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The supertanker has started to turn. You'd need the finest protractor to measure the change in direction so far, but trust me it's happened. It will be more visible next month, a slight shift in the horizon. In a few months, you'll notice that something has changed. It will be a year before we really know what's happened.

The supertanker is Microsoft. And it's realised that it's heading in the wrong direction. Not 'going north instead of south' sort of wrong direction. It's not suddenly going to open source Excel, nor will it pop SQL Server Reporting Services CDs into your favourite breakfast cereal. This is the Good Ship Microsoft, after all. Some say she has pirate flags hoisted, although I prefer the mental image of a mighty ship with thousands of people down below, all with their hands on the large rowing oars. Everyone in Microsoft pulls in the same direction, although history shows this to be more desire than result.

But what's this? It's not Cap'n Bill with his hands on the wheel. No, he's up the main mast, sat in the crow's nest armed with some binoculars. It's not Seaman Steve of Ballmer either; he's down below cheering on the teams of rowers. It's a new face, one picked up at the last island stopover. It's Shipman Ozzie, fresh from the intake of new blood from Port Groove.

Enough of this seafaring banter. Is Ozzie really in charge now? Yes, I believe it's true. It's his new company-wide services vision, which will be driven hard into every operating unit within Microsoft over the next few weeks.

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It's his hand on the wheel, and he's turning it fast.

Why has this happened? Well, Microsoft has made this sort of sea change before. Bill orchestrated it back in 1995 when he woke up to the uncontrolled and rapid rise of the Internet. Suddenly, the company was looking in the wrong direction, was complacent and needed a shake-up. Bill gave it that shake and dictated that the top people got onboard or left the company.

Today, it's another shake-up. But Microsoft is too big, too all-encompassing, too far-reaching for Bill to do it all by himself. He needs a team with a new figurehead to lead the charge. And Ozzie is the man who's landed the task.

Ozzie's vision is simple: Microsoft is being sidelined by the very capabilities it helped generate. Microsoft has been at the forefront of the Web Services, XML and SOAP world and its latest development tools are the best of the breed. But fleet-footed startups, from Google's billionaires to the two-man teams toiling over podcasting and RSS tools, have shown that Microsoft is lumbering too slowly. It lacks vision in the services space, and it needs someone to take the company by the scruff of the neck.

Don't get me wrong: Microsoft is an amazing place to visit, to work at and to play with. It never ceases to amaze me how nice, focused and pleasant the people are who work there. It's like a modern utopia of neat chinos and tie-less shirts. But such a big ship gets complacent, and the fault lies at the very top. Microsoft's internal structure is one of multiple villages, almost fiefdoms, that work hard but independently. They till their soil, plant their seeds and watch their food grow. Each fiefdom has a small collective of leaders, but there's almost no-one in the company who actually spans the entire space. It's left to the genius of Bill and the sheer force of will of Steve to keep the peace.

For years, I've felt that this structure was going to run its course, and with the announcement of Ozzie's new position it's clear Microsoft is waking up to the need for a new, common vision. Ozzie puts it clearly in his internal memo: