Search: Google versus Microsoft 47 Microsoft. But it's just hard to conceive that he would even understand that question if you were in the room while it was asked. Which is unfortunate, and I think says something about where Microsoft has gone, in the last decade.' Ballmer, he says: can manage a business ­ he has that MBA appreciation of how to keep the train running. But he's never going to be able to see his way to the next innovation. It's just not going to come out of his head. And when it doesn't come out of his head, the question is: can he even, does he even have the wherewithal to create an institution that allows those ideas, if they come from the field, to ever escape? I really don't think Microsoft is that kind of institution, and I don't know if that type of institution exists at that size, that size of company. He points to Microsoft's late arrival to the internet. `They were late to the game', says Spolsky. And the reason they were late to the game because the people who were