Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Employees Critical Of Their Employer
bonch writes "BusinessWeek is running an article on internal unrest at Microsoft from their own employees. 'Once the dream workplace of tech's highest achievers, it is suffering key defections to Google and elsewhere... Much of the sharpest criticism comes from within. Dozens of current and former employees are criticizing -- in BusinessWeek interviews, court testimony, and personal blogs -- the way the company operates internally.' In related news, Steve Ballmer has pledged to make changes inside Microsoft to avoid the embarrassingly long development cycle of Vista, including a 'revamping of the engineering and the processes.' Is it too late?"
Also on BusinessWeek there's an interview with Ballmer where he dodges every question he's asked (and re-asked) regarding morale issues at Microsoft, competition, release delays with Longhorn/Vista, etc.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_3Oddly he didn't jump around screaming "Developers, developers, developers!!!" this time around.
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
I have dealt with people at Microsoft in the past, and found that their problem is not with their engineers or with the guys in the trenches, but with the business development guys. Seriously, how many of them does it take to screw a lightbulb? It's pathetic ... So much schmoozing and nonsense, no focus on real results - everyone is always trying to get that one big deal, not focusing on the incremental stuff that is vital to actual innovation taking place.
... Which they can totally do, as evidenced by the tremendous amount of innovation seen in Office 12, for example ...
The best thing Microsoft could do is make a statement that they will stop issuing statements, and let their work/products speak for themselves
Yep. Getting away from all the fun and excitement of Whizzy new products and rapidly expanding markets. It's always fun taking the other guy's lunch money.
Now many of those companies who survived the .com bust are looking to make a profit. Growing companies rarely show a profit, as they roll profits back into feuling expansion. Profitable companies are usually trying to get the most bang for the buck out of each seat and that usually means trimming underperforming branches, scaling back others which are performing well to find the minimum necessary expense to maintain the same revenue.
Microsoft being a monopoly hasn't really dealt with the question of what to do when revenue flattens, which it sure looks like it will when Vista ships.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From my experience, reinvigoration of the company will require a pretty gut-wrenching shake-up. I've lived through some half measures where I work and so far they have not produced anything like previous performance.
I hate Microsoft and what they've done to the PC world, but they are one of the biggest software companies around with a large reserve of cash to fund future development. If they ever learn to truly innovate instead of acting to stifle competition, they have the resources to do great things.
Gotta have a dream, right?
Best regards.
And where are we now? IE7 is the same browser it's been for, what, 4 or 5 years now... they just added tabs. Did they even write the code for tabbed browsing themselves or did they send the CrazyBrowser guys a couple dollars for their code? At a time when CEO's and programmers alike should be getting exciting, we have reports of pissed of workers and incidents involving Google-cursing and chair-chucking. And what's the deal with WinFS anyway? We hear that we'll need a gig of RAM to run this thing, but what the heck is it going to be used for?
I can't see how they could release this for, as Balmer puts it, an embarassingly long time. If Balmer is 'revamping of the engineering and the processes' this late in the game, things must be pretty rough. Development seems pretty stale right now and the pressure is on Microsoft -- if this OS isn't as popular as it has historically been people (and distributors) might take a look at Red Hat or Ubuntu.
So yeah... this alleged change comes a liiitle bit late.
The culture just isn't what it used to be, and besides that, people are getting burned out, considering the kind of hours we've kept for the last howevermany years. Not to mention that management has made some bad decisions lately that have hurt the company, and there's a murmur of concern going around that Cars is going to be Pixar's first ho-hum movie.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Sounds like pretty much everywhere I've worked which at one time seemed a dream job.
Microsoft is different, if only in scale. These employees work on products that bring in a billion per month for their employer. Yet, these same employees only make market wages. It was only a few years ago, these employees were all but guaranteed from their options to become millionaires. Now, Microsoft is trying to up their profits on paper, so they're squeezing employees for that money. Nevermind that Microsoft is still making around a billion a month. And nevermind that Microsoft's lack of profit growth is directly attributable to those managers who are making a million a year in salary.
