Both of the following were said by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

And…

The lifeblood of our business is that R&D spend. There’s nothing that flows through a pipe or down a wire or anything else. We have to continuously create new innovation that lets people do something they didn’t think they could do the day before.

If he uses the first position to guide him (it’s all about consumers), he will turn around the company and hold Microsoft will hold its own against Google and other innovators.

If he uses the second quote to guide him (it’s all about the R&D spend), he and Microsoft will keep losing ground to the companies focused on what consumers want.

The first approach is new life. The second is slow death.