Microsoft: Diversity in Corporate Experience
Microsoft will announce its Q1 results tomorrow (Oct. 25th, 2007), with analysts expecting $.39 profit per share for $12.57 billion in revenue. This comes after better-than-expected global PC sales and the extremely successful debut of Halo 3 for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (see Brian White’s article from Bloggingstocks.com). Since Microsoft (along with Yahoo!) is currently in a global battle with main rival Google, we were curious as to what kind of experience the Board of Directors at Microsoft had over Yahoo! (see previous NewsVisual article) and Google (see previous NewsVisual article). We were surprised to find that the experience represented on the Board at Microsoft is extremely diverse in two aspects: first, by the number of different industries represented, and second, by the unique mixture of both long-time and relatively new Directors (Note: the information contained and presented in Knowledge Maps is public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States of America).
Besides having Directors experienced in the software and computer industries, other Directors have experience in the finance industry (Dina Dublon, former CFO JPMorgan Chase), pharmaceutical industry (Raymond Martin, former Chairman/President/CEO Merck & Co), entertainment industry (Reed Martin, Founder/Chairman/CEO of Netflix), telecommunications industry (Charles Noski, former Vice-Chairman AT&T Corp), auto industry (Dr. Helmut Panke, former Chairman BMW AG), and in education (Dr. James Cash Jr, former Senior Associate Dean Harvard Business School). This corporate diversity most likely provides Microsoft with valuable creativity when confronted with problematic situations, as several Directors are often likely to have faced similar situations in various industries.
Another unique feature of the Board of Directors at Microsoft is the difference in duration among the Directors. Dina Dublon, Reed Hastings, Charles Noski, and Helmut Panke have all joined the Board within the last four years. Raymond Gilmartin and James Cash Jr have been Directors since 2001, while Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, David Marquardt, and Jon Shirley have all been Directors since the early 1980s. This unique range could allow Directors to improve older, established ideas with newer information and business techniques.
Besides the companies already mentioned above, Microsoft Directors are also involved in such notable companies and non-corporate organizations as General Mills, Knight Ridder, Scientific Atlanta, Chubb Corp, GE, Berkshire Hathaway, Seagate, PepsiCo, UBS, United Negro College Fund, Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and the California State Board of Education.
With its diversity in both corporate experience and years of experience, Microsoft demonstrates some of the reasons why it has been able to maintain it position as the largest software company in the world.
Click here for an interactive version of this IntellectSpace Knowledge Map (Internet Explorer browsers only): http://nv.intellectspace.com
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