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Confidential Microsoft Emails Posted Online

dos4who writes "From the class action 'Comes et al. v. Microsoft' suit, some very enlightening internal Microsoft emails are now made public. Emails to and from Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Jim Allchin, etc all make for some mind blowing reading. One of my favorites is from Jim Allchin to Bill Gates, entitled 'losing our way,' in which Allchin states 'I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.'"

7 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. "losing our way" was referring to WinFS by jonadab · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's what happened to WinFS: Jim Allchin killed it, or talked someone into killing it. If you read that "losing our way" email carefully, that's what he's talking about. LH means Longhorn, i.e., what they were calling Vista at the time (early 2004). "We need a simple fast storage system" in this context means "We need to ditch WinFS".

    The "scenario" stuff is probably related to this topic also, but I don't know enough about the culture inside of Microsoft to say how.

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  2. Microsoft brand FUD by DaveM753 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I love this:

    From exhibit PX 851, a memo from bradsi to billg and steveb (among others) regarding alleged "bugs" in DR DOS as found by Microsoft commissioned NSTL:

    "We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the bugs. We'll provide info a few bugs at a time to stretch it out."

    Ahhhh...Microsoft(r) Time-Released FUD(tm). Gotta love it. :-)

  3. Re:broken legal system by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was originally attorneys-only.

    Subsequent litigation .... different case .... documents admitted into evidence .... court ruled they can be made public in this instance.

    Its the same as the original AT&T / BSD agreement. It *was* secret, but the world has changed, its no longer secret ...

  4. What a bunch of Wing Nuts. by twitter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not even the rhetoric from a "Women's study" class can prepare the reader for the contents of those letters. All the diabolical "power" talk is like a script from a bad movie. Start anywhere and you get there fast. They really are sick.

    The first thing I looked at had this nonsense:

    To gain power, IBM's got to take it away from Microsoft, and our power starts with DOS. ... We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the [DR-DOS] bugs.

    You might recall later evidence from the Novel DR-DOS lawsuit, where Microsoft later killed DR-DOS off by making Win3.1 not work with it and then blaming DR-DOS in BBS postings. Nice.

    The next thing seems to indicate witness tampering in the same power struggle.

    The next random look has more opinion manipulation trough astroturf:

    User story placement - developing and placing MS-DOS related stories in key publications, both trade and vertical, to communicate that corporations have a large investment in MS-DOS and will continue to trust in it. Develop user profiles?

    And it goes on and on. The targets today are the ones that survived, IBM, Novel, and friends but now include the free software that everyone but M$ has agreed to use because it's better. Instead of fudding BBS, they are here and in the newspapers and TV networks they purchased for the purpose. If these dorks spent half the time wasted on improving their product, they might have a product that works. Instead, they have focused on marketing, "power" and other crap that's ended in DRM and botnet hell. No one should trust M$ for anything and everything they touch is suspect.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  5. Re:broken legal system by MindStalker · · Score: 5, Informative

    Your probably a troll, but if not. The plaintifs got the judges permission to post these exibits. http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article ?AID=/20070108/BUSINESS/70108029/1029

    No leaks at all.

  6. Re:Groklaw coverage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  7. Re:One of my favorites by Mydron · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's sort of silly to say that the fact that the guy is PM makes him sort of super authority. . . . hell, there are PM interns
    You have product and program manager confused.

    From the links:
    A program manager "[l]eads the technical side of a product development team, managing and defining the functional specifications and defining how the product will work." These PMs are, as you intimate, a dime a dozen at microsoft.

    A product manager "[f]ormulates business and marketing strategy." These PMs have a lot of authority and make decisions at a much higher level.

    Just compare the description of a product manager compared to that of a program manager.

    There are a 110 product manager job openings at MSFT compared to 365 program manager openings.