Microsoft has so much money that besides the screw ups we KNOW about, it could screw up on numerous unknown projects without ever having a hit to it's bottom line. Thus you get a culture where stupid is as management does. The end result is lack of true innovation which also results in lack of choice for consumers and businesses.
About 20 years ago we have various vendors come in and pitch their Big Iron to us. We hardly needed DEC to show up, because we already loved them. We had to let IBM show up because the boss always had a soft spot in his heart for them and people with suits and ties who know nothing about operations or programming think IBM=Answers.
So these IBM guys come in and pitch to us like they were made in the Gotti family. A few questions are fielded semi-informatively, but the tone said "listen you stupid moron, stop wasting our time, just buy the the thing because we know and you should know, there's nothing better and you're just a damn fool if you don't".
We didn't. Ironically we ended up with Pr1me, because our new software would run on it. IBM eventually went through a few years of real housecleaning, as everytime I tried to contact Sales regarding an order for an RS/6000, I got a different salesman or an answering machine with "I'm no longer with IBM please direct your call to ..." Finally getting the order through a district sales manager for the state(!) and even he had to be told what we were ordering and not to keep trying to tack on color monitors and laser printers we didn't want or need.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Sadly, the joke isn't as extreme as the actual answer:
/ 28/53298.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2003/10
According to that, the minimum is about 42 people to make any change. A lot of this is because of things like localisation issues. (One translator for each language...)
I worked at Microsoft for a few years. I never found it to be a dream workplace. Many of the largest complaints I had (that of feeling like I was the victim of interdepartment turf wars) turned out to be extremely widespread.
The basic problem is that despite a huge amount of effort on the part of senior management pushing a message of "help beyond your department," departments still have to justify budgets, and are very unwilling to cite cross-department contributions in this process. So you get a message of "go do this: it is important to the company" and then when you are done you get "I wish you hadn't taken the time out of studying for more MCP exams to make these admittedly great contributions."
The problem was so bad in my department that the General Manager went to great lengths to make himself available on the floor and break down any image of him as being inaccessible. And yet he was entirely unsuccessful in this endevour.
When I left, it became clear that my entire department was not long to remain in the US. About 2 months ago, they finally committed to lay off those in my department.
I never found Microsoft to be a dream place to work. Politics of the worst sort (yeah, politics are everywhere), and in particular failure to recognize outstanding performance lead many blue badges in my department to feel very unhappy with their jobs. In short, we never felt valued.
By nearly any account, I was a steller contributor. I was asked to provide leadership roles in various ways, from conducting training for my coworkers to acting as a technical lead in the response to the Blaster worm. Yet again, even though these roles were done at the request of management, I never felt that my contributions in these special projects was appreciated in any way, shape, or form. May have just been my department though.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I was a Microserf in Support... that's right; not all Microserfs are developers.
Here are some problems with Microsoft:
1. Training - There's a phone; now go do that support stuff
2. Customer satisfaction surveys - Customers got mad when you had to tell them "Windows doesn't work that way". You had to get a 8 or 9 out of 9 on everyr survey or your manager would get mad. Unsupported product? Third-party issue? User error? Tough!
3. Managers - I had 5 managers in one year. One manager skipped free training because it interfered with "Survivor" on TV. Only manager had atechnical clue; the rest might as well have managed a pizza parlor
4. Co-workers - they regularly backstabbed contractors. Why? Because they could
5. No internal processes - Support engineers have to just make everythingm up. There are NO processes for escalation
I am glad to be gone from that madhouse
See here is the problem. Microsoft's historic earnings record has made the leaders more or less beyond reproach from shareholders. The early participants largely control the company (Gates is still the Chairman, IIRC), so it would take a large change to make this happen.
Since Balmer and Gates have been involved in the company from the beginning, though decades of extremely strong growth, there is a strong tendency to defer to them.
Furthermore, Balmer isn't that far out of character compared to Gates re: management and competition (too bad the court record in Caldera v. Microsoft was sealed; it was interesting to read before then). So the default idea is that they must be doing something right.
If Microsoft had the right CEO, I think it highly likely the company would begin introducing some very compelling products again. Their technical products are still good (Yukon, VStudio, etc.), but public has a bad view of the company now due to IE/Windows vulnerabilities.
