Everybody knows Bill Gates. But who are the tech wizards behind the scene that created the software that we use today? -- In this Pilot Episode (#01) of Microsoft (MSFT) Legends, we are going to talk about Mike Maples. The former IBM executive who joined Microsoft back in 1988 and the man behind the Application Division which became the Microsoft Office division in the early 90s. Yep, that's before Steven Sinofsky's rise to Office.
Mike Maples graduated from Oklahoma University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and earned his master of business administration at Oklahoma City University. He joined Microsoft on May 1, 1988, eight months before David Cutler.
Maples was responsible for all product development and marketing activities. By the time he retired from Microsoft, he was the executive vice president of the Worldwide Products Group and a member of the Office of the CEO, reporting directly to Bill Gates. Under his stint at Redmond, several key engineers joined him, among them Steven Sinofsky, after his short tenure as the CEO's technical assistant.
It should be noted that during Maple's era, the Office products as we know them today were divided into sub-divisions. Maples created the first Application Division Business Units which included: the Analysis Business Unit (Excel, Pete Higgins), Word Business Unit (led by Jeff Raikes), Graphics Business Unit (PowerPoint, led by Bob Gaskins, the founder of the company that created PowerPoint), Entry Business Unit (Microsoft Works, led by Susan Boeschen), and the Data Access Business Unit (Access, codenamed Omega at the time, led for a short time by the late and great Jeff Harbers). Under each of these were Development, Product Management, Test, Program Management, and User Education. There was also a small shared Tools team reporting to Mike.
As a result, Mike's troops acted like a startup within the giant belly of Microsoft. it was the BU organizational framework and the strong empowered leaders Mike put in charge that enabled Excel to beat Lotus, Word to beat WordPerfect, and (later) Access to beat Ashton-Tate.
Mike also created the very first career ladder system -- before that, there were no standard job descriptions, compensation was fairly ad hoc, and it wasn't at all clear what you had to do to advance in your career. That's a practice that came directly from IBM -- along with, I believe, the first version of the performance review system. For a while, the Apps Division had career ladders but no one else did -- that's the kind of thing you don't think to focus on in a startup. A few years later it was extended to the Systems Division and the rest of the company.
Mike joined Microsoft in an environment with a lot of young and very ambitious people, some of whom no doubt probably thought they deserved his job. But it wasn't long before everyone realized there was an amazing amount of knowledge about how to run a large organization that we didn't know -- and didn't know we didn't know. In my opinion, Mike is one of the few people responsible for Microsoft's transition from its awkward teenage years to its successful young adulthood. People at Microsoft have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for him and they actually think of him often whenever I think about organizational maturity and scale.
He currently lives in Austin, TX, and helps establish startups.
Sofiane M. MEROUANI
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