Microsoft CIO Stuart Scott Gets Axed

avjt writes "Microsoft has terminated its CIO Stuart Scott for 'violation of company policies'. They won't elaborate. Now what do you think this guy has done?" Ya know, I'm positive someone reading this story knows the answer to the mystery... and they could post it anonymously and be totally fine because there will be a hundred other totally wrong guesses and it would be completely impossible to distinguish the two ;)

Comments

google time

[tritonman]

Time to google for articles where he said something good about Linux...

Re:google time

[Hanners1979]

That's a bit heartless - It was probably using Google and not Live Search that got him into trouble in the first place. ;)

Re:google time

[javiern100]

what about if he was involved in that Nigeria student laptop mess?

Re:google time

[chrish]

He probably bought an iPod.

Re:google time

[monkeyboythom]

How does a CIO get fired "after an investigation for violation of company policies"?

1. Misrepresented himself. Is his resume completely honest? Some have been canned for claiming work that they didn't do or graduated from schools when they didn't,
2. Tried to his station/authority to manipulate or obfuscate reporting numbers for a false picture of the company's standing or fiscal health. Did he misreport the Vista numbers, inflating them artifically (or report lower)? Any monkeying with reports to make himself look better or others look worse can get you fired in a Sarbanes-Oxley world.
3. Personal conduct. From HP spying on fellow board members and employees to outright unfavorable corporate behavior (e.g. being sleazy to the point of lawsuits) is yet another way of getting fired.

He came to Microsoft in 2005 so he's not a long timer in the company. If Microsoft is trying to push him out, then we'll see if he responds with a lawsuit.

Re:google time

[MindKata]

"Maybe they found out he's running Debian or Ubuntu at home"

And from this, it looks like he has been in the job since summer 2005.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/dec05/12-05Scott.mspx

So its taken them 2 years to find out he is running linux. I guess two years to finally turn on a PC (to do some work), is about right for at Microsoft CIO.

... it must have been a rainy day, so he had to take the day off from the golf course. So I guess in the end, tech support reported him, once they found out he can't run Microsoft golf sim on his PC.

Re:google time

[blazerw11]

After reading through all of the comments. You don't want to do this unless your really bored. It looks like he was having an affair with a VP that reports to him. Type "/ValleyWag" to find the comment with the informative link. (If you are using IE, user your circa 1983 find function.)

Re:google time

[McFadden]

Sounds the most plausible explaination I've heard yet. What is completely unfathomable however, is that Ballmer, possibly the dumbest fuck ever to run a hugely powerful corporation still goes on, despite the fact that the entire organization is crumbling under his 'leadership'. Mind you, I suppose Bush is still running the country, so clearly these things have a pattern to them.

Re:google time

[rrhal]

4) Took pictures of MacIntosh Computers being unloaded into his building.

Re:google time

[EriDay]

If we add:

4. Tried to hire CowboyNeal as Intern.

This can become a slashdot poll. Once the results are in, we'll know the real reason.

Re:google time

[ubrgeek]

Misrepresented himself. Is his resume completely honest? Some have been canned for claiming work that they didn't do or graduated from schools when they didn't

I resent that.

ubrgeek
MA, BS, PhD - Cambridge, Yale, Harvard
Inventor of automobile, SuperBall(tm) and the Internet.

Re:google time

[Simon Brooke]

After reading through all of the comments. You don't want to do this unless your really bored. It looks like he was having an affair with a VP that reports to him.

Oh, come on. That's a company tradition. Bill Gates didn't just shag someone who reported to him, he married her.

Re:google time

[soloport]

4) Couldn't say "Developers!" more than seven times in a row without getting tongue-tied.

Re:google time

[jo42]

Incompetence rules?

Re:google time

[VorpalRodent]

You, sir, are a liar. You cannot possibly have invented the internet.

We all know that the internet was invented by the same politician who is single-handedly saving us from global warming.

However, I will cede that the inventor of the automobile has not recently been in the news, and so its entirely feasible that you are he.

Re:google time

[JackMeyhoff]

Big deal. You are allowed a life you know. This isn't primary school.

Re:google time

[RedLeg]

Incompetence rules? It's called the Peter Principle.

Re:google time

[bladesjester]

developers developers dyslexicers... oh screw it

Re:google time

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you have been effectively been brainwashed by a propaganda campaign. Gore never ever claimed he invented the internet. He said he created it, and rightly so due to the relentless backing and funding he obtained. Internet is not tcp/ip or www.

Re:google time

[dwlovell]

Yeah, because quarter after quarter of record revenues AND profits means your company is crumbling. Not to mention their stock is the highest its been in 5 years.

But, yes crumbling, disaster!!

-David

Re:google time

[Cannelloni]

Oh yeah, I remember that incident. Somebody at Microsoft was fired for doing just that some five or six years ago.

Re:google time

[tygt]

(If you are using IE, user your circa 1983 find function.)

Not to defend IE, but I believe that your "/ValleyWag" to search is probably a search method that significantly predates the IE CTRL-F method - it was certainly in the ex/vi editor long before, and a case can be made for it being in the ed editor before those (as the slash is used in pattern matching/searching).

Anyhow, I do prefer to use my "/pattern" (circa PDP-7, whenever that was, but certainly more antiquated than the IE one - shows you that "progress" isn't always), as you apparently do as well....

Re:google time

[michrech]

For those that managed to miss it, you can read a bit about it here.

Re:google time

[afidel]

Yeah but this guy was boning someone other than his wife who directly reported to him AND was expensing his love nest. That's a lot of no-no's including the big one, misappropriation of company funds.

Re:google time

[john82]

Congratulations AC, you have been effectively been brainwashed by a propaganda campaign. Gore said he created the Internet. Being on the floor of the Senate to vote on funding DOES NOT constitute creating anything. There are plenty of real creators who deserve credit. And in that light, I'd put Metcalf, Engelbart, Nelson, Andreesen, Berners-Lee et al far ahead on the list of credits before Al "Look at me!" Gore.

Re:google time

[Kilraven]

Ha Ha. That is hilarious.

However, on to a more serious note, I noticed your use of the question mark without express written approval. As inventor and sole proprietor of all things Question Mark, I request you delete and remove any and all references to the Question Mark effective immediately. Failure to comply within a timely matter will force me to write an angry letter, explaining how very angry I am.

Re:google time

[aichpvee]

Or maybe he just went back to work at ESPN.

Re:google time

[defile]

You are referring to this, presumably?

"During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

You can't even convince politicians in Congress today that there is value in having anything to do with the internet besides enacting child protection laws. Gore has understood the value since the 1970s and been acted in his political capacity to develop and support legislation that created it and brought it to the public. Exactly what other kind of creation do you expect from politicians? Can only the guys on the front-lines take credit for creating something? Does it somehow diminish their value by acknowledging Gore's contribution?

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology#Congressional_work_and_Gore_Bill

Re:google time

[aichpvee]

While I'm hoping that the GP was just making a joke and blew the delivery, to set the record straight (again!), here is what Gore actually said.

I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Re:google time

[WinterSolstice]

I still use edit/tpu :D

How's that for not moving with the times?

Re:google time

[B3ryllium]

What America needs is less Peter Principle, and more Dilbert Principle.

Re:google time

[level_headed_midwest]

Perhaps back in the day when Apple computers used PPC chips, but today many people run Windows XP and Vista on x86 Macintoshes. It would be no different from somebody unloading Dells or HPs.

Re:google time

[Stormcrow309]

I will gladly claim a vast amount of prior art, called the breath of English literature.

Re:google time

[operagost]

He said he was involved in creating the internet, which had already been created years before his "initiative". That's like Henry Ford claiming he invented the automobile, when it had been invented decades before although he improved the process of manufacturing them.

Re:google time

[Four_One_Nine]

The 'breath' of English literature. There's a 'bad' pun in there somewhere.

On another note, Isn't there a Mr. "Question Mark" who, along with his Mysterians, actually invented said punctuation?

Re:google time

[Darby]

However, I will cede that the inventor of the automobile has not recently been in the news, and so its entirely feasible that you are he.

So what?

Dude, you're talking to the guy who invented the *superball*.
Try and get some perspective in future ;-)

Re:google time

[VorpalRodent]

You're absolutely right. I'll be more careful next time. Some achievements (like inventing the Superball) bring with them the right to "enhance" one's resume.

Re:google time

[rkanodia]

Two things: first, research in network protocols costs a lot of money. Second, building the infrastructure costs a lot of money. Geeks may not like to admit that, but it counts for a lot. Saying that the internet had already been 'created' is rather disingenuous. If the internet of today consisted of a couple hundred research institutions which were connected via a haphazard set of links of dubious uptime, then you wouldn't be able to buy things on Amazon.com or get Google Maps on your cellphone or call your friends on Skype or look up Al Gore on Wikipedia. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn had this to say about the 'Al Gore claims he invented the internet' meme:

[A]s the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time. Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept.

So if you know more about the early days of the internet/the late days of ARPANET than Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, I would consider myself extraordinarily fortunate if a person of such amazing insight could shed some light on their mistake.

Re:google time

[drharris]

Yes! Because books are the definitive measure of a companies stability..

Google "Enron"

Re:google time

[Darby]

Some achievements (like inventing the Superball) bring with them the right to "enhance" one's resume.

Yeah, that's true.... I just meant that you seemed to think it was a big deal that he invented the car ;-)

Re:google time

[ajs]

He said he was involved in creating the internet, which had already been created years before his "initiative". Ah... no. Try again.

In the early-to-mid 1980s when the Internet as we know it was evolving out of the ARPANet, Gore was on the floor of Congress yammering on about how this crazy new tech was going to be important, and the U.S. had to be there first. He argued for vastly more funding to the NSF than anyone thought the Internet needed (it's just some computer geeks linking research databases, right?) I remember reading about his efforts on Usenet back in the late 80s and wondering, "I know why this is important, but how they heck does a politician know?!" In the end, of course, it was more important than either the geeks or the politicians could have predicted.

Go read the Congressional Record for his speeches about the Internet. The funding for the development of all of those low-number RFCs like DNS and SMTP came from projects that Gore pushed as if he actually knew why they were important. Did he? I have no clue, but if I don't give props to the one politician to see the value in the Internet from the start, I'll never convince any politician that doing right by technology is going to help their careers. We have enough of the, "the Senator from Disney," types already, and I'd rather not have more.

Re:google time

[McFadden]

Yeah, because quarter after quarter of record revenues AND profits means your company is crumbling.

Well sure, live in the now, and ignore the future outlook for MS. I think most people see a very challenging road ahead for the Redmond beast and Ballmer so far hasn't looked anything like the person to be steering the ship through those waters.

