It's a bit of an open question as to how much corporate culture actually matters to the success or failure of the products produced by the company. Certainly it's always a factor; the question is how much. Do you have to have a culture dedicated to a product or concept to succeed? Various massive, multi-faceted corporations with many divisions and product lines might seem to disprove this immediately, but on a certain scale, a division might have a culture of its own which could substitute for that of the overall corporation. Still, there are a lot of factors in the market that can influence success.

I have been contemplating this matter particularly of late with respect to Microsoft's "Software+Services" approach to competing in the online services market. While on the face of it the strategy seems like a good way to exploit the company's existing strengths while transitioning to a new paradigm, similar to the way the company shifted to adapt to the ascendancy of the Internet as a communications and multi-media portal, I have been wondering if in fact it indicates a dangerous compromise in corporate culture during a major shift in IT delivery platforms. Microsoft was built around the last such significant shift, from mainframe-centric to PC-centric delivery, in no small part because they dedicated themselves to the advancement of the new paradigm ("A computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software") while their larger and more powerful competitors tried their own versions of "Software+Services" to keep their existing business strong while transitioning to the new platform. Microsoft culture was well-suited to the new paradigm; the others were not.

It's silly to suggest that this was the secret to their success, however; a more important question is, to what extent did this contribute to their success? If it was a significant contribution, then does their failure to commit now to a SaaS-centric approach doom their prospects at dominating the market as it shifts in that direction?

Without counting them out, I've been inclined in that direction, and a recent interview with Salesforce VP for Developer Marketing Adam Gross reveals the importance that Salesforce attributes to having such a culture to their own success in the online services market. In a segment highlighted here by Jonathan Sapir, Gross emphasizes the dedication inculcated at Salesforce by their adherence to the online subscription model.

Gross could be wrong and so could I, but my gut says that it matters where a company places its focus on how the products perform. Microsoft is doing some interesting things in the services space with a professional level of execution (although I recently heard that the "Red Dog" cloud platform that has evolved into Azure was named after the "Pink Poodle" strip club in San Jose... I guess that's what the marketing department is for, eh?) but I have trouble trusting them as completely as some of the smaller players in the market. They just don't have as much riding on their implemenation of these products, and at some level it shows. Salesforce, while smaller and not without their flaws, has every motivation to deliver a good SaaS experience and to continue to improve on it.