54 Digital Wars Microsoft's internal politics also complicated the process of building and optimizing a new search engine. Pushing a completely new product to successful launch in Microsoft is like fighting a tank battle: success depends on how many divisions you have behind you. If you're outnumbered, then even the backing of the four-star generals may not be sufficient. The set-up within Microsoft dictates that executives are rewarded on the basis of their division's performance. This is, on its face, the perfect way to incentivize them: they are given stock options and, if their division contributes positively to the performance of the company, then they benefit. But, as we'll see, it can easily work against the wider interests of the company and its stockholders ­ including those executives. The upshot was that the Underdog team could get something out of other divisions only if they could offer something in return, or get one of Gates and Ballmer to force the issue. One of their early requests was a special, stripped-down build of Windows Server to run the new search