Re:google time

[Opportunist]

MS is the corporation equivalent of an oil tanker. It has momentum, and even with the engine off it keeps going forwards for quite a while. It's hard for MS not to make money, considering all the long term contracts companies and large corporations have with them. They're in a way what IBM was in the 70s and 80s, the company you have to have a contract with if you have something to do with computers, no matter how much you resent them, and corporations tend to go for fixed costs (like "corporate licenses") rather than having to deal with licensing on a daily base. Thus, MS keeps generating revenue, even if they ceased all activity.

Also, don't confuse stock value with company health. While MS is far from being SCO, where shareholders play roulette with the stock in hope of some sort of lawsuit. The value of MS lies in the aforementoined quality of being an oil tanker.

Re:google time

[JWSmythe]

But in being that he built a time machine 5000 years in the future (our future), he traveled back to the beginning of written language, and established the concept of ownership of logical property, and that he was the firm holder of all rights on the mark known as question.

    He has now come to our modern time to assert these rights on his property, to acquire rights to assets which will be valuable to our new alien overlords in the year 2012, in turn will spell their demise by the year 4930, 5 years before his birth.

    Being that this is all outside of our timeline, we are completely unaware of these changes. Through a fluke of the universal design, he has momentarily crossed through our timeline, and is never to be heard from again. .... or will he? ....

Re:google time

[anothy]

Not to mention their stock is the highest its been in 5 years.

They've had a good few weeks, sure, but there's been very little motion for years. they've substantially underperformed the NASDAQ, S&P 500, Dow Jones, and HP (!!!). They've been roughly competitive with SUN (!), and of course they don't hold a candle to the stars like GOOG and APPL. you've got to go back after a decade for those comparisons to stop being true (overall). The company's been moving mostly on inertia since about 2000 (coincidentally, related or not, the same year Gates started backing away from Microsoft and focused more on his philanthropic efforts). Their increasing difficulty to entice users into successive upgrades - making themselves their own biggest competitor - is very troubling for their longevity. They did very well turning themselves around circa 1996 after a late arrival to the internet game, but that was very much thanks to Gates' direction. They've been unable to extend their dominance to anywhere beyond Windows and Office, despite the fact that the filed continues to broaden around them.

Microsoft's huge, and will be around for a very long time, but that's a far cry from saying their "healthy". People live with terminal diseases for decades all the time.

Re:google time

[Himring]

Blah, blah, blah,

Look, politics is easy. One of the basic rules is be careful how you puff your record, or, better yet, never do it at all. Let your friends do that instead. Gore made a goof. He probably deserves all the credit in the world for his early work promoting the Internet, but he goofed politically in what he said and it's never gone away. Guess what? It never will. These things stick and they stick to all politicians.

I believe is disliking them all equally. It sooths the mind.

Re:google time

[TheJodster]

After reading through all of the comments. You don't want to do this unless your really bored. It looks like he was having an affair with a VP that reports to him.

I would find it highly ironic to find out after years of Microsoft screwing me over that it is actually against company policy for Microsofties to screw each other.

Re:google time

[aminorex]

If it makes them both more productive, I can't see how it could be considered misappropriation.

Re:google time

[mqduck]

Did he misreport the Vista numbers, inflating them artifically I thought that WAS company policy.

Re:google time

[vuffi_raa]

it's funny, but people always down politicians that ACTUALLY make a science contribution, look @ jerry brown who was dubbed "moonbeam" after proposing state run and leased communication satellites- to this day people call him moonbeam as a put-down, but if it weren't for him satellite communications and state leasing $ from such (esp. gps broadcasters) wouldn't be where they are today.... but moonbeam is still an insult

Re:google time

[umghhh]

maybne he did not fart strong enough to inflate them properly?

Re:google time

[Stormcrow309]

That's sweet! See my tag line please. In other words, I would like to see proof.

Re:google time

[djwudi]

You mean there's still someone left who missed it?

(Though, judging by the sudden spike in hits I got...sheesh. Of all the stupid things to get (in)famous for....)

Re:google time

[michrech]

You mean there's still someone left who missed it?

(Though, judging by the sudden spike in hits I got...sheesh. Of all the stupid things to get (in)famous for....) Never underestimate the lagging brain power of us slashdotters (I had completely forgotten about it until it was mentioned in the thread -- I'm sure there are at *least* a few that did actually miss it, too. :) )

obvious

[tomstdenis]

Got fed up with Vista and installed $SOME_DISTRO instead. :-)

Somehow this is gonna cost me karma... :-(

Re:obvious

[darxider]

No. He bought a Mac.

Re:obvious

[ByOhTek]

From what I hear, there is already some Linux use inside MS. I don't think that would be the problem.

More likely backtracking and installing XP. I think MS is more worried about XP as a competator to Vista than Linux right now.

Which is hillarious, but at the same time, the probably think "at least we still make a profit with XP, unlike Vista"

Re:obvious

[pjotrb123]

No, he was reading Slashdot all day

Re:obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

>No, he was reading Slashdot all day

on a Mac :)

Re:obvious

[neersign]

nobody has thrown out any "wide stance" jokes yet...i'm surprised.

Re:obvious

[Nimey]

Somehow this is gonna cost me karma... :-( Well done! You've said a variation on the Magic Phrase that gets you sympathy votes. Karma whore.

Re:obvious

[tomstdenis]

Funny votes don't get you karma. Are you new here?

Re:obvious

[Hansu]

With $SOME_DISTRO running Firefox

Re:obvious

[tomknight]

They *used* to. Sounds more like he's old here....

Re:obvious

[tomstdenis]

The "new" bit was a joke, I realized his UID was smaller, just figured he would have remembered that funny doesn't get karma [and hasn't since I joined in 2001 as far as I know].

Re:obvious

[Lisandro]

With $SOME_DISTRO running Firefox

Give the guy a break. He was googling the setup of his favorite OpenGL games.

Re:obvious

[jkrise]

He was Chief Information officer, remember? So maybe he truthfully reported all the 14 sales of Vista?

Re:obvious

[tomknight]

The problem is thatI only realised that a year or so ago and stopped making karma increasing jokes about then. Used to be the easiest way to bump up karma after a few dodgy comments....

Re:obvious

[gujo-odori]

You'd be surprised how many Microsoft employees use Linux, a Mac or both (I worked there for about a year and a half, and I remember my surprise one day when I walked into the office of one of our project managers and saw Pine on his desktop; when I commented, he said it was an SSH session to his Linux box at home. I thought it took balls to have that on a monitor facing the door). A number of people on my team - myself included - only used Windows at work. At home, most my team were completely Linux/Mac/BSD.

Re:obvious

[davidsyes]

Which was discovered to NOT be a Mac, cuz he was running SOME DISTRO and modified it according to:

http://www.howtoforge.com/mac4lin_make_linux_look_like_a_mac_p6

which was found to really be based on:

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/KDE/KDM-Vista-like-Theme-25822.shtml

and

http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=31585

No it wouldn't...

[ByOhTek]

Ya know, I'm positive someone reading this story knows the answer to the mystery... and they could post it anonymously and be totally fine because there will be a hundred other totally wrong guesses and it would be completely impossible to distinguish the two ;)

Taco said in one of his write-ups, comments will (very rarely) be removed for legal reasons.

Whichever post dissapears after MS sends an email threatening legal action. That is the reason... Everyone, ready your screenshots!

Re:No it wouldn't...

[ByOhTek]

No, they would do this for free (I'd hope)

Seriously - by confirmation, the takedown would do more to expose the truth than to hide it.

Re:No it wouldn't...

[Sneftel]

Slashdot isn't able to stand up for basic editorial values like fact-checking, not shilling, or just plain copy editing for basic grammar and spelling. So pardon me if my faith is only as strong as the actual practice of their principles.

"Don't split that infinitive! It goes against our principles!"

Re:No it wouldn't...

[ByOhTek]

Have they tried clearing browser cookies/cache?

There's more ways than just IPs to track someone.

Also, was the post posted with [post anonymously], which can still apparently affect your Karma (unless you get the [No Karma Bonus], because then, while the post may still be AC, and not IP linked, it is account linked.

Re:No it wouldn't...

[john_is_war]

You can't mod any post in a thread where you posted, so you can be linked to ONE AC in a thread, but it's impossible to tell which one.

The reason...

[limabone]

When filling out a form, under the section that said 'DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE' he wrote 'OK'

Re:The reason...

[jkrise]

No no no... the real reason is a small mistake in a press release, he's rumoured not to have sent: "According to our Chair-Man , Vista offers Excel-lent value for our money...."

Ballmer Attitude?

[eldavojohn]

Maybe his daughter was caught using an iPod? Or perhaps his work machine's cache was found to have a Google Search results page in it?

But, in all seriousness, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft had a very stringent agreement with it's employees such that you're guilty of violating company policy at all times. Something really vague and impossible to avoid like "you shall not support a competitor in anyway with any of your personal funds or free time." They only let you go if they want to and so few get let go on these grounds that nobody really cares about it. Does anyone know if this is the case?

It really wouldn't surprise me if they treated their employees the same way they treat their customers.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[ByOhTek]

I doubt it is anything so draconian as that. I've heard of many competitor products being used inside of MS HQ.

The catch-all is probably something more subtle, like requiring employees turn off the lights in the office/cube when they leave, or something like that - easily forgettable and innocuous.

(Note: most companies I've seen have these to give them a right to fire anyone for any reason, so MS really shouldn't be treated differently from anyone else on this matter).

And he wasn't necessarily caught by a catch-all. It's also possible he did something legitimately harmful.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[squiggleslash]

Few people are ever fired for a breach of a minor rule in any corporation. Supposedly minor rules are usually only invoked if the breach is a cause of a wider problem. For example, an unproductive employee might be fired for visiting personal websites during working hours. The cause of the firing is that the employee isn't worth keeping because they (amongst other things) spend all day browsing the web and not working, not that the websites were not work related.

Remember, it kills morale and makes people want to leave if they're in fear of losing their jobs over something other than performance and/or disruptive behavior. It's also expensive - an employee of any worth takes months, sometimes years, to replace, and crucial information is inevitably lost whenever anyone leaves. While corporations suck at the whole morale thing, it's an exaggeration to assume that most people are fired over something "innocuous". Even if the reason given might appear that way, the fact is the corporation wouldn't be firing the person in the first place if there wasn't a good reason to get rid of them.

That said, the reason in this case could be as simple as Scott isn't worth anything close to waht he was being paid and was easily losable.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Ubergrendle]

There's a few dangers with this approach...IANALB...

