记本和智能手机上节节败退。尽管在游戏机领域上投入数十亿美金，Xbox的表现依然平庸。在随身听上微软先是视而不见，然后又蹒跚起步，最后完全被苹果封锁。

Microsoft’s huge profits — $6.7 billion for the past quarter — come almost entirely from Windows and Office programs first developed decades ago. Like G.M. with its trucks and S.U.V.’s, Microsoft can’t count on these venerable products to sustain it forever. Perhaps worst of all, Microsoft is no longer considered the cool or cutting-edge place to work. There has been a steady exit of its best and brightest.

      微软的巨额利润-上一季度67亿美元-绝大部分都完全来自于Windows和Office，这二者的历史可以追溯到几十年前。就像通用汽车的卡车和SUV，微软不可能永远靠这些受人尊敬历史悠久的产品过活。也许最糟的是，微软再也不被视为最酷或者最前沿的公司。

What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.

      发生了什么事情？与其它公司不同，微软从来没有一个真正适合于创新的体系。我的一些旧时同僚则认为那里倒有一个阻碍创新的体系。尽管拥有世界上最大，最强的试验室，三名CTO的豪华阵容，然而阻挠那些富有远见的思想家还是微软的一贯作风。

For example, early in my tenure, our group of very clever graphics experts invented a way to display text on screen called ClearType. It worked by using the color dots of liquid crystal displays to make type much more readable on the screen. Although we built it to help sell e-books, it gave Microsoft a huge potential advantage for every device with a screen. But it also annoyed other Microsoft groups that felt threatened by our success.

 

      比如，在我的职业生涯早期,我们小组里那些富有才华的图像专家发明了一种在屏幕上显示文字的技术叫做ClearType。通过使用LCD的色点，它能够让屏幕上的文字具备更好的可读性。虽然这向技术原本是用于电子阅读器，但也给予微软在其他显示设备上巨大的潜在有时。然而，我们的成功让微软其余的开发组感到了威胁。

Engineers in the Windows group falsely claimed it made the display go haywire when certain colors were used. The head of Office products said it was fuzzy and gave him headaches. The vice president for pocket devices was blunter: he’d support ClearType and use it, but only if I transferred the program and the programmers to his control. As a result, even though it received much public praise, internal promotion and patents, a decade passed before a fully operational version of ClearType finally made it into Windows.

      Windwows开发组的工程师假称使用某种颜色会让文字杂乱不堪。Office产品的负责人则说这会让显示失真，令他头疼。负责掌上设备的副总裁倒很坦率：他会支持ClearType并运用它，但要把我的程序和开发人员移交给他掌控。结果，即便这项技术获得公开的赞誉，内部推广并得到了专利权，而最终在Windows中完全使用ClearType 技术已经是10年后的事情了。