IE/Windows problems are largely due to design flaws and cannot be fixed without breaking backwards compatibility. This is why many of us see the new emphasis on security to be laughable at best.
I used to work at Microsoft. There is a strong corporate cult mentality there, even in departments like mine where morale was quite low. It is one of those paradoxes you have to experience to appreciate.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I tested hardware for Win98se, WinMe, Win2k & WinXP. And main annoyance I had with my job was that it was far too boring. I would often email in sick Monday, Tuesday, & sometimes Wednesday. When I came in, I was able to easily catch up and log all my test scores by Friday afternoon. The job was just too slack, and it showed with management who would take our entire team out to Hooters resturant, come back 2 or 3 hours later drunk off their asses. The boss would invite me to go with them, but I really dont like getting drunk in the early afternoon. We had mini-fridges in the lab and occasionally people would start drinking at noon.
.ini files which got Lotus Notes to work (call after call to internal support didnt work). My boss accused me of hacking the operating system, and I got dinged pretty bad on my evaluation. So while I did have some fun at MS, it set a bad example of conduct for future jobs.
While some may think this is great, it really creates horrible work ethics should you move on to a new job. Lots of young people thinking that this was normal, and when they moved onto a new job outside the company they might assume that its ok to eat, drink, sleep, & shower at work. This is basically what happened to me, I moved on and ended up getting fired from two jobs, for doing things that were considered very tame at Microsoft (swearing in a casual way, using email for non-business related purposes like talking a friend down the hall). I came really close to getting fired on my current job for creating a batch file to copy
Policy and proceedure are radically different at Microsoft compared to companies like Starbucks, or Blue Cross.
The irony for me was that MS was going to hire alot of entry level testing positions (they lost the perma-temp lawsuit). I didnt think I was qualified, but my boss pressed me to apply. I never got the job because im not very good at answering Brain Teaser type questions, if only the interviewers had asked me questions relating to my job, maybe I would have been hired. But most of the people in my lab, the ones who didnt really care about getting hired on full time, got hired full time. Including the potheads and alcoholics.
I had one guy who couldnt take the stress of working at MS get hired on full time, and he would duck into the parking lot to smoke pot for 2 hours when he told everyone he was over at the developers office testing. This one guy was responsible for testing Digital Video devices, and he was just too fucking stupid for words. The developer however was the smartest, nicest guy I ever met there.
It's always too late to improve the past, and it's
never too late to improve the future.
The article seems to raise the spectre of two distinct kinds of issues: management problems and engineering problems. I think Microsoft manages its business operations very well, and perhaps could use some improvement in its management of human resources, but I won't comment about that substantively.
Realistically, the windows source base is vast at this point, and being needlessly complicated by the demand to build a dozen different versions, and by the need to maintain support for legacy applications. This is a real problem, but it's a good problem to have. The open question is what is to be done for it.
The conservative position held under Ballmer's leadership appears to be "throw more time/money/people at it" and stay the course. But there may not be enough time/money/people. Complexity compounds combinatorially.
One reasonable alternative is to maintain a Win32 legacy compatibility operating system, and fork an incompatible version that breaks backwards compatibility, in order to make the development of new technologies much more managable. For a smaller player, fragmenting a market they need to grow would be suicidal. But for a monopoly like Microsoft, whose monopoly position is threatened by rising competitors, it is a good move, because it will fragment markets which OSX and Linux would otherwise gain, while keeping their installed base secure. Moreover, with a faster release cycle they can collect more "Microsoft taxes". A faster release cycle requires a less complex technical base.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Nah, their Edsel was Windows ME. This will probably be more like their Aztek or something.
No doubt what you say is true. But ultimately it will come down to the quantity of unhappy institutional investors. If enough of them begin to complain loudly enough, Warren Buffett will say to Gates, "Well Bill, MSFT did pretty well when you were CEO. I'm not saying you should take that job again, but it's time to start looking..."
A side thought: I think Ballmer would be an excellent CEO for a company like Nike, Carl's Junior, maybe even a car company *cough*GM boring designs*cough*. They offer totally marketing driven products, which SB is very good at promoting.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
As a former summer intern, I'll have to disagree. It's not just the people who have been there the longest who are complaining. I got out of the software sector, and hopefully eventually out of computers, largely due to my experiences with Microsoft (and a host of other reasons, but MS was emblematic).