#1, if he can prove in court that Microsoft wasn't actively supporting this policy at all times and simply used it as an excuse to dismiss him, Microsoft would be legally liable. Same with using him as a scapegoat or as an example; disproportionate application of corporate policies is a big no-no. Varies by state-to-state of course.

#2, just because a corporation has an HR policy does not necessarily mean that its legal. This is somewhat less likely since I'm sure MS has lawyers who review these things (especially since they've been nailed for this in the past), but we'll know how 'fair' his dismissal was if this ends up in court.

My wild-ass guess would be something incredibly stupid or personally dumb happened, like using corporate resources to download pr0n or warez, or liasons with staff members, etc. On an outside chance, he might have pursued a strategic policy that was against the mandate of the board of directors (e.g. "he's our plan for segregation applications from O/S releases" board "you aren't supposed to do that"). Either way we're not meant to know, unless this ends up in court.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Halo-]

The catch-all is probably something more subtle, like requiring employees turn off the lights in the office/cube when they leave, or something like that - easily forgettable and innocuous. (Note: most companies I've seen have these to give them a right to fire anyone for any reason, so MS really shouldn't be treated differently from anyone else on this matter).
IANAL, but I strongly suspect that in order of any of these "catch-alls" to be enforceable, they would have to be applied in a demonstratively consistent fashion.
I'm pretty sure most major companies realize that their CIO has enough money and savvy to hire a good lawyer if their grounds for dismissal is questionable. A dismissal like this is going to damage his reputation, and I'm sure if he thinks the reason behind it is BS, he's going to go for damages.
In

And he wasn't necessarily caught by a catch-all. It's also possible he did something legitimately harmful.
I think it's highly likely that he did something most people would agree was "bad." It might have been something personal, like a substance abuse problem, or something professional, like falsifying records. Microsoft wouldn't fire someone this high up without a good reason.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[tgd]

Eh, if you walk around their campus you see iPhones, you see iPods, their employees use Google and GMail.

Now maybe at his level its different, but they are not cold blooded fascists who instill fear in their employees.

Its hard to keep 75k of them if you do.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[the_B0fh]

#2 is actually a little more than that. What if a company has a policy to only hire male engineers under the age of 40? Just because a company fully enforces and complies with that policy doesn't make it illegal.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[CmdrGravy]

The real reason for this should be immediately obvious to anyone as schooled in espionage as I am.

A common gambit for agencies wishing to implant a mole into a rival agency is to first of all establish their lack of attachment for the potential mole, common techniques for this are high profile embarrasing sackings or similar. Just as we see here.

Don't be surprised to see this guy revert to the life of an itinerant alcoholic for a while telling the world about how he made it big with one of the top dogs in the software industry and how he could have been great if the bastards hadn't dragged him down like that and how he'd do anything for revenge.

The aim obviously is for him to be hired by Red Hat or someone similar where he can then work from within to destroy them.

It's all obvious for those looking at the right signs.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[chrish]

I doubt "liaisons with staff members" would be a fireable offence at MS, Gates married one of his subordinates a number of years back.

Maybe he just stopped showing up for work. "I wouldn't say I've been missing work..."

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Its hard to keep 75k of them if you do. That's what the free all-you-can-drink Kool-Aid is for!

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[mr_mischief]

Maybe he'll end up with the other two Microsoft moles at that patent troll that's suing Red Hat and Novell.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Grave]

I see that by "schooled in espionage" you meant "paranoid"...

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Deadstick]

It really wouldn't surprise me if they treated their employees the same way they treat their customers.

Well, that's what ValleyWag says he was doing...

rj

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[plague3106]

It would actually, since federal law prohibits an employer from discriminating based on age.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Lord Apathy]

"liaisons with staff members"

I'm betting this is exactlly what it is. I'm thinking he got caught with his dick up some intern's ass probably on Bill's desk too. I would think that woudl be grounds for firing even if it wasn't corp. policy.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Z00L00K]

One important thing is that an employee may look unproductive sitting in a corner drinking his coffee but sometimes that employee is the same one that can and will do whatever is necessary as soon as all hell breaks loose. If he (or she for that matter) can resolve a major problem in five minutes where it may take any other person several hours he's still worth his salary. This is not completely unusual in the industry - even if it may be less extreme.

OK, replace "drinking coffee" with just about anything. Most persons of that level aren't really drinking coffee anyway when they don't have anything important to do. They may be strolling around simulating being busy or so. Some may even be proactive and resolve problems that are growing before anybody notices.

The real problem is that some managers don't recognize this kind of people and thinks that they are just overhead. Well - in a way they are - but not as much as the manager.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[Shotgun]

Sue for what?

We wanted your services, so we pay you to stick around.
We no longer need/want your services, so we stop paying you to stick around.

As long as M$ doesn't slander/libel the guy out the door, what damage is done?

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[aminorex]

There might be some merit in your observations if corporations were unitary rational actors. However, they are not. They are aggregations of persons who behave in only a vaguely approximately rational fashion, and usually in their own interests when they do behave rationally -- only accidentally do they behave rationally in the corporate interest. He probably pissed someone off. Most people I've seen get fired were fired because they pissed someone off. I can't think of a single instance of anyone getting fired for being dead weight, except when the company was on its last legs -- and I've seen a LOT of dead weight, believe you me. Especially at the CxO level. The alternative is that he was caught red-handed in a criminal act.

Re:Ballmer Attitude?

[emil wildschwein]

"the corporation wouldn't be firing the person in the first place if there wasn't a good reason to get rid of them."

Not necessarily. Say, the CEO tells the VP to disband the department, the group you are in gets closed down, everyone gets laid off "for strategic reasons". The real reason is to demote the department head and eliminate loyal people who could support him.

This can happen to anyone. Believe me, I know what I am talking about: it happened to me and ruined my career.

I know what he did...

[Anonymous Coward]

He bought a Sony Playstation 3, then looked for help setting it up via Google on his Linux based computer.

Re:I know what he did...

[Technician]

He bought a Sony Playstation 3, then looked for help setting it up via Google on his Linux based computer.

That's what got him noticed. After they examimed his laptop, they found him developing code to make Open Office able to open Office 2007 files and was working on a converter to use iTunes files on his Zune.

Re:I know what he did...

[robi2106]

He is a CIO, not a dev. That means he was caught bonking the secretary on the CEO's desk (you are supposed to do that on your own desk) or he clogged up the corporate "T:\" drive with porn.

more obvious

[SimonGhent]

Broke a chair?

Has he never heard of demarkation?

Re:more obvious

[dintech]

More likely he side-stepped some chair related punishment. That's grounds for dismissal at MS I think.

Seriously though, I think considering his level it's possible that it could be in relation to some kind of trading of MS stock. Either himself or someone he knows.

Re:more obvious

[Lord Apathy]

.. glued steve and bills butts together...

Yeah, we can go on all day with this.

balmer

[wwmedia]

balmer run out of chairs to toss! so he moved onto the management, which is a smart move they are thick as wood anyways

Re:balmer

[ByOhTek]

Lacking mod points, I'll just post instead

That is probably the funniest comment on this thread.

Challenging Steve Balmer to a throwing chair fight

[sjwest]

Is not the thing to do

Belinda

[Anonymous Coward]

He was baggin' Belinda.

Re:Belinda

[sqldr]

with an iphone

Re:Belinda

[jo42]

...talk about a double-bagger...

Re:Belinda

[phalse phace]

He was baggin' Belinda.

Who's Belinda?

Oh, you mean Melinda.

nudity

[Gigiya]

he deemed himself the "chief indecent officer", came to work naked, and refused to let anyone not notice his lack of clothes lolololol

Re:nudity

[rubycodez]

if that's the case I want to be their CFO

Who knows

[El Lobo]

I'm sure few people knows. Often those things are left between the person and their bosses and seldom get aired in public.

Now let's the conspiration theories fly, but often the reality is much simpler and mundane...

They realized....

[nick graham]

Sportscenter was taking up too much of his time.

i tagged this booyah

[Vorpix]

not as much because i have something against THIS stuart scott, but my first thoughts were of stuart scott

Watching porno and ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Got caught playing with his Wii

Re:He got fired for....

[greichert]

... telling Apple how to implement a Blue Screen Of Death in MacOS X.

political incorrect

[hyperinactive]

Stuart L. Scott's middle name is Linus.

Pretty remarkable

[dal20402]

Usually, at levels this high, executives who misbehave are quietly asked to resign. The fact that his termination was this public and graceless tells me he did something pretty egregious, because Microsoft apparently wants to not just get rid of him but warn other corporations not to hire him. Misappropriation of corporate funds, in some way, seems the most likely candidate to me.

Please note I'm not informed at all, just speculating.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[dpilot]

Ahh, but if this speculation disappears shortly, we'll know.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Billosaur]

Two words: sexual harassment.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Red Flayer]

The fact that his termination was this public and graceless tells me he did something pretty egregious

I agree, but I think the reasons for public termination may be different. Possibly harassment or discrimination or something like that. Pay off harassed employee, with public termination of the harasser as a condition of the settlement.

I somehow find it hard to believe that MS would want to warn other corporations about hiring him.

It could also be a problem that other MS employees are aware of, and the public termination sends a notice to employees who would cross the same lines he did. Plus, it sends the message that the highest-ups face consequences for their actions, and thus can be good for company morale among the drones.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[teknopurge]

More like they wanted to make a public statement that they do NOT condone what ever it is he did. Something sexual/amoral perhaps????

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense! Balmer wouldn't do that to his CIO!

Re:Pretty remarkable

[thealsir]

A very sound and reasonable premise. Microsoft does not typically act brutally with employees firing-wise, contrary to the Slashdot zeitgeist.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yup. For one, at that level, or with management in general, it's always sexual harassment. Well, sometimes it's gross incompetence. The harassment I don't get, though. I mean, if they want some free sex, couldn't they just go to a bar and say, "Yeah, I'm a VP of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and I make nine thousand dollars an hour. Let's take my jet and go screw in the hot tub at my 4th summer place."

Nope. It's like it's the opposite of the thrill of the hunt for them, preying on people who (they think) can't really defend themselves.

Plus, you just look at this guy and you know he's a complete pussy hound. The insecure type, that's always chasing it like it's the last piece he'll ever get. Just totally ruled by it, the poor thing.

Then again, I could be completely wrong.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[acvh]

Insightful comment above. For a "Chief Anything Officer" to be terminated the behavior must have been directly offensive to the CEO and/or the Board of Directors. Stealing their money is one, but I think it unlikely in this case. For one, you can be criminally charged for that, and why would they let him off so easy?

