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MS Hires The Salesman Who Won Munich For SUSE
ron_ivi writes "In a move reminiscent of the 1997 MSFT/Borland Lawsuits, Microsoft has hired the SUSE sales guy who won Munich for SUSE.
So if you want a job in this tough job market, just be wildly successful at your current job and Microsoft will come recruit you. (Another interesting Microsoft hire is the chair of the ISO C++ standards body as their VisualC++.NET architect.) Personally I think it's great that they recognize talented individuals and reward them well."
Anyone know if they're happy with Linux in Munich?
-- jaf
I wonder how many good job offers MS has floated by Linus?
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
Microsoft is well known for their great hiring practices. I think you mean hiring choices. When I interviewed through their hiring practices, I went through two phone interviews and then an in-person interview on a golf course (I don't play golf, but the two interviewers do). I was told that I would be considered if I agreed to quit college and to never attempt to get a degree. I stuck it out, got a degree, and now I'm making about $30k less a year than if I had went with Microsoft. I feel that I learned a lot in those last two years of college - a lot more than I learned in the first two. A hiring practice that asks college students to quit school just seems like a bad practice to me.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
First off, Herb Sutter joined MS over 2 years ago. He freely admitted that people would think weird of him to join such a company, but Visual Studio .NET's C++ conformance has greatly increased to the point of almost leading the industry. The current C++ compiler is missing a few esoteric language features and the 'export' keyword, but otherwise it compiles complex C++ just fine. This is a massive improvment over their previous offerings and is no doubt attributable to Mr. Sutter's involvement.
So your statement is completely misguided, and I assume that you aren't a C++ programmer that uses MS tools. Otherwise you would laud their efforts to bring the development community a solid (and partially free) tool for use under Windows.
Am I the only one that sees this as buying out the competition?
Which is a long held tradition in the business world. With the caveat that you cannot always do it -- there's that irritating little bit about freedom of choice. If someone doesn't want to sell their business to you (or, more particularly in this case) work for you, they don't have to.
And some guy is making the world better by furthering a standard. Let's hire him so that our C++ becomes the only stardard the world must follow.
Of course, the reality here is that VC++ was close to rock bottom when it came to meeting the ISO C++ standards (particularly in regards to the STL). Since Herb Sutter was hired by MS they have drastically improved compatibility with the standard, both in the compiler and in their STL. I don't think they're the most compliant, but they're a damn sight better than a lot of other compilers, GNU g++ included.
As for changing the standard for MS's benefit -- by merely stating that it proves that you have absolutely no clue how the ISO committees work, particularly when it comes to languages.
Oh, and in case you're wondering -- no, I don't use MS VC++. I code in Unix with g++. But I'm not a clueless moron.