Entrepreneurial to the core

There’s a palpable sense of excitement that pervades the London office of Microsoft Ltd, the British arm of Bill Gates’ all-conquering software giant. The location (the building is sandwiched between the refined elegance of Regent Street and the cultural swirl that is Soho) no doubt contributes to the daily thrills, but generating the greatest buzz is the simple fact that there is change afoot at every level within this still growing empire.

The next six months will see the launch of Windows Vista, the newest (and very much delayed) version of the world’s number one computer operating system, and the equally anticipated release of Microsoft Office 2007 – not to mention the difficult challenges to be faced in the search engine, browser, software-on-demand and gaming sectors, to name but a few.

After a quick tour of different departments, I am led to a small, insubstantial room to meet the man who has led the UK arm of Microsoft for the past two years, Alistair Baker.

He is ensconced on one of the three chairs that fill the compact and bijou space and, after exchanging pleasantries, quickly launches into the topics and ideas that occupy him most – how his company is preparing to benefit from the next great turn of the technology cycle, the way to best manage change, the elusive game that is grasping opportunities, and how Microsoft needs to harness the expertise of those at every level.

Early successes
Baker joined Microsoft via a somewhat circuitous route. An IBM graduate trainee, he proceeded to spend nine years at Hewlett Packard before being persuaded to join an upstart venture called Morse Computers, which is now a successful pan-European technology integrator.

He recalls, ‘It was a fascinating time. I spotted an opening in the Scottish market for an open system reseller and integrator and I went to Morse and told them I could help them out. They provided the infrastructure and support and I provided the people and leadership skills. In six months we went from zero to revenues of £16 million.
‘In many respects [Morse] taught me a lot about entrepreneurialism and expansion into difficult markets and that your capabilities can be amplified by your ability to take on managed risk.

‘We made the right call based on our product expertise and by sticking to our guns we were not phased when problems occurred. It was all about an opportunity and getting the right people on board [to exploit it].’

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