My guess is that he disclosed, to a third party, some information about Microsoft that, while not on the level of corporate espionage, was something Microsoft wanted kept secret. You know, something like "Vista was written in XCode on a iMac".

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Idaho]

Two words: sexual harassment.

That's the rumour indeed. It's unlikely that this will be "officially" confirmed by any of the parties involved.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Idaho]

That's the rumour indeed. It's unlikely that this will be "officially" confirmed by any of the parties involved.

Stupidly quoting myself but...on second thought, the rumour is not "sexual harassment", but at least the first word was involved.

Apparently he was having an affair with a direct subordinate.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Corporate Troll]

Hmmmm... I'd be fired there within a minute. I think one of their marketing chicks is hot.... And normally, I don't fall for blondes.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[blindd0t]

That's why everybody should be required to watch this video before they are hired.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[TheSkyIsPurple]

I doubt it.

From what I've seen at my company, that also warrants the "has decided to move on in his career" treatment.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Carewolf]

The harassment I don't get, though. I mean, if they want some free sex, couldn't they just go to a bar and say, "Yeah, I'm a VP of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and I make nine thousand dollars an hour. Let's take my jet and go screw in the hot tub at my 4th summer place."

Well, it is that exact quote which will get you fired for sexual harassment if any of your employees happens to be in the bar and take offense (or pretend to take offense).

Re:Pretty remarkable

[ebonum]

PLEASE! The CIO of the biggest software company in the world leaving is news. Don't read anything into the fact that that M$ made this public. Depending on the circumstances, a public announcement for a CIO departure may be required under SOX. His replacement might have a significant impact on company spending, policies, etc. M$ can't hide this even if they want to.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Intron]

three words: lack of imagination

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Billosaur]

Except that, as we saw with the Isaiah Thomas case over at Madison Square Garden, if the company does nothing about it, they soon become the target of a lawsuit and there is the potentially messy publicity that goes with that. Mind you, people have said plenty of bad things about MS in regards to their software and their business practices, but the goings-on in Redmond are oft shrouded in mystery. When your CIO gets involved in something questionable, in this post-Enron world, you have to nip it in the bud quickly or face being dragged through the mud. The public doesn't care that Vista may suck, but they do care if there's a personal scandal at the highest level.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Grave]

Actually, once you reach that level, if you're not putting in more than 60 hours a week, you're being lazy. Those massive paychecks don't come from a 40 hour workweek (not that even an 80 hour week justifies some of them, but...)

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Billosaur]

I somehow find it hard to believe that MS would want to warn other corporations about hiring him.

They might, but of course they can't come right out and say that, lest they be sued for defamation. In this society, former employers keep mum about employees who leave under any circumstances, making in-company references worthless, since employees still with the company are admonished to pass all requests for references to HR, and HR will only tell you that someone did in fact work at the company and when. In a way, this perpetuates the presence of employees with poor work skills, as they cannot truly be flagged as being bad employees, so they get picked up elsewhere. Put another way, it's harder to get a reputation in an industry than it used to be.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[AVee]

Frankly, I doubt that would be enough reason to fire him this public, not at that level. He really pissed off someone, so unless the last name of this subordinate was Balmer I fairly sure it involves money somewhere.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[cmowire]

The harassment I don't get, though. I mean, if they want some free sex, couldn't they just go to a bar and say, "Yeah, I'm a VP of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and I make nine thousand dollars an hour. Let's take my jet and go screw in the hot tub at my 4th summer place."
That's because sexual harassment is not about sex, it's about power.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[fm6]

That would certainly explain why they're being so hush-hush. On the one hand, ignoring a sexual harassment complaint can get you sued. On the other hand, saying one of your people is accused of sexual harassment can also get you sued.

General principal: when somebody is being really, really tight-lipped, either they're planning on invading a foreign country or they're trying to avoid litigation. And the security measures are less extreme for the invasion! I've been in meetings about such issues where I was told not to take notes, not to discuss the issue in email, and not to discuss the issue at all with anybody who didn't have a specific need to know. And don't ask for hints, because that could get me fired — and probably sued myself.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Paradise Pete]

The harassment I don't get, though. I mean, if they want some free sex, couldn't they just go to a bar and say, "Yeah, I'm a VP of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and I make nine thousand dollars an hour. Let's take my jet and go screw in the hot tub at my 4th summer place."

Your dick will always get you in trouble. Once it starts thinking, logic goes out the window. How many men have thrown away careers because of it?

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Marcion]

As long as it is not this or this one.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Lord Apathy]

complete pussy hound

Yeap, I'm definally adding that phrase to my list for future use.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Apparently he was having an affair with a direct subordinate.

Um... I have to ask these questions, even though I know the 'turfers are going to pound me for it with negative mods.

Can that really be the case?
More to the point, was Melinda French a direct subordinate of Bill Gates?

FWIW, I honestly don't know and seriously wonder. The Wikipedia article on her just says she was the "unit manager" (huh huh - insert humorous comment here) for several Microsoft products (Publisher, Bob, Encarta, and Expedia).

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Paradise Pete]

PLEASE! The CIO of the biggest software company in the world leaving is news

Of course it is. But it's not that they are announcing it, it's that they are going out of their way to say that he did something wrong. That's just not done unless it's something they really need to distance themselves from.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[19thNervousBreakdown]

But that's what I don't get! How is it so exciting to force someone that's scared you'll fire them to have flirt-have sex with you? I don't crush ants and go, "ooh look at me, I'm so POWERFUL!" If you were trying to feel your own power, it seems like bagging your boss would be the way to go.

Guess that's why I'm not a CXO.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Red Flayer]

You misunderstand. He was not given the opportunity to resign. He was canned, and not for purely performance-related reasons (instead, for violating company policy in some manner).

This is not about hiding it, it's about how MS chose to terminate him, and how, not whether, they chose to publicize it.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[bugnuts]

He really pissed off someone, so unless the last name of this subordinate was Balmer I fairly sure it involves money somewhere. Maybe the last name was Balmer, and he broke it off? Then, jilted Steve fired him?

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Austerity Empowers]

Ah hah, distributing microsoft product the old fashioned way eh!

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Tony]

Microsoft is generally a very good place to work. Everyone I know who works (or has worked) there has loved it.

It's still a very evil corporation that has set the computing industry back over a decade, but it's a great place to work.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[hondo77]

More to the point, was Melinda French a direct subordinate of Bill Gates?...she was the "unit manager"...for several Microsoft products (Publisher, Bob, Encarta, and Expedia).

I'd like to think that the unit manager of Encarta did not report directly to the CEO.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[glgraca]

Why wouldn't they want their competitors to hire him? :-P

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. If we believe the ValleyWag on this one (uh oh...), the lady in question is a VP there at MS HQ herself. His underling, yes, but VPs just don't take that kind of crap at all. Sexual harassment necessarily involves pressuring somebody into sexual behavior, and you don't much pressure VPs -- they know they can hand your ass to you in court.

And neither it is about them having an affair per se (although it must have seemed like a very awkward PR/gossip disaster waiting to explode), it's about them both having lied about "emergency family leave" they took at the same time to go humping together somewhere. Or maybe more realistically a combination of the two...

So who would it be, then? Go figure...

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/default.mspx?group=A-D

One of those and a VP directly under CIO. If we believe the 'Wag, that is.

So, like another poster some way above very illustriously did, I'll just wrap this up by stating "Of course I could be completely wrong" so I'll too get the +5 Insightful for that bit alone ;-)

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Z00L00K]

Hmmm... Seems to me that it still is some kind of excuse or emergency reason to kick him out.

There has to be something more to this - just having an affair seems to be a too thin reason. Maybe he was messing around with the chairmans mistress?

If it was only an affair with a co-worker (even if he was a manager of that co-worker) the more obvious reason would have been to quietly assign him to a different position.

Maybe the affair led him to neglect some of his assigned tasks and caused a major loss because of that, but that couldn't be publicly known so then it's better to have the "sex" bail-out.

Just go figure where he will be looking for a new job next...

Re:Pretty remarkable

[blueskies]

4?

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Shotgun]

I was going to moderate, but I have to respond to this.

All the "seminars" I've been to lead to me to understand that you can't separate the two. I quote "seminars", because they really don't provide information as much as they provide warnings.

-If you doink a subordinate, it can be view as sexual harassment, whether it was consenual or not, or whether quid pro quo was offered or not.
-If another employee knows you're doinking another subordinate, it can be view as sexual harassment, whether it was consenual or not, or whether quid pro quo was offered or not.
-If you make a sexual comment about another employee, it can be viewed as sexual harrassment.
-If you are overheard making a sexual comment about another employee, it can be viewed as sexual harrassment. "Sexual" will be determined by the person hearing the comment at the time they hear it.
-If someone feels "threatened" by your presence you can be canned. (I worked with a fellow who had this happen to him. He was black. She was white. Yay for the good ol' South).
-If coorperations don't react to the situation with incredibly disproportionate measures, they expose themselves to ridiculous lawsuits.

This is only in corporate America, and I can only hope to GOD that the rest of the world is not this insane.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[blindd0t]

I've seen the first one before, but the second one was really well-done. Thanks for the good laugh!

Re:Pretty remarkable

[KillerCow]

I mean, if they want some free sex, couldn't they just go to a bar and say, "Yeah, I'm a VP of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and I make nine thousand dollars an hour. Let's take my jet and go screw in the hot tub at my 4th summer place."

Yes they can, and they do. The narcissism is so thick up there that they think that they can do it to anybody though -- employees included.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[BlueTrin]

Unless it involved some chair with long legs maybe ...

Re:Pretty remarkable

[jddj]

Two other words:

"Mattress Tag"

Re:Pretty remarkable

[surfingmarmot]

"Apparently he was having an affair with a direct subordinate." And most corporate HR and legal departments consider that a serious sexual harassment violation because of the supervisory relationship. It is a key element of a prima facie case of sexual harassment. It makes the firm liable for big judgments should the subordinate employee sue if the relationship goes sour one day. I have taken sexual harassment training at several large tech firms and all of them taught us that it would be grounds for summary dismissal.

Re:Pretty remarkable

[mqduck]

But that's what I don't get! How is it so exciting to force someone that's scared you'll fire them to have flirt-have sex with you? I dunno, is it the sex?

Tabloids for nerds, things that don't matter...

[mattgreen]

...often the reality is much simpler and mundane... What are you doing bringing reality into this? We're trying to film the nerd equivalent of 90210 here, and you barge in with your 'reality' like it actually means something!

