ONLY a few months ago Microsoft launched a new business unit with the aim of boosting innovation in the company, and already it's paying off.
The unit, dubbed Microsoft Office Labs, is headed by Chris Pratley, a company veteran who has worked in the Office group for 12 years on products including Excel, Word and Publisher.
Office Labs was created to counter public perceptions that Microsoft had run out of good ideas and to serve as a proving ground for hare-brained and high-risk projects that product teams could not afford to commit to, Mr Pratley said.
"Our product teams often have lots of non-conventional, or risky, or out-there ideas that they're interested in, but are just too busy working on current software releases to commit to them. So we take those ideas and see if we can make them work,'' he said.
Already the lab has taken on a number of projects from Microsoft’s business division, the unit responsible for developing Office and its associated applications, and has even seen a significant number through to completion.
Some of the completed projects include an application called pptPlex which transforms PowerPoint presentations into a zoomable canvas; and Email Prioritizer, a plug-in that helps users manage email overload with a "do not disturb" feature and email ranking.
Making the transition from an 'idea in the sky' to a tangible, working project is not always smooth sailing though - in fact there’s a lot of failure involved, Mr Pratley said.
“There’s a saying: if you’re not failing then you’re not trying hard enough. And that’s what we try to go for,” he said.
But failing is only one part of the challenge. The lab also has to convince the product teams that they are not there to steal their thunder.
“When we started, I said that people were not going to like us because they would think we were taking their ideas. So we set up labs with a credo: we’re humble, helpful and harmless and we live by that all the time.
“It’s like sifting for gold -- we find the gold when we try to produce a new feature or product. So rather than waiting to stumble on a new innovation later down the track we keep sifting.”