Microsoft and the Tale of Two Lines

Once upon a time in a land faraway, there lived a young boy who wanted to become the world's greatest kung-fu fighter. He searched far and wide for a great teacher and with much effort became the student of one of the greatest teachers of his time. The student was competitive and beat all other students in all competitions. He trained diligently for many years but the Teacher did not advance the student through the ranks fast enough.

One day in frustration, the student asked the teacher why he was not advancing fast enough and the teacher answered "You're not moving ahead fast enough because you've not understood the first lesson of this school." He then proceeded to draw two lines on the ground with his staff. And then explained, "Consider these two lines. If I want to make the first line shorter than the second line, I can do it in one of two ways. I can either make the first line longer or make the second line shorter by rubbing out portions of the line. You have been taking the second approach and have been shortening the lines of others. You have focused on beating others and not on bettering yourself. And hence you have stagnated. Focus on your improvement and progress will come easily."

Needless to say, there was a metamorphosis in the student's thinking and he began focusing on his personal development. He became a better fighter and eventually took his master's place.

I was reminded of this story while carrying out a basic registration procedure on the Microsoft Partner website. Their site does not work with Firefox which is now being used by at least 15% of the Internet population. The support executive guiding me through the registration process had to spend at least 60 minutes helping me and the task still remained incomplete. Microsoft has been so focused on shortening the line of Google that it has failed to adequately lengthen it's own line. The screenshot showing the Microsoft page is shown above. Hope the folks who are in charge read this and learn to focus on better serving their customers rather than on destroying competitors.