Re:Tabloids for nerds, things that don't matter...

[Sirch]

We're trying to film the nerd equivalent of 90210 here You know, I never thought Slashdot could suffer during the writers' strike. I know better now.

Re:Tabloids for nerds, things that don't matter...

[moderatorrater]

If that's what we're doing here, then I'm guessing it's one of those "you can't say no to Melinda" situations.

Random medical screening results

[ciaohound]

A test came back negative -- his body was NOT composed of pure evil, which of course violates MS company policy. Subsequent tests confirmed it, although he is appealing to the World Anti-Doping Agency. Floyd Landis was unavailable for comment.

Re:Random medical screening results

[Stonent1]

I wonder if they'll hire Crudpuppy to take his place?

Violation

[DoofusOfDeath]

Microsoft has terminated its CIO Stuart Scott for 'violation of company policies'. They won't elaborate.

He probably installed OpenBSD in an all-RedHat shop? Tool...

He got fired because...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know several people who currently work at Microsoft. It's not because he installed linux or owns an ipod or some such silliness, since I know these people have done those things. I would imagine that it's actually something more serious, like an inappropriate work relationship (still thinking it's not something they would fire you for, at the CIO level) or divulging info to a competitor or inappropriate use of company funds.

Re:He got fired because...

[nuzak]

Congratulations on posting the first reply that looks like it was penned by someone over the age of 15. The rest of the lame joke comments make me feel like I'm on digg.

Re:He got fired because...

[guruevi]

Inappropriate work relationship: They would've quietly let him go unless there was a lawsuit brought against him although that might have been known by the press. Maybe he was boning Ballmer's or Gates' wife (or daughter(s))
Divulging info to a competitor: Well, unless he planned on jumping ship he might not have done that. Indeed a good possibility
Inappropriate use of company funds/stock/falsifying data: You don't get fired for that, you resign yourself after a large SEC investigation and get a big cash bonus on top of it. Gee, don't you read the news.

It was either 2: he was boning a higher up (CEO's or board's) wife or daughter or he was caught with kiddy porn.

Re:He got fired because...

[JerryLove]

I would imagine that it's actually something more serious, like an inappropriate work relationship (still thinking it's not something they would fire you for, at the CIO level)

Recall though that Melindia Gates was an employee of Bill Gates. It would have to be *very* inappropriate.

Re:He got fired because...

[Talsan]

Don't forget that Boeing's CEO was canned a couple of years ago over a consensual interoffice affair (CBC Story).

I'd say it probably wasn't a use of funds issue, but interoffice romance, sexual harassment, or browsing porn at work could possibly do it.

Re:He got fired because...

[Igarden2]

Is it possible he got axed for hitting on Melinda?

Re:He got fired because...

[ak3ldama]

Recall though that Melindia Gates was an employee of Bill Gates. It would have to be *very* inappropriate.

What I have seen nobody mention, I am about to postulate: It was a guy. This is Microsoft, not Open Source. I don't think the MS people would be quite as tolerant of this.

Re:He got fired because...

[Surt]

Inappropriate work relationship seems unlikely given the Bill/Melinda situation.

Typo....

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

After reading the first dozen posts, I realized you made a mistake:

...they could post it anonymously and be totally fine because there will be a hundred other totally fucking stupid guesses...

self.don(flame_retardant_suit)

Re:He was caught...

[Rogerborg]

Hey, I like how you just copied a post directly off the story site! That's the spirit of re-use in action.

Clippy

[redshirt1111]

He told Clippy to, and I quote, "Get Bent".

Re:Clippy

[barzok]

Actually, I believe he told Clippy to "get straightened" as Clippy is already a bent piece of wire.

Re:Clippy

[mqduck]

Dude, I love you.

Re:He got fired for....

[thatskinnyguy]

Lol You totally missed something. Were they Office 2003 supplies or Office 2007 supplies? There is a difference.

Re:He got fired for....

[andawyr]

Building a better life, was he?

No, no no...

[j.sanchez1]

Ballmer found out he named his kids Ubuntu and Google

Helped someone bypass WGA?

[Rogerborg]

And it wasn't that he bypassed WGA, it was that he helped someone.

Maybe I'm too cynical

[faloi]

But for someone at CIO level to get canned it was either something that borders, or is just straight up illegal that MS is trying to keep under wraps primarily because it would damage their reputation, whether it was something tacitly approved by them or completely unknown to them. Or, possibly, they had it out for him and used some minor infringement as the basis for letting him go. Something like "Sorry, the company limit on gifts from vendors and suppliers is $50, and that widget was clearly $51 after tax!"

Either way I'm sure he has some majestic golden parachute that will help ensure that neither he nor his family could potentially go hungry for the next 5 generations if they're marginally competent at managing money, provided he never talks about it...of course.

Re:Maybe I'm too cynical

[stoolpigeon]

At my last job, when the CIO was fired all hush-hush and mysterious like, it was because he was stealing. They didn't want that out and made a deal for him to pay back the money rather than go to jail. I think you are right - it was something along those lines.

Re:Maybe I'm too cynical

[crivens]

If he did something illegal, isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black? Unless he did something illegal that they couldn't hide/defend. Cynical!

Stop crime now - use unreasonable force

[Benson Arizona]

Terminating him seems a bit harsh - couldn't they just have sacked him?

Re:Stop crime now - use unreasonable force

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

But that means buying him a sack. And frankly I don't think he'd get into it no matter how nicely they asked.

Re:Stop crime now - use unreasonable force

[The MAZZTer]

They remembered to sack the people responsible for the initial sacking too, right?

Re:Stop crime now - use unreasonable force

[MadJo]

Who killed Stuart Scott?
I suggest it was Microsoft in the Kitchen with an Axe!

Re:Stop crime now - use unreasonable force

[Surt]

Being sacked by Bill Gates is a fate worse than death, just ask Melinda.

Re:Booyah!

[skoaldipper]

Even now, he can be heard shouting "Boom-shaka-laka!" while strutting down to 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway.

2 words

[Joe U]

Penguin Lust

Perhaps someone figured out

[jayhawk88]

...that he's the BOFH? In which case expect him to be back within a week with a 20% raise, and Steve Ballmer nowhere to be found.

Re:Perhaps someone figured out

[j.sanchez1]

...that he's the BOFH? In which case expect him to be back within a week with a 20% raise, and Steve Ballmer nowhere to be found.

Wow, that really brings back a lot of memories. I remember crying I was laughing so hard the first time I read the adventures of the BOFH. Thanks!

Re:Perhaps someone figured out

[j.sanchez1]

By the way, here are the "original" BOFH postings that are not on the Register website. The Register only runs them from 2000 and later.

shagging interns

[*weasel]

or something similarly pedestrian.

Bills Revenge

[rclandrum]

He was let go because his stock was about to vest...

Maybe he is really...

[seanellis]

Pamela Jones!

Rumor: love affair

[slashflood]

... according to ValleyWag.

Re:Rumor: love affair

[ergo98]

Rumor: love affair

From Stuart's quickly updated PressPass page we see in the bottom that he-

lives with his wife and seven children in Washington. He spends his free time with his family, coaching sports teams, leading youth groups, and playing golf.

Ouch.

Re:Rumor: love affair

[jj00]

I have a hard time believing that they would publicly terminate him over an affair. Doing something publicly (as has been mentioned in earlier comments), implies that they are warning other companies about something.

I'm guessing there is some misappropriation of funds going on here, or he really screwed over a client in some way. Maybe he was selling stuff from the MS store on ebay.

I can't believe how interested everyone is about this (including myself), considering how everyone hates when the media talks about Paris Hilton and the like. I'm sure this story won't be featured on Good Morning America, but it hasn't stopped the rumor mill.

Re:Rumor: love affair

[Anonymous Coward]

The main thing is that he may have promoted his lover over other more qualified people. By publically terminating him they lower thier risk of suit by employees passed over due to the affair.

Re:Rumor: love affair

[Surt]

It seems like firing him over that would be asking for a huge lawsuit considering how the CEO met his wife.

Re:Rumor: love affair

[isdnip]

Actually, they very well might fire him for having an affair with a subordinate. That is usually seen as an explicit violation of company rules, and, in business, is often seen as a serious violation. It may, for instance, lead to favoritism, and influence promotions or management decisions. Or it can be seen as somewhat coercive. I'm pretty sure the Pentagon takes it seriously too, among all levels of the military. Bonking a peer or someone outside of your chain of command is one thing; bonking down the chain is something else entirely.

Re:Rumor: love affair

[Quadraginta]

Yep. Google Harry Stonecipher, former CEO of Boeing.

Re:Rumor: love affair

[serutan]

The word at MS is that he gave an admin an unfavorable review after a broken-off love affair. It was the review, not the affair, that violated company policy. I haven't heard anything about another VP being involved except on the web.

Some information...

[Funkcikle]

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/stuartsc/default.mspx

* He is a Six Sigma black belt.
* Scott lives with his wife and SEVEN children.
* He helped "ensure that Microsoft is the "first and best customer" of its own products."
* He spends his free time with his family, coaching sports teams, leading youth groups, and playing golf.

I'm guessing...he was teaching Six Sigma karate to underprivileged inner-city girls and, as happened with his wife, got too close and BAM...instant pregnancies all round.

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

Re:Some information...

[dkf]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE? Mormons?

Re:Some information...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

Mormons... The correct answer is Mormons.

Re:Some information...

[Nimey]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE? Mormons and Catholics, i.e. members of those religions that don't care about uncontrolled population growth and its consequences.

Re:Some information...

[Pharmboy]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

My mom.

Really, no joke. I'm the 6th of 7. Not saying she isn't insane, just saying some people want lots of kids.

Re:Some information...

[Antique Geekmeister]

Someone who can afford it? At that corporate level, he's certainly pulling down several hundred thousand dollars a year, especially including stock options.

Re:Some information...

[192939495969798999]

If money is no object, having seven kids can be fun. However, for most of us that would mean bankruptcy in order to keep up with trends or whatever junior needs to keep up with the neighbors, who aren't dividing their income 9 ways (husband, wife + 7 kids)

Re:Some information...

[peterprior]

Morons

There - fixed that for you...

Re:Some information...

[Andy_R]

Not only that! "Scott is also the executive sponsor for Microsoft's Operational Enterprise Risk Management efforts and supports the integration of management principles from the Quality & Business Excellence team, which drive continuous and breakthrough process improvements across the company."

I'm guessing he got fired for using the Dilbert mission statement generator on his CV.

Re:Some information...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The poor guy is unemployed and has seven (that we know about so far) children to support.

