Mini-Microsoft is an interesting and fairly critical blog about life at Microsoft. Lots of insight at the bureaucracies and internal politics that take place at Redmond. Many people consider Microsoft to be well on its downhill path to death. Not like it’s going to happen next year, but life teaches us that nothing lasts forever; why would nations and companies be any different?

Microsoft still puts out a number of solid products, but most of them have outgrown their level of usefulness – new releases consisting of features nobody really needs, and the odd improvement (read: bugfix) here and there. Computer products (hardware and software) have thrived on their seemingly endless stream of improvements, iterations, evolution and revolutions. When there is essentially nothing left to improve in a certain product, you either cut your losses and let it rot on its own, you keep it updated with the bare minimum to encourage user loyalty, or you keep adding make-up to an already bloated monster. Meanwhile, someone, somewhere, is working on a whole new approach to being useful and desirable.

Internal company processes seem to follow a similar path. Will Microsoft reinvent itself? Will it be able to reach a plateau of long-term viability?