Burning the Ships: Transforming Your Company's Culture Through Intellectual Property Strategy

About this book

Now in paperback the inside story of "the greatest transformation of Microsoft since it became a multinational company" Marshall Phelpss remarkable eyewitness story offers lessons for any executive struggling with todays innovation and intellectual property challenges. Burning the Ships offers Phelpss dramatic behind-the-scenes account of how he overcame internal resistance and got Microsoft to open up channels of collaboration with other firms. Discover the never-before-told details of Microsofts secret two-year negotiations with Red Hat and Novell that led to the worlds first intellectual property peace treaty and technical collaboration with the open source community Witness the sometimes-nervous support Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer gave to Phelps in turning their company around 180 degrees from market bully to collaborative industry partner Offers an extraordinary behind-the-scenes view of the high-level deliberations of the companys senior-most executives the internal debates and conflicts among executives and rank-and-file employees alike over the companys new collaborative direction There are lessons in this book for executives in every industry-most especially on the role that intellectual property can play in liberating previously untapped value in a company and opening up powerful new business opportunities in todays era of "open innovation." Here is a powerful inside account of the dawn of a new era at what is arguably the most powerful technology company on earth.