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 and technology management in the computer software industry, as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. He teaches courses on Strategic Management as well as The Software Business, and works extensively as a consultant in software development and technology strategy, primarily for high-tech companies, as well as in venture capital.
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 major companies around the world, including Alcatel, AOL, AT&T, Business Objects, Cisco, CuraGen, DEC, Ericsson, Fiat, Telecom Italia, Ford, Fujitsu, General Electric, Fidelity, Verizon, Hitachi, i2 Technologies, IBM, Intel, Lucent, MediaOne, Merrill Lynch, MITRE, MultiLink, Motorola, NASA, NEC, NorTel, Robert Bosch, Schlumberger, Siemens, Tandem Computer, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. He is a director of Infinium Software (ERP applications) and Investhink, Ltd. (financial services content and integration software), and an advisor to NetNumina Solutions (e-business software), 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 has written for The Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, The Washington Post, Communications of the ACM and other publications.
Professor Cusumano has published six books. 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. 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. 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).
He is currently completing The Software Business: A Handbook for Managers and Entrepreneurs.