IT WAS DREADFUL British prime minister Margaret
Thatcher who said “the lady’s not for turning”, but
that attitude put the Iron Lady in a small minority.
Most of us are happy to back up and do a U-turn with
the changing of the wind, or any minor realignment in
the universe.

Staying with politics, Winston Churchill swapped the
Conservatives for the Liberals then became an
independent and then rejoined the Tories. “Anyone can
rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat,” he
said. A somewhat lesser figure in the political
firmament, David Owen* started the SDP in frustration
at what he saw as a leftwards shift on behalf of the
Labour Party. He then formed a coalition with the
Liberal Party, declined to help in a full merger, led
a much-reduced SDP, and wound down the party through
lack of voter interest.

In sport, Michael Jordan temporarily left American
football for baseball, while Ian Botham had a go at
football instead of cricket for a while. Sir Alex
Ferguson said he would quit Manchester United at the
end of the season several years ago but is still
there.

In the arts, that fine travel writer James Morris
became Jan Morris, swapping gender as well as first
name. That’s quite a turn to take when you come to
think of it.

Microsoft yesterday surprised many by saying it would
open the books on its software, revealing and
documenting critical APIs and other information. Five
more technology U-turns Microsoft took are listed
here:

5. Commerce Server. Microsoft took a most unusual step
last year by announcing that it will co-develop future
versions with Canadian firm Catcus Commerce. Of
course, many firms outsource development projects, but
few publicly admit they are handing over the keys.

4. Stac Electronics. In the early 1990s, Microsoft
found itself embroiled in a nasty lawsuit with Stac
Electronics, developer of the then-popular Stacker
software for disk compression. The suit related to the
fact that Microsoft had put very similar technology
called DoubleSpace in DOS 6.0. Microsoft got out of
trouble through the simple expedient of taking a stake
in Stac and paying a significant sum to settle all
litigation.

3. OS/2. IBM co-opted Microsoft to help develop a PC
operating system to succeed DOS and Windows. After the
first release, whispers were that the relationship was
turning rocky. Even as suspicions grew, Microsoft
insisted it was committed to the system software and
then in 1990 after Windows 3.0 became a huge success,
Microsoft decided it had another plan. The rest, as
they say, is history.

2. Yahvole! Microsoft was regarded as pretty stingy on
acquisitions. Apart from the recent deal to buy ad
network Aquantive, Microsoft has never spent more than
a billion and half dollars on a deal -- a significant
night out for you and me but not for the Redmondians.
Microsoft’s CFO kept reminding everybody that big
deals weren’t really Microsoft’s thing. Then it said
it wanted to buy Yahoo for over $44m and was turned
down, proving, as the Beatles knew, that money can’t
buy you love.

1. WWW. CompuServe and America Online were pretty
worried about Microsoft’s upcoming online service,
almost ready for release in the early 1990s. When the
web changed everything, Microsoft made a historic
decision to can the product, whistling goodbye to a
ton of R&D investment. Microsoft might not have built
a Google from that decision, but it did build a very
sizeable business, as well as spinning out another
lucrative franchise in Expedia. Whenever anybody tells
you about how big companies can’t move quickly, remind
them of that bold switch.

* Unless they are still wielding a stethoscope, beware
of people who insist on being called Doctor. µ