The "poor guy" was a top executive for one of the biggest corporations in the world. I can pretty much guarantee you that he and his litter o' puppies aren't going to be out on the street any time soon. They may have to scale down their lifestyle a bit ... like, say, sell one of their yachts ... but this isn't $JOE_DOWNSIZED_TECH_WORKER we're talking about.

Re:Some information...

[tokul]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

One drove too fast and they are six
One went to wrong place and they are five
One learned to fly a plane (almost) and they are four
One was a brave astronaut until shuttle crashed
One slept with wrong wife and they are two
One used wrong crack and there is only one
Last boy is a nerd. End of your genealogy tree.

Re:Some information...

[ThirdPrize]

Cue Michael Jackson jokes.

Re:Some information...

[njfuzzy]

"Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?"

Someone wealthy enough to have a stay at home wife and hired help, I'm guessing.

Re:Some information...

[Schnapple]

If money is no object, having seven kids can be fun.

My wife is a fan of the show Jon & Kate plus 8, a reality show which follows a family which, after having twins, decided to have one more child and due to overzealous fertility drugs, had sextuplets. So they have eight children.

I can definitively say that in my opinion, absolutely nothing about having more than two children looks like fun at all. This show actually brought my wife and I to an agreement about the concept of selective abortion. Hell, if I had twins I would not only be "done" with the whole kid thing, but I would be pissed off that I had to put them through college at the same time (instead of only having a short window that they'd both be in)

Re:Some information...

[Nimey]

There's 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, and quite a number of those in poor Third World countries that can't feed all of their people[1]. Not all Catholics drank the Kool-Aid about not using protection, but surely there's enough among that 1.1 billion to account for quite a lot of population growth.

There's about 13 million Mormons[2], so (for the moment) they don't have the sheer number of breeders to be as much of a problem.

[1] See "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift for a solution. ;-)
[2] Both population figures courtesy Wackypedia.

Re:Some information...

[evilklown]

"Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?"

http://www.duggarfamily.com/

"Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar are grateful to God for the birth of their 17th child Jennifer Danielle Duggar!"

I think this guy has one (or ten) up on ole Stuie here. Maybe we should divert some presidential campaign funding to condom ads...

Re:Some information...

[MikeBabcock]

I love how intelligent people complain about others breeding and effectively unbreed themselves out of the population.

Thanks a lot for not thinking ahead.

If you want lots of smart people working on future solutions, then breed. Jeez. Stop letting the un-smart people overpopulate you.

Re:Some information...

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Catholics.

Re:Some information...

[Nimey]

That's orthogonal to what I'm talking about -- I'm talking about overburdening the planet.

Re:Some information...

[HeronBlademaster]

My grandma had neither excess money nor hired help. In fact they were somewhat poor.

Ok ok, she only had *six* kids. I guess that's why.

Re:Some information...

[Nimey]

Just wrap your willies and I'll have nothing to say.

If sea levels do in fact rise, we're going to lose some arable land.

WRT to placing infrastructure above warfare & such, that priority change probably won't happen. Human nature.

Re:Some information...

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

Mormons do. Here's a true story. At my 20th year high school reunion (I went to a large US high school and we had over 400 students in my graduating class) we had a small number of teachers who came by. Our principal, who had just retired, dropped by as well. I saw this guy with a lady who seemed to be his wife off to the side. The guy had completely gray hair and he looked to be over 50, as did his wife, who was also completely gray. I asked one of my friends who the guy was, figuring it was a teacher. I was shocked to find out it was a guy who graduated with us who I had quite a few classes with. He looked so old, I thought he was a teacher from years ago, but he wasn't even 40 years old yet. I found out that he and his wife (both Mormons) had either 7 or 8 surviving kids plus one who had died some years earlier. I guess having that many kids just sucked the life out of him because he looked old - really old.

Re:Some information...

[nschubach]

Not anymore...

Re:Some information...

[cjsnell]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE? Mormons.

Re:Some information...

[SWad]

He couldn't afford to buy 7 copies of Vista for his kids' computers.

Re:Some information...

[Cassini2]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

They were trying for a girl ...

Re:Some information...

[kent_eh]

For anyone else wondering "WTF is Six Sigma", it appears to be yet another management method whereby you save the company money by measuring everything within an inch of it's life.

I think.

The web pages that talk about it don't seem to be written in any dialect of English that I'm familiar with.

Re:Some information...

[misterooga]

One of the relatives of my wife's have 5 or 6 children in their family. They simply tried for a boy as the parents strongly believed a son will take care of them later on once the girls move out. I believe all the kids have a difference of 1 year from their eldest.

It's just different culture and belief.

Nowdays, kids just abandon their parents anyway.

Re:Some information...

[painandgreed]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

Go watch Idiocracy and then tell me your opinion of geeks having seven kids. It's up to the geeks to save the world!

Re:Some information...

[ErikZ]

If I could afford it, I would.

7 kids has been the average norm for humanity.

Re:Some information...

[nuzak]

> Nowdays, kids just abandon their parents anyway.

Used to be that houses were inherited between generations instead of being sold off to pay for a retirement. When you boot 'em out at 18 and only want them back on Thanksgiving and Christmas, then don't be surprised if they grow a little bit distant.

Re:Some information...

[g1zmo]

I'd give you a funny point if I had one. The other replies prove that even a simple twist of words can be hard to pull off in writing, especially when a lot of the readers aren't native English speakers.

Re:Some information...

[Clandestine_Blaze]

I'm guessing...he was teaching Six Sigma karate to underprivileged inner-city girls and, as happened with his wife, got too close and BAM...instant pregnancies all round. I'm not sure I know of many underprivileged inner-city girls who care much about:

• Continuous efforts to reduce variation in process outputs is key to business success
• Manufacturing and business processes can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled
• Succeeding at achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management

Let alone get pregnant off of it. :-)

Six Sigma Black Belt Certification

Re:Some information...

[MagicBox]

Catholics also believe in the right to life and are against abortion for example in cases when the child is born retarded. I guess your parent must have been Catholics. Fucking retard.

Re:Some information...

[geekwithsoul]

And how many children do Mormon and Catholic bunnies have? Is is said the procreate like tribbles?

Re:Some information...

[ettlz]

I'm the 6th of 7.

...that's not a canonical drone identifier, please specify adjunct and unimatrix numbers as well.

Re:Some information...

[MikeBabcock]

Actually its not unless you don't believe that smart people could fix that problem. Whether its floating cities or space travel or better use of food resources or living under the oceans, there are potential future technological solutions that won't exist without the procreation of more smart people.

Think about it more.

Re:Some information...

[epine]

J.S. Bach had twenty children with two wives, half survived to adulthood. Any way you look at it, that's a lot of organ music.

Re:Some information...

[MrCopilot]

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

Catholics.

Re:Some information...

[Firrenzi]

so will there ever be the 7th son of the 7th son then?

Re:Some information...

[docwatson223]

Oddly enough, I have 4 and I know quite a few IT guys who have as many or more than I do. The truth is that we can afford to do so, so why not? Big families used to be the rule but as the economy has changed, only those with the means can afford to have them. A big family is the mark of success now. Get with it!

What any good CIO should do

[Verteiron]

Exempted himself from all security policies so he could download porn at work.

Fired?

[H8X55]

Fired?!
On his day off!?!
For stealing boxes?!?!
What!?!?!
Was he trying to build a clubhouse?!?!?!

Re:Fired?

[FlyByPC]

For stealing boxes?!?!
Yes. Eight-Xeon-CPU "boxes," with 64GB of memory, 200-TB RAID arrays of solid-state drives, and next-generation GPUs that make the ST Holodeck look lame.

Re:Fired?

[H8X55]

it was actually a reference to the 1995 american comedy Friday.

but that's okay.

Re:Fired?

[berashith]

ya, i saw the video. It looked just like him, from the back.

Re:Fired?

[FlyByPC]

Ah. That makes sense, then.

...but I got modded *informative*?!? Go figure...

Re:He got fired for....

[rueger]

That would be a "kernal panic" in Apple-speak, except that Macs never crash so it must have been my imagination.

Re:iPod

[DMoylan]

beat me to it. he didn't turn in his ipod.

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/05/24/flickr-find-microsoft-amnesty-bin-for-ipods/

two wild guesses

[mzs]

Microsoft basically paid for the new members in the Swedish OOXML vote and a subsidiary of Microsoft in Hungary was raided by the police in July. I have no knowledge that it is related to either of this, an out-right firing of such a high level person usually means basically stealing money. Not even a sexual harassment scandal would do that, just a quiet resignation.

definitely porn

[Synonymous Bosch]

hey, i'm just saying :)

He answered...

[Skiron]

... a press question truthfully and honesty (these words do not exist in MS corp along with Ethically and Morally).

A case where "ask" can mean "axe"

[tepples]

Usually, at levels this high, executives who misbehave are quietly asked to resign. Or when they get axed, they get axed to resign.

Re:Some information... who has 7 children?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody who is never at home anyway. Nannies deal with the kids.

Re:He got fired for....

[rueger]

Whoops... that's obviously "kernel"..

Re:He got fired for....

[greichert]

I used a wrong link. I should have posted a link to the BSOD that happens when people install Leopard.

A couple of problems

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a couple of problems with the theory that a Microsoft insider would anonymously post the truth behind Stu's termination:

1. Only a few of us know the truth, posting the truth is a good way to violate company policies, and you see what happens when you violate company policies, so even anonymous posting just means pressure is applied to ... let's just say a few ... people until it is determined who the one is and BOOM, job over
2. We don't like really like slashdotters that much, so we don't care if you never know the real reason
3. The truth is not exciting or anything...it's just mundane policy violation...so posting it is less enjoyable than reading all the wild-ass guesses
4. Halloween is over

I'll never tell. Even if I did, you'd be all "Meh" and say the idea that he was bangin' Melinda or selling Microsoft secret plans to Google is much more intriguing. So, sure, he was a Google mole. Just run with that one.

Re:A couple of problems

[mav[LAG]]

My guess is that this post is from a real Microsoft insider, probably someone in support or IT.

Arrogant? Check.
Condescending? Check.
Thinks "slashdotters" are some kind of homogeneous Microsoft-bashing species? Check.
Thinks Google competes with Microsoft? Check.
Gives out information which is absolutely no use to anyone? Check.

It just has the ring of truth.

Re:A couple of problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really count as an insider if you've never even been in the same building as Scott?

I, Slashdot, am amused by your disdain, and return it.

