Anyway, Bill Gates doesn't want any longer to be leading the effort at Microsoft. Someone has to, and that someone seems to be Ray. They have spent a huge amount of money to put Ray in that position -- $120 million or so for the purchase, on top of a $50 million-plus investment. That's over $170 million to buy Ray and his company, or rather, to buy Ray.

What does that say about the state of things at Microsoft? $170 million to buy the ideas of one guy?

Now don't get me wrong, Ray is an enormously clever guy whom I have the utmost admiration for, and with an amazing track record not just of software innovation but also of entrepreneurship. Ray's ideas may well be what Microsoft needs, but will Microsoft be able to understand and execute them?

In a conversation with Ray back at Lotusphere 2005, he told me he regretted how Lotus Notes, in around the R4 timeframe, had moved from being an end-user tool to one that became a professional developer's tool. That placed Notes more under the control of corporate IT and less controlled by end user innovation.

He -- and I agree with him -- saw that as much more bad than good. The need to place IT back power in the hand of end users led to Groove. Microsoft saw Groove as a way to compete with Notes outside of email, and invested in Groove. But that wasn't enough. They needed Ray himself, presumably to show them what collaboration really is and how to make it work.

But collaboration is not, as we know, just about software. It's about people, your current and target customers. Not a good idea to show them that you think of them as dinosaurs, as some current Microsoft advertizing here in the UK shows customers who have not yet upgraded to current versions of Office. It's about simple and effective toolsets that can be easily deployed, preferably out of one box. And it's about how you apply those tools to your business.

Can Ray do this? Well, Microsoft has bet upwards of $170 million that he can. I'm sure that Ray is clever enough to do the job, but will he have the stomach for it? Or would he rather be doing what he has done best, architect and develop simple products based on simple ideas, like he has done with Symphony, Notes and Groove?

If he succeeds, then Microsoft will have something to be proud of, and maybe even a direct competitor product to Notes. But if he fails, what will the future then be for Microsoft? Does Ray really hold the future of Microsoft in his hands?

Dan Velasco is a Senior Technical Editor for WebSpherePower Magazine and DominoPower Magazine. He's a Sun Certified Java Programmer, Sun Certified Web Component Developer and an IBM Certified Solution Developer for WebSphere Studio V5.0. He's also a Principal CLP Application Developer (R4, R5 and ND6) as well as a CLP System Administrator (R4 and R5). You can reach him via email at dvelasco@webspherepower.com or on the Web at http://DanVelasco.com.