The Internal and External Environment of a Business
The intent of this paper is to analyze the internal and external
environment of Microsoft Corporation who is a global leader in the
development and marketing of consumer, personal productivity, small
business and enterprise software applications and employs 71,000
professional worldwide. The company focuses on the development,
manufacturing, and support of a very wide variety of devices for computing
according to their DataMonitor Profile (2006).
As a result of these many businesses, Microsoft contends with many
political, economic, technological, competitive, supply chain and
regulatory issues. The internal environment comprises of the company
founders, employees, stock holders, physical environment and broader
culture are equally as complex. The major external environmental issues
the company is dealing with today include increasingly strong competition
in its operating systems division from open source operating system vendors
including Red Hat and other Linux distributors, and the brain drain to
Google in the area of search according to Greene (2006). In addition there
are the many legal challenges the company has operating in Europe, where
unbundling of operating system features and the delivery of source code
documentation are a major requirement. In addition to these factors,
Microsoft also has to contend with challenges to its core business of
personal productivity applications from a wide variety of competitors.
Internally, Microsoft's environment is hard-driving, very focused on
development schedules, and has a definite intensity of focus. The internal
environment is dominated by engineering expertise and depth of insight over
and above work-life balance, an issue the company has struggled with for
years. In addition the internal environment is dominated by managers who
have been promoted based on their technical prowess and not necessarily
their management ability. This makes for a tense yet very focused internal
culture where accomplishment is everything. As a result the company's
internal environment is not necessarily marked by a work-life balance;
instead it is a culture that rewards technical insight, intelligence and
accomplishment.

References
DataMonitor (2006) - Microsoft Corporation Company Profile. Publication
Date 5 April 2006. Reference Code: 1103

Greene (2005) - Troubling Exits at Microsoft. Business Week Online.
September 26, 2005. Accessed from the Internet on January 18, 2007 from
location:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/0539/b3952001.htm