Microsoft uses mountain biking to prove it's hip

Lest anyone believe that what I'm about to point out is happenstance, think again. Microsoft is slowly remaking itself after getting it's ass kicked by Apple, Google, and Firefox. Moves have been made behind the scenes to change strategy and embrace and extend Web 2.0, but this is a mountain bike blog so I'll not bore you with more of the background regarding this change. Instead, I'll focus on Microsoft's next stage in their shifting strategy; convincing the public (and Wall Street) that it is cool and deserves to be thought of in the same vein as the companies that have taken on the big behemoth.

Microsoft has a lot riding on the success of their "iPod killer," Zune, and is now getting the word out in force. But, the market for music players is about hipness, design, and the music, not the software running the device. J Allard is the executive in charge of the Xbox and Zune and by all accounts is not a conventional (for Microsoft) manager. He's a hard-charging, fast-rolling, forward thinking type of guy and he's a mountain biker. Downhiller, as a mater of fact.

And if this article is any indication, Microsoft wants you to know this. Why not use all that you can to reposition yourself as the king of cool? After all, what better analogy to draw for investors that Microsoft is choosing an alternative path, by using a popular alternative sport. Actually, it's genius really. With this one analogy, with Allard at its nexus, Microsoft can say to the market:

• We're cool.
• We're young and new.
• We're different and trying new things.
• And, we're going to kick ass.

So my question is, does it work? Check out the article (there's an excerpt after the jump) and let me know if it gets you thinking about Microsoft a little differently. Does it make you wonder, that although you may have written them off as a dinosaur crushed under the weight of bloated desktop applications, maybe, just maybe, they can pull another resurrection and keep the profit juggernaut moving?

 

There's hardly anything old school about Allard. On a drizzly fall night in the Seattle suburb of Issaquah, he sets out with some Microsoft mountain biking buddies for a ride through a pitch-black forest. Guided only by lights mounted to their helmets and handlebars, the group bumps over tree roots, splashes through puddles, and powers over trails, some no more than two feet wide. Allard hustles his bike up yet another hill, then stops to catch his breath and check his heart-rate monitor. It's racing high, at 197 beats per minute. A minute later he's back in the saddle, looking for the next hill to climb.

 

Everything with Allard is about velocity. He drives a Ferrari 360 and a Porsche 911. He bombs down ski runs during the summer on a mountain bike at speeds topping 30 miles an hour. He qualified for the U.S. Nationals race this summer but had to drop out after he was hit by a car while biking around Seattle. "I love that gravity is unforgiving," he says. He even blazes through e-mail, jotting down notes all in lower case: "shift key slows you down," he writes.

By the way, here's a picture of Allard after a nasty spill at Whistler where he broke his arm among other injuries. Looks like he's the real deal and not a poser for the PR machine.

Thanks to my bro for passing this along. ;-)