I agree with about half of this op-ed about Microsoft and innovation. A sample disagreement: being second to market with a technology is not a bad thing, innovation-wise. Not only can you work out the kinks in the core invention, but you can learn from your competitors' efforts to get sales and adoption.
I do agree, though, that Microsoft often takes good ideas and makes them very Microsoft-centric. Of course, they're hardly the only company to be guilty of that particular sin. IBM, Oracle, SAP, and other technology companies have taken very good ideas and tied them too exclusively to the platform, or slowed the natural trajectory of new technologies so that, at every step, they stay firmly attached to the company's underlying platform.
Of course, from the vendor's point of view, selling the platform is the goal. While there may be some business benefits to the customer (simpler vendor management, fewer risks dealing with smaller vendors, etc.), there are big and obvious down sides, too.
For example, not everyone is thrilled about moving to the next generation platform, and the next generation after that, at the pace the vendor fervently wishes you would. Frictions between customers and vendors result, along with the occasionally perverse business outcome. (Apple's market share of operating systems declined slightly in 2008, for reasons that had nothing to do with Apple. Most netbooks run Windows XP, the OS that customers have preferred over Vista.)
Anything that becomes an end in itself for the vendor becomes an obstacle for innovation, almost by definition. The pace of invention may continue, but the aggressive arm-twisting about the platform on which these inventions run can slow down adoption. As I mentioned earlier, platform-centric product strategies sacrifice development in any particular technology area (BI, CRM, content management, identity management, cloud computing, you name it) in the name of staying in pace with developments in the platform. Limited time, limited resources--development teams can't do everything that both customers and their corporate masters demand.
The XBox, Microsoft's successful venture into home entertainment hardware, provides further proof. The XBox is not your home entertainment platform, around which your TV, DVR, DVD player, MP3 player, receiver, and other components revolve. It's a very good console game system, and that's why, in part, it's still a raging success, because all the hardware in your family room doesn't depend on it.
That product strategy may not have been what Microsoft intended when it launched the XBox. However, how many times have products failed because over-enthusiastic executives thought, "Why, with this platform technology, I can rule the world!"