Microsoft, as a company, is suffering from the same stuff its software suffers from: bloat. There are levels upon levels of management with no clear role as to what exactly it is they do. There are project leads of project leads of project leads and it's just one big terrific mess.
As a result, it takes forever to get anything done. Innovation doesn't really happen, and passion for the development of the product just doesn't exist. (I was a dev for Avalon (the presentation layer of Longhorn (Vista)))
If you want a job in the software sector, go google. My friend loves it there.
I beg to disagree.
I used to work at a software shop that did business apps on the one hand, and games on the other hand. Guess what ? Both are essentially the same job, with the same processes and quite a bit of skills in common, even if games are usually in C/C++, and Biz apps in another language. When you get down to it, it's setting specs and developping to them. The Artists are more of an issue than a fun factor, with their inate tendency to disregard technical constraints. But then again, you get that also with ergonomics / looks in biz apps, especially if they are web-based.
I found the level of maturity quite a bit higher with the biz apps developement people. Superficially, that does seem to mean less fun, but in the long run, that means fewer conflicts, more learning (vs grandstanding)... You even get to interact more with your users, and evolve your projects over time (vs "just" having magazine reviews and pewing out rushed patches).
I am not a developper, but if I were, I'd definitely go for the Biz Apps market.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
That things were going well under Gates was an accident of the market. I don't think that Ballmer can be blamed for most of the current problems. After all the issues of market saturation, and emergant competition were nacient when Gates left the helm.
I don't discount what you say, but there are so many other companies out there that are interesting and trading is still active enough for Microsoft, that most of the critics today, can simply sell their stock carefully and invest elsewhere. Note, however, that Microsoft stock is not performing well by any standards, and that Microsoft appears to be losing investor faith left and right. So it could happen, but I think that most investors are likely to simply say "Hmm... I think it is time to take my money elsewhere."
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
If a company sitting on $50+ billion in cash has run out of time then Slashdot is a serious news organization.
That things were going well under Gates was an accident of the market
I disagree with you here. I think Gates is a better businessman than that, and his competitors were not his equal.
I think that most investors are likely to simply say "Hmm... I think it is time to take my money elsewhere."
They already have, That's why the stock is at a low PE. I think of MSFT as a call option on the unrealized potential of the company. A new, effective CEO could make all sorts of changes - spinoffs, new product lines in hardware (an area where Microsoft has a very good reputation), and other forms of restructuring. I think Gates is also buddies with Jack Welch. No idea if Gates listens to him. Of course Ballmer is supposedly a student of Welch, but he must not be turning in his homework.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Also, the emerging competition from Linux is not like you had with DR-DOS, OS/2 or anything like that. This is the one competitor Microsoft has ever had which is both serious and cannot be destroyed by targetting the vendor. This is fundamentally different than things in the past.
I question how much Microsoft's lack of success against Linux has to do with Open Source Magic(tm) verus just poor product positioning.
For years, Microsoft had great success with NT selling it as "Not Unix", but what they failed to realize was that in certain segments (finance, ISPs), there's a huge demand for something that "Is Unix", and Linux fit that bill on commodity hardware. When MS attempted to sell to these markets, they largely failed because they couldn't understand why the customers didn't see NT as the obvious replacement for something supposedly obsolete like Unix.
As a tangible example, SFU/Interix has been around since 1998 or so, but they've only recently started integrating it into the base OS. Had they seriously provided a Unix application environment years eariler, they would have cut off a big chunk of Linux growth.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Either Ballmer, Allchin, and Gates give up control of the company, or Microsoft will be irrelevant (if not bankrupt) by 2012-2015.
Something I've said many times before, and will maintain, is that Microsoft have never had a concrete, long term operating system strategy after Windows NT 4. That is evident from the fact that 2000 and XP were both merely incremental upgrades to NT 4 for the most part.
Vista is going to be comprised of leftovers...Things which Microsoft would have incorporated years ago if it hadn't been for them having to make ship dates. It is also going to be Microsoft's last release that the majority of the computer-using public care about.
