Microsoft's organization structure from the beginning to 2013

In the beginning

Like most businesses Microsoft started out with a flat organization structure and gradually expands to a tall organization structure because implementing and managing flat structures is challenging, narrow span of control, job complexity and greater coordination. At the beginning, Bill gates wanted to create a family work environment as Microsoft had only 3 original employees.

Figure 1

The original structure

As shown from Figure 1, the original structure of Microsoft was a tall organization structure. Bill Gates and Paul Allen sat on the top of the organization structure as co-founders. On the way down the structure Maria Wood served as a bookkeeper administrative assistant then down to Steve woods, Bob Wallace and Jim Lane as managers. On the lowest level are the programmers; Marc McDonald, Bob Greenburg, Bob O’ Rear, Gordon Letwin and Andrea Lewi. 

The new structure

 As of 2010 under Steve Ballmer, Microsoft has adopted the divisional organizational structure each division focuses on a specific line of goods and services with their every own research and development, Sales and Customer Service Staff.  

My opinion regarding the structure

I personally think that the current organization structure (Divisional structure) has its advantages and 

disadvantages such as

Advantages	Disadvantages
Division works well because it allows a team to focus on a single product.	Will allow office politics to fester
Having its own president or vice president makes it more likely the division will get the resource it needs from the company.	One division will sometime act to undermine the other division
Division focus allows it to build a common culture that will result in higher morale and a better knowledge of the division portfolio	Divisions can bring compartmentalization that can lead to incompatibilities
Having its product and services dispersed among different department.

However it might not the best solution, for example “Microsoft's business-software division developed the Social Connector in Microsoft Office Outlook 2010. They were unable to integrate Microsoft SharePoint and Windows Live until months after Social Connector could interface with MySpace and LinkedIn. Some experts suggested that Microsoft's divisional structure contributed to a situation where its own products were incompatible across internal business units.”(Jason Gillikin and Demand Media) If I was in charge I would not chance anything about the organization structure because after analyzing the structure I came to a conclusion that the structure is not the problem, the problem is the office politics.  

In a way, it is not the structure that needs change it is the company’s office politics which need to change.  To eliminate office politics, I propose that Microsoft adopt Germany’s work attitude which is to work cooperatively instead of working against each other. 

To what extent does corporate culture influence the corporate culture?

Corporate culture governs the ways a company’s owners and employee think, feel and act. To an extend the organization structure will influence the corporate culture by establishing that there are always someone better them and they must do whatever it takes to get to the top.