Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor of Management
Professor of Engineering Systems

Michael A. Cusumano is the Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. He specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in the computer software industry, as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. He teaches courses on Strategic Management, Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and The Software Business.

Professor Cusumano received a B.A. degree from Princeton in 1976 and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1984. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Production and Operations Management at the Harvard Business School during 1984-86. He is fluent in Japanese and has lived and worked in Japan for seven years. He received two Fulbright Fellowships and a Japan Foundation Fellowship for studying at Tokyo University. He has been a visiting professor in management at Hitotsubashi University and Tokyo University in Japan and the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, and a visiting professor in computer science at the University of Maryland. He has consulted for more than 50 major companies around the world, including Alcatel, Amadeus, AOL, AT&T, Business Objects, Cisco, Ericsson, Fiat, Ford, Fujitsu, General Electric, Fidelity, Verizon, Hitachi, Huawei, i2 Technologies, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Motorola, NASA, NEC, Nokia, Nortel, NTT Data, Philips, Robert Bosch, Schlumberger, Siemens, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. He has been a director of NuMega Technologies (sold to Compuware in 1998 for $150 million) and Infinium Software (sold to SSA Global Technologies in 2002 for $105 million), as well as other private and public software companies. He is currently a director of Patni Computer Systems (software outsourcing, based in India, NYSE PTI) and a special advisor to e-Frontier, Japan’s largest producer of 3-D graphics and animation software tools. He has been an advisor to numerous startup companies, including NetNumina Solutions (now part of Keane, Inc.), firstRain (wireless and web services software), H-5 Technologies (digital search technology), and Sigma Technology Group PLC (early stage ventures). He has also served as editor-in-chief and chairman of the MIT Sloan Management Review and writes periodically for Communications of the ACM as well as The Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, The Washington Post, and other publications.

Professor Cusumano has published eight books. The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad, was named one of the best business books of 2004 by Steve Lohr of the New York Times. Microsoft Secrets (1995, with Richard Selby) is a best-selling study of Microsoft’s strategy, organization, and approach to software development, and has approximately 150,000 copies in print in 14 languages. Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation (2002, with Annabelle Gawer) examines how industry leaders orchestrate complementary innovations that make their platforms more valuable. Competing on Internet Time: Lessons from Netscape and its Battle with Microsoft (1998, with David Yoffie), was named one of the top 10 business books of 1998 by Business Week and Amazon.com, and played a central role in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. Thinking Beyond Lean: How Multi-Project Management is Transforming Product Development at Toyota and Other Companies (1998, with Kentaro Nobeoka) analyzes product development and platform strategies in the auto industry. He is also co-editor of Strategic Thinking for the Next Economy (2001, with Costas Markides) and author of Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management (1991) and The Japanese Automobile Industry: Technology and Management at Nissan and Toyota (1985).

Updated July 2007

News and announcements:

Books Published by Michael A. Cusumano

Prof. Michael Cusumano on public radio’s “Marketplace” in a story on technology stocks – IBM service contracts boost profit (July 22, 2008)

Prof. Michael Cusumano in the New York Times, on indirect vs. direct network effects – Google, Zen Master of the Market (July 7, 2008)

Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano on Bill Gates' Microsoft departure, in The Economist – After Bill (June 27, 2008)

Prof. Cusumano in the New York Times – Microsoft Seeks Path Beyond the Gates Legacy (June 27, 2008)

Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano on Bill Gates' Microsoft departure – Bill Gates steps down, but not out of public eye (June 25, 2008)

Prof. Cusamano in NY Times: Facebook is extending its network to blood donations (March 11, 2008)

Prof. Cusamano on CRM Daily.com – Can Microsoft learn from Oracle? (February 29, 2008)

Prof. Cusmano co-authors article in Wall Street Journal (November 5, 2007)