Microsoft need to do what Apple have done; move to a BSD core, and thus allow each group to play to its' own strengths. The BSD people are very good at making a core, underlying operating system. Microsoft on the other hand have proven that they're good at UI and glitz. If the two were to be combined, we'd have a system unlike anything we've yet seen...the best of both worlds. This is where the GNU crowd need to see that the BSD license is useful in the grand scheme of things...because it gives companies who want a closed-source product a competently-constructed base.
However, I know that realistically, Microsoft are not going to do this. Gates, Ballmer, and Allchin are going to stay in control, and the company is going to become irrelevant, because they won't let go of their usual, failed way of doing things.
Disney used to consistently be on the list of top 100 companies to work for. The corporate atmosphere changed, not the people. If you mean "change" being a switch from focusing on the needs and interests of their employees and customers to "shareholder value", then yes, you're quite right. People don't like that kind of change, except for the shareholders of course.
Same thing happened at EDS, which used to be a really great company to work for. The focus shifted from quality service to executing contracts as cheaply as possible. Morale tanked, service went to hell, contracts impoded, downward spiral began.
Dell is currently experiencing the beginning of its slide. One of the first signs is a shift away from quality customer service. That's how it begins.
The only thing surprising about the MSFT internal distress is how long it took for people outside the company to find out.
If you want to test my theory, then watch SAIC. Currently an employee owned company, but they're about to go public. My bet is their IPO will lead to a period of rapid growth, eventually shifting to a focus on making money for the stakeholders. Service will suffer, the employees that have been there the longest (and hence make the most) will get forced out so they can be replaced with lower cost replacements. Turn over will increase, service will suffer, contracts will be lost. SAIC will turn into EDS.
I think it's funny how bean counters see the old guys as a liability to be replaced. Forgetting that the reason they have been with the company so long and make the most money is that the customer likes them and they get the job done.
When bean counters get ahold of your business, the same thing is going to happen as when Republicans get ahold of your country.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Clue: The theme "the secret life of [nonsentient/mythical beings/objects] where they turn out to have lives just as mundane as yours" was great THE FIRST FOUR TIMES YOU DID IT.
Unfortunately for you, every other CG animated production in the last ten years has traded on the same exact theme. Christ, it's done, stick a fork in it and turn it.
If Pixar's next big thing is going to be 90 minutes about the secret life of Luxo lamps, pack it in while your rep is still shiny. Chris Ware's "Bunny" got an Oscar because it was good storytelling, not because it had great diffuse lighting.
When I'm buying "Incredibles" even though I hate the "government good/lawyers evil" pap because it has sexy hair shaders, you're hurting.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
Ive contacted MS support 3 times (expensive if you dont have a contact..lol) They are more then compentant, not like your normal call center.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Ahem. Hrm.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
OK.
About a week or two ago, I was working on a server for a client in the area. I work for a consulting firm; we do everything from initial planning to wiring to building computers to support. This client had a 2003 Small Business Server, which basically ran as a file and MS-SQL server for their accounting software.
Well, dumbasses got hacked. The machine was on a public IP, and they saw fit to change their administrator password to "admin" while we weren't looking (with remote access enabled). Anyway, rootkits galore. The crux of the issue is that they basically needed a Wipe and Reload; BUT, their accounting software cost them $10,000 to have someone flown in from the software provider and install the software. So, wipe and reload is not an option - they can't afford to reinstall the financial software.
Oh, and their backups are corrupted. That's what they get for keeping them on the hard drive with the OS, but who's counting? Oh, plus, we set it up for daily backups, and then a weekly one - so it has 7 days, plus weeklys for a month, plus monthlys for a year. I had to go back 3 weeks before I even found a partial backup without the r00tkit, and they can't lose 3 weeks of financial data.
So, I take the server back to the shop, put it on the tech bench, and try to clean out the rootkit. Nothin' doin - it's got its fingers into everything. Luckily, I was able to get the Cam screener of "The Cave" that had been uploaded from efnet. Anyway... I can't get rid of the rootkit. I boot up off of ERD Commander, attach to the install, and flush the pre-fetch directory. Reboot. Can't log in. I do this and that. Can't log in.