Re:A couple of problems

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Let me preface this by saying that I do not work for Microsoft and never have nor ever will. Nor do I have any Microsoft friends, acquaintances, or professional relationships. In fact, I doubt if I would know anything Microsoft if it ran up and slapped me in the face. As a matter of fact, I doubt that I would recognize the guy who runs it, Steve Jobs, if he tried to french kiss me on the subway. Frankly, I never heard of whats-his-name until I saw this post. Now, let me tell you my two bits about why this guy got fired -- politics. Obviously, he likes Hillary, perhaps a bit too much (if you get my drift) and Bill found out about it. Any idiot would know this, and I am a living proof.

Actually...

[Iphtashu Fitz]

He's just better at throwing chairs across rooms than a certain CEO is.

Picture the Scene

[ickoonite]

Undoubtedly because he was caught using an iPhone or an iPod touch. Or perhaps he brought a MacBook Pro to work. I can see it now!

Ballmer: What the fuck is that?
Scott: Oh yeah, it's a MacBook Pro. Sexy piece of kit, isn't it?
Ballmer: What the fucking fuck? Fucking sexy? No, it's not fucking sexy. It's fucking Apple, that's fucking what. What the fuck?
Scott: ...Er...It's only running Vista, if that helps. I erased that...oh-so-lovely (whoops) Mac operating system...Mac X, or whatever it's called...
Ballmer: You fucking fuck! Get the fuck out of my fucking face!

Ballmer grabs a chair. Scott exits quickly stage left.

:P

poor bastard put Ubuntu on his kid's laptop (n/t)

[toby]

n/t

We're Waiting

[trongey]

Come on, Stevie B. We know you're reading this. Just pop in as AC and give us the dirty on ol' Stu.

It's Tragic

[Fieryphoenix]

The man over-reacted a tidge when someone took his red stapler.

I've worked with MS reps before...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and caught one of them using Google. When asked 'shouldn't you be using Live?', the answer I received was 'Ya, but I want to find something...."

Slashdot makes be feel uncomforable posting as AC when the CAPTCHA is 'tracking'.

Top contenders

[Mostly a lurker]

1. Something sexual.
2. Breaching Microsoft's email [non-]retention policy and having the truth about Microsoft business activities turn up during discovery in some legal action.

Two Ideas - Just Guesses

[gregory311]

I have two guesses as to why Stuart Scott was fired. They are worth what you paid! 1. He was running some kind of online side business on microsoft infrastructure. 2. Perhaps his academic credentials were not real. In other words, he did not really earn one of the degrees he claimed before he was hired by M$.

He probably

[Colin Smith]

Bolted all the chairs down. Just for a laugh.

Imagery mischeif

[wavefreak]

He photo shopped gene simmons' tongue onto a pic of Balmer

He threw a paperweight....

[sledge_hmmer]

....at someone. Obviously Ballmer was not happy that it wasn't a chair. *I know I am going to get burned for this one!*

Re:Only way he could have gotten his results.

[nschubach]

So in other words... he caught one of the flying chairs and it pissed off monkey boy?

EULA

[Anne_Nonymous]

He violated the terms of the EULA.

Re:EULA

[Javaman59]

I really thought there were no good jokes left in this one, but that's the best of all!

Affair ?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/3617/microsoft-fires-cio-stuart-scott-possibly-for-inter-office-affair-with-his-subordinate

He had an affair with a subordinate

[Anonymous Coward]

The rumor mill is already gushing about the story: turns out Scott had an affair with one of his subordinates, who recently go a big promotion that raised many eye brows around the company. The two were on leave together when the investigation started: http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/3617/microsoft-fires-cio-stuart-scott-possibly-for-inter-office-affair-with-his-subordinate

Re:He had an affair with a subordinate

[192939495969798999]

That's some hot action! Seriously though, good riddance.

Good. Now they need to Fire Kevin

[GregPK]

Ever since Kevin, took over from Walmart, operations at the retail level have sucked, and not in a good way. A lot of good people have left, and even more want to leave. Something like a 30-40 percent turnover per year. It's rediculous. Also, I'm willing to bet that Kevin had something to do with him getting discovered as he was the former CIO at Walmart who's ethical practices aren't exactly "well known".

Re:He got fired for....

[thegnu]

Lol You totally missed something. Were they Office 2003 supplies or Office 2007 supplies? There is a difference.

Word is they had to halt production on new copies of Office 2007, because he was pirating hundreds of ribbons a day.

And piracy is stealing.

There's your answer...

[gosand]

He helped "ensure that Microsoft is the "first and best customer" of its own products."

There's your answer - he pushed them to use Vista internally.

Re:There's your answer...

[dbIII]

There's your answer - he pushed them to use Vista internally.

Not suprising they would do this. Some of their disgruntled customers are telling them to take Vista internally.

Re:There's your answer...

[MLease]

I didn't know Vista was available in suppository form. Although now that you mention it, it does make sense.

-Mike

Distributing Microsoft Products?

[starman97]

Says here 'Scott was charged with the distribution of Microsoft products among employees.'

So, was he bootlegging Halo betas?
  I cant see them firing him for giving out copies of Vista.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-executive-fired-violating-company/story.aspx?guid=%7B3C9D5FC9-8119-4559-93AE-8FA7ED975002%7D&dist=hplatest

Re:Distributing Microsoft Products?

[DaveAtFraud]

Says here 'Scott was charged with the distribution of Microsoft products among employees.'

Hmmm. So everybody at Microsoft secretly uses a Mac or runs Linux on a PC and he caused productivity to implode by insisting that they actually use the products they were creating. Having been briefly exposed to Vista (until I could wipe it off of my Wife's laptop) and hearing her complain about the gawd-awful ribbon interface in the new office, I can believe it.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Distributing Microsoft Products?

[Evil Poot Cat]

That would be 'charged with', as in 'tasked with'.

Re:Distributing Microsoft Products?

[KangKong]

Which doesn't rule out an affair with another employee. Microsoft probably owns all derivate work, including children.

Re:Distributing Microsoft Products?

[StormReaver]

"Says here 'Scott was charged with the distribution of Microsoft products among employees.'"

Man, I'm going to let my boss know about this. If not even Microsoft wants to use Microsoft products at work, then the rest of should get a clue.

Re:Distributing Microsoft Products?

[DigitalSorceress]

I think you're on to something there...

Wish I had some mod points cuz that's +1 insightful

Re:Distributing Microsoft Products?

[Repton]

'Scott was charged with the distribution of Microsoft products among employees.'

Wow, that puts a whole new spin on the "screwing a subordinate" line from other posters...

Its obvious ....

[HW_Hack]

in meetings and in emails concerning Vista and M$ future plans - he actually said what everyone secretly thinks about Vista etc.

OR

He may have actually suggested that the Emporer has no clothes (or plans)

Monkey Boy

[Darth Cider]

He was overheard referring to Steve Ballmer as Uncle Fester and Monkey Boy, a la Fake Steve Jobs.

One obvious possibility

[GrueMaster]

Could it have something to do with the Nigerian Government's purchase of Classmate Systems preloaded with Mandriva and wiped on delivery? The two do seem close together.

Liability

[athloi]

He did something for which the company might get sued (sexual harassment could qualify) and has been fired to protect the company. Legal action is like being bit by a zombie. Expect your former friends to shoot you in the head ASAP.

Ready for the google staff...

[mvfuentes]

Ready for the google staff... Just, Another coin fired from the emperium...

Re:Booyah!

[lonechicken]

Holla at a playa when you see him in the street! This shouldn't have been moderated as Offtopic. If anything, I'd go with "Playa hatin'"

Re:EXACTLY!

[ByOhTek]

I'd have to disagree with your first statement. People do occasionally switch back to Windows - I've seen a number. I tried Linux and went back to Windows after a couple of months. I tried FreeBSD, and for now, it is definetly my preferred OS, but when there's a decent port of KDE4 to Windows, it is very possible that I will end up going back to Windows.

Made a pass at...

[canuck57]

Maybe made a pass at Balmer when he bent over to pick up a chair.

Or maybe more hideous, he ran Linux at home.

Re:Made a pass at...

[fm6]

You can't fire somebody for having bad taste in men.

Dodging chairs too well?

[hAckz0r]

Reflex time improves with continued exposure to aberrant behavior. ;)

Indirect warning, lawsuit avoidance

[Shivetya]

I somehow find it hard to believe that MS would want to warn other corporations about hiring him. this day and age a company can get whacked for giving out truthful but otherwise damaging reviews of former employees. There have been numerous occasions where former consulting companies I worked for would ask about someone I may have worked with just to get a picture they cannot get from past employers. By doing it this way Microsoft is able to pass along the big red flag without actually setting themselves up for defamation suits

Why wouldn't that supprise you?

[Toreo asesino]

Believe it or not, Microsoft does consist of real people too, partly as cyborgs are incredibly difficult to toilet train and I won't even start on the eating habits.

All public communication channels to and from Microsoft (the stuff Slashdot feeds on for instance) represent, well, very little of what's inside.

Bribery

[blugeoned]

Maybe this is a delayed reaction to the bribery scandal from a few weeks ago over the OOXML adoption and the screwup of the OOXML adoption itself. I can see where a bribery scandal that could be traced back to high-level executives could pose serious problems for MS in Europe.

Reading Slashdot

[FozE_Bear]

It wasn't porn, he was reading Slashdot on company time.

six sigma

[xenomouse]

Six Sigma is a process management... process.

I think.

But it's definitely not karate!

Not enough corruption, perhaps ?

[unity100]

You know, the aptitude for bribery, shady competition, backstabbing, monopolistic leanings and such ? And chair throwing skillz ? Maybe he lacked those 'qualities' ?

Ripping / Piracy

[im_thatoneguy]

The guy has 7 kids is married and is a techie. He's too corporate to be hip, so he buys his way into being 'cool' through being the provider. I bet he had like a 15 terrabyte home server that just ripped movies, software and music all day long.

He probably has the 25+mbps bonded DSL, some sort of outlandish automated ripping system and was sharing the spoils of his hobby with his co-workers and friends. You know the kind of piracy setup that only a 6 figure salary can afford.

Microsoft then finds out that he's A) in deep shit with a whole lot of companies and organisations (MPAA, RIAA, etc etc) and B) has even been pirating Microsoft software and distributing it so they can him without being specific in an agreement to not get him arrested and sued for $10,000,000 in copyright violations.

Strange no one mentioned this

[Rui del-Negro]

Is it a coincidence this happened so shortly after Microsoft finally accepted to comply with the EC's decision in the anti-trust case?

It might be totally unrelated, but I noticed no one had mentioned this yet.

