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

by Marshall Phelps, David Kline

Now in paperback, the inside story of "the greatesttransformation of Microsoft since it became a multinationalcompany" Marshall Phelps's remarkable eyewitness story offers lessons forany executive struggling with today's innovation and intellectualproperty challenges. Burning the Ships offers Phelps'sdramatic behind-the-scenes account of how he overcame internalresistance and got Microsoft to open up channels of collaborationwith other firms. There are lessons in this book for executives in everyindustry-most especially on the role that intellectual property canplay in liberating previously untapped value in a company andopening up powerful new business opportunities in today's era of"open innovation." Here is a powerful inside account of the dawn ofa new era at what is arguably the most powerful technology companyon earth.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Technology

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Luke Funk]

I will not disclose how many times I feel asleep reading this book. 😂 Not my usual cup of tea, and I'm not really sure how I ended up reading it. But I did, and there were some interesting tidbits. If it were any longer I probably would not have finished it.

[Joe Frankie]

Mssrs. Phelps and Kline take on how Microsoft changed from a Closed Cloister approach to one of Open Book. In doing, so they expedited the ways Microsoft and others could document and share one another's intellectual property in an easier manner. This is not to say it was easy. Burning the Ships is a reference to Cortez burning his ships to indicate to his party they were going forth and develop success rather than looking for a way back.
Secondly, a worthwhile discussion on how to value intellectual property and how it should be accounted for on the balance sheet as well as other financial documents.
Thirdly, this effort was a major discussion in dealing with interoperability. The leadership in Microsoft saw this as a key to the future. The discussion, issues, workarounds to solve interoperability at this level is noteworthy. It is a must read for any Joint Staff officer dealing with interoperability challenges with armed services, state and federal government, first responders, and any allies we have.

[Petar]

notes on how IBM made money licensing its patents
notes on MS strategy for how to form more connections/strong business connections with partners by licensing/sharing its patents and getting access to other patents.
claims to say the MS now pursues, in recognition of more distributed computing, that R&D-type innovation will come from smaller firms - wants to stoke this development by getting technology that doesn't necessarily work in its product pipeline out to firms that can monetize

[Michael]

An interesting read, but I'm a bit biased on this one...

[Hunter Johnson]

Not on IP strategy in your company, but a Microsoft history. Bad change in subtitle for the softcover book, not the book I wanted to read.

[Rod]

unreal book, gives huge insight into the process of Intellectual Property .