This is the question asked by Business Pundit . "Will the successful companies (and employees) of the future be the ones that can do the hard things? Will concentration be a major source of competitive advantage in the coming years? When everyone is focusing on strategy, leadership, and technology as their sources of competitive advantage, will you be able to win by building a workforce that can execute because they can block out the mass of digital distraction and get things done? If thinking is the primary skill of knowledge workers, will the depth of your thinking determine your success? And if so, is it better to spend your time reading financial statements (for example) than scanning Digg for the latest Web2.0 app? I have cut back on blog reading the last 6 months, trying to search for quality over quantity. I've changed most of my RSS subscriptions to not display full posts anymore. That way, if I want to read something all the way through, I have to click to the site, which means I am much more discerning about the content I consume."

[via 800-CEO-READ Blog] The Forbes list:

* In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman (1982)
* Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras (1994)
* Reengineering the Corporation by Michael Hammer and Jim Champy (1993)
* Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar (1993)
* Competitive Advantage by Michael Porter (1998)
* The Tipping Point by Malcolm Galdwell (2000)
* Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore (1999)
* The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow (1990)
* The Six Sigma Way by Peter Pande et al (2000)
* Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey(1990)
* Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis (1989)
* The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen (1997)
* Japan Inc. by Shotaro Ishinomori (1988)
* Den of Thieves by James Stewart (1991)
* The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker (2001)
* Competing for the Future by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad (1994)
* The Warren Buffet Way by Robert Hagestrom (1991)
* Jack: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch with John Bryne (2001)
* Good to Great by Jim Collins (2001)
* The New New Thing by Michael Lewis (2000)

Fortune writes about Ray Ozzie's role in transforming the company and adds:

Microsoft has to move before Google or even Yahoo! offers its own large-scale services for businesses over the Web. Up to now those companies have focused on consumers, but it's widely believed in Silicon Valley that Google, at least, will soon launch corporate e-mail services to exploit the infrastructure it's already built for Gmail.

(Google is rumored to have a million servers around the world and, according to a knowledgeable source, is already the top electricity user in at least one large U.S. state. Google would not comment.)

Microsoft is planning to use its server farms to offer anyone huge amounts of online storage of digital data. It even has a name for that future service: Live Drive. With Live Drive, all your information - movies, music, tax information, a high-definition videoconference you had with your grandmother, whatever - could be accessible from anywhere, on any device.