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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."
Yes, it's war, and microsoft is not above recruiting the enemy's best lieutenants.
MP3 Search Engine
Don't be successful.
Of $0, but he opted to go with Microsoft anyway.
Anyone know if they're happy with Linux in Munich?
-- jaf
they hire Linus as head Longhorn coder?
I wonder how many good job offers MS has floated by Linus?
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
Get Munich back on Windows!
His boss: OK, you're on probation until you get this first sale. There's this council in Munich...
Bill Gates: "Buy him out, boys."
My other processor is big-endian.
Why not hire those you think are best if you can afford them? And I'm not seeing these people being conscripted.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
If its Herb Sutter you are talking about, he's been with microsoft for awhile now. He's posted a few articles on msdn about C++ on things like conformance and feature improvements to VS.net
Seems there isn't such thing as integrity.
You do realize we're talking about sales here, right?
Commissions are based in large part on the size of the market into which you are selling your product. The opportunity to earn large commissions is far greater for a salesman working for Microsoft than one working for SuSE. We as a community may not like that, but ultimately the only way to change that is to put our money where our mouths are.
why is this news? He quit SuSE in 2003 and he got a new job.
--
From the C|Net article, dateline May 7, 1997:
Yocam maintains that Microsoft is luring personnel away with huge signing bonuses, some in excess of $1 million. "They have the audacity to send limos to Borland's headquarters to take Borland employees out to lunch. I mean, this has got to stop."
Ah, the good old days. Million-dollar signing bonuses. Limos for job prospects. Corvettes for hot programmers fresh out of college. Penthouse suites with the company logo in genuine Italian marble.
Why did it ever have to end?
Oh, wait, don't answer that...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
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 $30k less a year than if I had went with Microsoft. I feel that I learned a lot in those last two years of college - a lot more than I learned in the first two. A hiring practice that asks college students to quit school just seems like a bad practice to me.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
You have no idea how business works do you? You don't buy a competitor who is/has beating/beaten you to destroy them, you buy them in order to use their assets/skills/tech/etc for your own purposes. Only a fool destroys their betters! If you knew anything about business you would know it is in your best interest to hire the best people you can, yes, they might be a threat, they could destroy you from the inside and leave you hanging... but that is far better then the alternative of hiring your inferiors and being safe and secure, firm in the knowledge that they can never harm you and take your job/company/business/etc.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Sales is about selling... it has precious little to do with making the world a better place.
Herb Sutter mentions planned C++/.Net CLR extensions being discussed for later inclusion in the C++ standard in last months C/C++ Journal. (Sorry, there is no link on their site yet.) I thought it odd that the chairman of such a standards board would mention M$ proprietary software so favorably. Then I saw that he works for M$ and understood perfectly. No conflicts of interest here. Enough to make you sick. I wonder what Stroustoup thinks of this. What next? A Microsoftie on Sun's Java steering committee perhaps?
an ill wind that blows no good
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.
Who says you can't do both? This way they get the best of both worlds: They have him, and can use his talents. Meanwhile, SuSE has to scramble to find someone of comparable ability, or lose ground. You *can* have your cake and eat it too!
*That's* how successful corporate raiding works.
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There's a very simple term for this kind of hiring. It's called "smart business". If somone proves that they can do something great for your competitors, like pull off a massive sales coup, then that's the kind of guy you want on your staff. The same applies to engineering, politics, and a host of other enterprises.
For example, the guy who designed the S2000 for Honda designed the 300ZX turbo for Nissan. (Both are benchmark designs for the auto industry.) David Gergen worked for both the Nixon and the Clinton administrations. (He may have worked for Reagan, but I'll need to check to be sure.) Hilary Clinton was president of her college's chapter of the Young Republicans, and technology companies exchange employees regularly.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
As you grow older you'll regretably see that, all things considered, you learn as much working for two years as you do at University. Plus, you probably pick other things up, like not writing "if I had went". :-)
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
It's called having a job. If you're a salesperson, guess what? You sell what you're HIRED TO SELL!
Only on Slashdot, made up mostly of college students and unemployed, would it be considered a bad thing and a "lack of integrity" to sell things for one company and then go over and sell things for another.
It's not like the rest of the world views everything as "Windows vs. Linux" like you do. It's just another product the guy's gonna be selling. More power to him! The anti-capitalism mindset that permeates around here is so silly sometimes.