So - I call Microsoft. Not only do I call Microsoft, but the shop I work for is a Preferred Partner, so we call the super secret number. Not only do we call the super secret number, but we call the super secret "BUSINESS CRITICAL OUTAGE / SERVER DOWN 24 HOUR AVAILABILITY" line. Granted, it costs $250 per incident, which you have to pre-purchase in packs of 10 ($2500 at a time)...
And get someone in india. Who takes down our information and puts us on hold for an hour.
And then someone else in india picks up. He has us try this and that until he realizes we have 2003 Small Business Server, and he says that the receptionist told him we had Enterprise Server (we told her Small Business, but who knows if she understood a word I said), and that's not his department (are they really that different, if you can't even get a login prompt?). He transfers us to SBS, where we sit on hold for another hour. So now we're at 3 hours, and we just got ahold of the right person.
Then, Habib (or whatever) talks us through the same steps. Then he tells us to install a 2nd windows install (in C:\Windows2\). Then pull files out of that install. That doesn't work, so we install SBS SP1. Same thing - doesn't work. Nothing works. But, we've spent another 3+ hours on the phone installing and configuring SBS and SP1.
SIX HOURS. I didn't once talk to a native english speaker in SIX HOURS on their BUSINESS CRITICAL OUTAGE phone line. My problem didn't get fixed.
The Plural of Anecdote is Data, but Microsoft's tech support still SUCKS.
~Will
sig?
I interviewed there a few months back for a senior research position. The interview focused on "why are manholes round" think-on-your-feet type of questions. This is for a position for which the job description was to think for long, sustained periods of time on very difficult problems and come up with a solution.
This is like selecting your olympic marathon team by having candidates run 100 meter sprints! The people doing the interview couldn't even see the incongruity of their approach.
To top things off, Microsoft was balking at a salary figure which was less than 50% of what Google ended up offering.
p.s. I'm also very good at mental "sprints", but the whole situation was so surreal that I couldn't get myself to concentrate on them. The whole time I was thinking "are they really that much out of touch in Redmond?"
I never worked for MSFT, but I interviewed with them and turned them down to take a position in a small software-related service company. About 10 developers and 40 tech support guys, an IT supervisor, a couple of sales people, and a bigwig. It was definately the right choice.
It's a challenge, and there's always something new and exciting for me to do. In the last two years, I've designed and built a high-availability server solution solution based in Linux, including writing all the server software, shell scripts, monitoring systems, etc. (no small undertaking). I've built a number of database interfaces using C# and .NET. I created a remote administration tool (admittedly based on free software :). I've created a web front-end to an application, done artwork with Photoshop, and have recently moved on to video/audio editing for marketing materials. And that's less than half of what's been on my plate in the past 24 months.
If you haven't guessed, I'm the wildcard at my company. I do the jobs no one else knows how to do simply because I pick it up the fastest (and often becuase I volunteer). I feel very much appreciated at the office. My coworkers (and particularly my boss) are generally quite astounded by the depth of knowledge I have over such a wide range of topics, and the work I create is publicly admired and appreciated.
This sounds like opportunities that you'd only find in a small company. What sort of corporation would lest on person such a wide variety of jobs?
Well, contrast that with my wife. She works for a major retail corporation that I know you've heard of. She started as a seasonal employee, was promoted to department manager in 3 months, and in 2 years has been promoted so many times that her salary has more than trippled.
She's an excellent manager and a very hard worker. She can motivate her employees to do twice as much as the company average, but with half the time and resources. And still her employees all love coming to work for her. On her own, she generally can do the work of about six people. Even early on, she had managed to accomplish so much with so little literally every manager above her paid her a vist to ask her about her methods--all the way up to the CEO.
Now she has recently begun travelling about the country making the company a better place; fixing broken methods, motivating employees, and creating innovative soulutions to difficult problems. What she does in her job is kind of similar to what I do in mine, but transposed to a retail environment on a corporate scale.
