OK, but I still want to hear what their strategy was. If I can't think of obvious ways to improve it then maybe organic really is the way to go.

I'm quite interested by Steve Blank's stuff on Customer Development.

My personal theory is that you can sometimes build profitable products, without being the customer, but you can't build great ones.

Microsoft and Apple seem to be two excellent examples. Apple's customer is Steve Jobs.

Are great products also greatly profitable?

To be honest I am mostly interested in making a profit.

Edit: If you're trying to give Microsoft as an example of a company that fails to make great products because it fails to use them, think again: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/62/microsoft.html It seems more likely that they just suck.

I am trying to do that,

They may use them internally, but I think a lot of their work is focussed on external users.