Scott: is probably one of the most interesting subjects in IT today. Certainly the demand on most IT organizations is to do more with less, do more with flat budgets, and so innovation becomes the best source for figuring out ways to accomplish that mission. In Microsoft, what we try to do is foster an environment that encourages innovation and then quickly sorts out those things that are truly innovative versus just different. I make that distinction because in an inventive world and a creative environment, often different is seen as better, and that's not necessarily the case. And so our test is, does it really matter? Can it move the needle? Can this make a 30, 40, 50 percent difference in productivity or 100 percent or 500 percent? That's kind of the barometer of what matters. If it's a 5 percent improvement or a 2 percent improvement, generally it's not that interesting. And so I think innovation is the engine that allows you to get some of these quantum leaps in terms of productivity or a new way of doing things that ultimately leads to greater value for our customers or even our internal parts of our organization.

CIO: What kind of influence do you seek to pursue as an IT leader at Microsoft?

Scott: I think an IT leader at has a great opportunity to have influence on the corporation. Our role in is really unique. Leadership jobs have three aspects: Down the middle we have the core IT things that probably would look familiar to any CIO anywhere in the world. It's applications, it's desktops, it's networks, it's data centers, it's all of the classic things. But in Microsoft we also have the opportunity to work very closely with our product development organizations, and so we test all of our products. Internally we call it dog-fooding our products. I'd actually like to call it ice-creaming. I'm trying to change the branding there a little bit. And then on the other side we work closely with our customers, and so I'm the executive sponsor for a number of large enterprises in customers around the globe. And that direct feedback in terms of how Microsoft is doing, how we're supporting our customers, is good input, and one that we can directly talk to the product development organizations about-how things are landing in the real world, not only for Microsoft IT but also with our customer base. And so those areas, I think, provide us an opportunity to have a lot of influence in the company and make it maybe a little bit bigger than a traditional IT organization might be in any other company.

CIO: What's one way you are an advocate for customers?

Scott: I think one of the roles of a CIO is to be an in-house advocate for internal customers, to help balance competing needs and help manage the portfolio and to identify opportunities in the business where, either through business transformation or IT transformation or the combination of the two, we can do something more or better for Microsoft internally or externally. And so I think that's one of the key roles of my organization, and certainly my role.