I recall reading an article in a business magazine that talked about the real value being in the implementation of the idea, and not the idea itself. I agree with such an agreement in part, but also disagree with such an opinion to some extent.

If we’re talking about a start-up business, such an assessment of implementation far outweighing the value of an idea is reasonable; however, I would say such an assessment, when applied to a large corporation, does not hold up to an equal measure.

For instance, Microsoft has all of the needed resources to implement almost any imaginable idea that would be relevant to its business model and bottom line. Yet, it doesn’t have any meaningful ideas to implement that can help it catch up in important industries in which it is currently trailing other corporations (Search, Mobile, etc.)

Looking at Mobile, it is easy to see why an innovative idea could be very valuable in and of itself to corporations such as Microsoft – especially when Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s money losing handset business is taken into consideration.

In all actuality Microsoft’s Windows OS is what destroyed Nokia’s handset business in the first place, and I’m pretty sure Steve Ballmer’s $7.2 billion acquisition bid for a company that was bordering on the edge of bankruptcy, prior to his departure as CEO of Microsoft, was more of a sympathy play than a strategic business decision based on confidence.

The most telling revelation of Microsoft’s lack of meaningful ideas regarding mobile, is the fact that Microsoft is focusing on creating a Nokia phone(s) that runs on Android’s OS.

If a person had an idea that could help Microsoft succeed in turning Nokia’s misfortunes around, and make Nokia phones that run on Windows OS a contender in the mobile wars that are currently a two-party race (Android OS vs. Apple’s IOS), how much would such an idea be worth?