So what's my point? Well I think it's all about attitudes and people (particularly you). A lot of people who work at my wife's company hate their job. Typical "corporate America" attitude. My wife started at the very bottom (not even a "real" employee). But she became an expert in everyone else's fields by volunteering to do their work for them; just because she thought it would be fun to do. She then shot up through the ranks so fast that only corporate policy kept her from being promoted faster.
I think there are a lot of companies that are just plain bad. When brilliant and innovative minds feel trapped, your company can sink no lower. However, the majority of the time, the problem is that most people are dumb, and most people are lazy. Whatever side of the fence you're on, it takes a lot of intelligence to recognize a brilliant solution, and it takes a lot of brilliance to create something intelligent.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
The Big Lie is a great technique to compete against Microsoft, and MS uses it just as much against Linux (and other competitors) with issues such as security and TCO. Why do people use it? Because it seems to work. Do you think Balmer and Gates trash talk because they are petty?
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
After re-reading what I wrote in the parent comment, I realize that it is excessively pro-Microsoft, in my opinion.
There are entire huge areas of abuse that I didn't mention.
Several years ago I accompanied some friends to a computer store to help them buy a computer. We were offered Microsoft Office for $50. That's why Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect lost market share. There was always a two-tier market for Microsoft Office. You could pay full price, or you could pay $50. It seemed to me that Microsoft was less than intense about stopping the pirates, because that ran the competitors out of business.
Microsoft did the same thing with DOS. At one time, 5 local and national distributors with which I did business all carried pirated DOS. I visited one distributor that indicated they were genuinely concerned, and showed them that it was easy to detect a pirated copy. Microsoft verified that. Other DOS-like operating systems were not able to compete with broad-scale piracy.
In 2002, Microsoft implemented a plan it called "Software Assurance". At the time, Ed Foster, who writes a famous column called GripeLine, called Software Assurance "manipulation
In his column released on September 15, 2005, Ed quoted one customer as saying that Software Assurance was "one of the biggest sucker jobs of all time".
Ed said, "The thing that Software Assurance has always assured is Microsoft revenue -- what the customer has gotten is risk, and lots of it. Expecting Microsoft to deliver value when they've already got your money is just not a very good bet."
Those are just two short examples. Some people believe that there are hundreds of Microsoft abuses like that, but, as far as I know, no one has counted all of them.
This argument comes up every time.
Listen Pal. Calculate how many emploees are there in redmond*average salary. You'll see that MS spends about $15+billion per year just for salaries. Add advertisement costs and payoffs and you've got it.
This is a statement to keep the investors. Because if the investors lose confidence in MS and start selling, MS can go down in ONE MONTH.
In related news, Steve Ballmer has pledged to make changes inside Microsoft to avoid the embarrassingly long development cycle of Vista, including a 'revamping of the engineering and the processes.' Is it too late?"
I actually don't think Vista would've been so delayed if it wasn't for Microsoft suddenly, sometime between build 4083 and 5048, decided: "OK, let's throw this XP SP2 kernel out of here and base Windows Vista on Windows 2003 SP1 instead!", essentially forcing them to start from scratch in many areas, which the public build 5112 showed. Lots of interesting stuff previously in was suddenly gone, and it was curiosly looking much like XP/2003 Server again. The look of that build was what made even Windows and OS X evangelist Paul Thurott say the Longhorn project had the markings of a shipwreck.
This, and that XP SP2 development took a lot of developer time from the team that should've been working of Vista, and that SP2 became delayed, probably forms at least about a year of delays.
As usual, there are two sides of the coin with things like this -- it's not simply bad for a Windows user; it's good that they take their time to not rush things out.
Interestingly, if Microsoft had done a less of a sloppy work with Windows XP so it wouldn't need a supersized SP2, Vista would probably have been able to be released earlier. And they can hardly hide behind that the age when XP was released wasn't a virus-infected Internet age, so it should've been predictable XP would've needed a strong security given its audience and being a major hacker target. In hindsight, that should've been the focus of XP, not a fancier UI. Instead, only now is Microsoft understanding this, and are pushing for e.g. a stronger firewall in Vista, and a new account system *nix always had. Their first clearly security-oriented OS is arriving in 2006. It's hard to stop yourself from laughing.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!