I think that's an accurate assessment. It certainly wasn't stack ranking that made J Allard leave. Microsoft has an inward looking culture because there is so much money to play with when Microsoft launches a huge initiative like XBOX or Windows Phone. Google's "moon shots" and Apple's "hobbies" are not instant tickets to the top of the organization.

Overlaid on those high-stakes struggles for control and prominence are some correspondingly huge egos, whence come dogmas like "Everything Windows."

The Enterprise part of the company suffers less from this because the growth there is more organic.