Probably not trying to hide something

[snowwrestler]

When a business wants to hide the wrong-doing of an executive, they buy them out and everyone keeps their mouth shut. One publicly terminates an executive when one wants to send a public message. Often the message is that the business is responsive to a situation. So if the executive is harassing someone, or committing a crime, the business can try to limit its liability by showing that it took all possible steps to remedy the situation.

Also, at the executive level, ticky-tack reasons for firing someone aren't really applicable. If the CEO doesn't like the CIO, he just cans him and brings in his own guy. This can be a kind of message too...fire a rival and consolidate power. And if that turns in an employment lawsuit, a little gift violation is not going to stand up in court.

Re:He was caught...

[AVee]

Hey, watch your words! This is a Microsoft story, it is called "Visual Basic inheritence".

Re:EXACTLY!

[NickFortune]

M$ always gets in the news somehow, and only in the last 6 years have the geeks learned to substitute another name in its stead into OSS games, software, stories, etc. This is good, the less press they get, the better. It is about the only way to not advertise FOR them.

So, basically: "Don't say mean things about Microsoft, it only makes them stronger"

That's positively Orwellian. "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength; Silence is Criticism" I don't know which of the Redmond spin doctors came up with that meme, but I hope they gave him a bonus for it.

Re:The two big internet rumors are...

[ObjetDart]

probably not pr0n as he seems to be a religious guy.

Oh please..."religious" people are some of the biggest pr0n hounds on the planet.

lawyers recommended it

[DriveDog]

How about this... once again, something he did or said made MS, according to their legal department, vulnerable to a lawsuit. By preemptively publicly removing him, they hope that a judge will see that MS is not liable, that the CIO acted in violation of policy and is only himself liable. Unfortunately, whatever he did is either not clearly against MS policy or often goes unpunished, so if they say publicly what he allegedly did, they'll be subject to his next lawsuit.

(Everything I write here is only my personal opinion, not that of my employer, etc.)

Re:EXACTLY!

[Lord Apathy]

People do occasionally switch back to Windows

An there are people who switch from linux to windows. I'm guilty of that. I started off with a linux dominated system in '95. It had a a windows '95, small, partition on it to play games. Over the years that small partition got bigger but I was still primary linux.

Then I installed some red hat patches and for some reason my keyboard and mouse stopped working. The patches had nothing to do with the keyboard and mouse. camel meets straw. I formated the fucker that night and installed windows.

Two years went by and I need a server so I pulled together some spare hardware and installed linux on a duron 700. I used it for awhile keeping it current in the hardware. When I retired the linux box the hardware was a athlon 3000+ with 1 GB of RAM and Suse 10.2. I even tried to make it into a myth box but mythtv kicked my ass. After three days of fucking with it, I said "fuck it" and had mediaportal running on XP up in an hour.

Recently I needed the hardware the linux box was running on. So I moved the suse 10.2 to a mickysoft virtual server. It stayed as a virtual server for a few months. A couple weeks ago I tried to upgrade it to 10.3 The results where not pretty so I shut it down. It will probably be down for good.

Linux doesn't do what I need it to do anymore. I'm a photographer and linux just doesn't have the support for the equipment and software I need, like for the printers and photoshop. If you say gimp is as good as photoshop then your and idiot and need to just shut up.

recently I've been thinking about a Mac. I'm sure it will pass but not so certain it will pass in time....

Obligatory

[AndyG314]

Those who have sacked those who sacked those who sacked the engineers of this album have been sacked

Depends I Guess

[kaiwai]

I guess it depends on the underlying motives. A lot of people assume companies are run by completely heartless bastards; but you'll find there are ones out there who will even listen to employee's lower done.

There was actually a mate who ran a company, he found out there was an individual stealing money - he later found out that the individual had a gambling problem; rather than punish the individual he actually went and helped the individual out. That individual still works there.

If there were mitigating circumstances, generally speaking it can be in the best interest for the two parties to come to an arrangement and have what ever is taken, repaid, then taking it to court and most likely getting nothing; if someone is truly repentant, they will pay back without needing to ask.

Embezzlement probably

[JPriest]

He probably did something like use his company card to buy personal goods etc. Although I suppose it could have been sexual harassment or something.

This site sucks

[bakamaki]

I think he didn't get fired I think Dre just axed him a question.

You guys are nuts!

[erc]

You guys are nuts ... for a big company to say that a high-ranking employee was fired for any reason is a pretty risky thing to do from a legal standpoint. They must've had a darned good reason to can Scott. Even when a CXX is caught doing something, it's usually handled much more gracefully - he's allowed to resign "for personal reasons" or "to seek a different position" or allowed to stay on the payroll while he finds another job, even if the true reason was that the guy was sleeping with his secretary or got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He also might've been caught on the losing end of a corporate power play - the folks who report to him and the folks who are his peers are always jockeying for position, looking for an opportunity to look good to *his* boss in case they see an opportunity to set him up to get rid of him...

Regardless, most of the opinions posted here about why the guy was sacked are just plain silly.

My theory.

[jellomizer]

Being CIO Chief Information Officer. It would probably most likely would be due to leaking some information. It could be releasing some specs before hand, or some. Or even something like giving the root password for the Cisco Router to Cisco customer support, who is based in an other country...
Hording money or going with unsavory consultants, Who will buy 20,000 feet of Cat 5 itemize it as Cat 6 and pocket the difference. Taking bribes. A slew of things.

"axed"? More like chaired. (n.t.)

[Non-Huffable Kitten]

no text

You didn't hear it from me

[edwardpickman]

It involved a goat, a shower and a bar of soap.....I've said too much already.

This is what happens when you try to apply 6 Sigma

[geekoid]

to software development.

6 sigma is a way to measure and decrease defects over time. However people are intertwined with software development, and software methodologies tend to change;which means new vectors for defects. This is similar to why it doesn't work well in retail.

Plus, you must understand statistics, or hire statisticians to be really succesfull

For the record, if I could afford to put 7 children through college, not need my wife to work and can afford live in help, I would have 7 kids.

Re:EXACTLY!

[jo42]

Mebbe he said "XP Good! Vista Bad." ?

Re:EXACTLY!

[xhrit]

"If you say gimp is as good as photoshop then your and idiot and need to just shut up."

And you think I am an idiot.

Just trying to help the anonymous truth teller

[hyades1]

Ah, CRAP!!! I get busy and don't look at Slashdot for a while. So I miss that a Microsoft Hive Queen has been deleted from the Collective until there's already about a zillion comments on it. And a lot of the comments are funny. And most of the writers came up with the same ideas I did...earlier (and probably funnier).

Caught using Linux/Apple/Firefox/Whatever: check.

Caught having an affair: check.

Caught dumping Vista for XP Pro: I didn't see it, but it's too good to miss. So check.

Caught pirating: See above.

Has a better arm than Ballmer: check.

Theft/Murder/Coveting his neighbor's ox: check

Coveting his neighbor's (cough) ass (cough): check.

Damn it, I WILL NOT BE DENIED! What's left? Interspecies sex? Are Bill Gates' kids old enough to date?

Wait, wait.....I got it! He photocopied his bum and mistakenly hit "Reply All" when the e-mail should have gone to Ballmer as part of the secret Microsoft submission ritual.

TA DA!!!!!

Re:EXACTLY!

[ByOhTek]

"in a weekend"? That's good?

In Windows, the worst TV tuner (an ATi All in Wonder) took at most 2 hours to set up, and then only because I had to get the video drivers as well. Most TV tuners took less than half an hour from insertion of board to watching TV.

Harrassment

[Grendel_Prime]

On his application for the job, in the line indicating sex, he wrote in the word "YES" and checked it. MS didn't notice till they went to digitize their HR paperwork to store on their FILECABINET LIVE initiative.

Re:EXACTLY!

[Lord Apathy]

And you think I am an idiot.

Mark Twann, I think, once said, "it's best to keep your mouth shut an let the world think your a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt." I'm pretty sure I butchered that quote but you should get the point. I would suggest that you take Mark Twann's advice to heart.

He took the blue pill.

[neo]

I suspect that public termination is a deterrent to other members of the company, not a warning to other companies. This kind of termination is an example to others that whatever he did (office love affair?) will not be tolerated. It takes balls to terminate someone this high up. Kudos to the HR department and whoever signed the paper.

On the other hand kudos to the guy for having an office love affair. Too bad you got caught.

that'll do it

[ElephanTS]

He came into the office one day and said, 'You know, I've been thinking, we make some right sh*t don't we?'

Re:EXACTLY!

[Lord Apathy]

I would think that you would be correct in that "n00b" statement. When I tried to do the mythbox I had been out of touch with linux at that level for years. I beat on it for 3 days before giving it up for lost. To my credit I had most of it working. I had the S/dpif sound working, the remote needed programming but worked, and I had video at 1920x1080. The only problem was I couldn't get the video on the mythbox as good as I could get it on MP under windows. What is was is the graphics card, radeon 9700, drivers that I had to use under myth just where not as good as the windows.

I beat on that thing for 3 days before saying "fuck it." I had MP up and running in full 1920x1080 glory in about an hour. No, I didn't need to run it in 1920x1080 but by god I had a HD tv and I was going to use it as such. Damn the lack of media!

Oh an by the way. I'm not an English teacher and I don't give a flying ratts ass about what you people think of my spelling or grammer. I would think that you fuck nuggets that must correct that would figure that out by now.

Re:EXACTLY!

[UbuntuDupe]

Your complaint is invalid because that problem has since been fixed. [/what people always say to me when I complain about Ubuntu]

i know what he did

[rice_burners_suck]

I know what he did.

He got a Mac.

Maybe he was just joking.

[Futurepower(R)]

"I see that by "schooled in espionage" you meant "paranoid"..."

I think that by "schooled in espionage" he meant "joke".

yes, but

[Per Abrahamsen]

you are not supposed to promote your lover way beyond his or her level of competence.

Re:EXACTLY!

[Lord Apathy]

For one, you are mistaken in your assumption that I complain. I do not complain about anything. I Bitch. There is a difference.

Two, I like your answer so I'm writing it down for future use.

Three, (yes I could have used a list), I have no idea what complaint you are bitching about.

Well...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

But that's what I don't get! How is it so exciting to force someone that's scared you'll fire them to have flirt-have sex with you? I don't crush ants and go, "ooh look at me, I'm so POWERFUL!"

Well... good for you.

Not if he was fired for cause...

[mikelieman]

I'm sure his contract has a clause stating that he doesn't get a payout if he's terminated for cause.

Boo Hoo Fuck You Scott

[gelfling]

I don't care what the damn reason is. I'm sure they'd escort my ass the hell out the door too if I did whatever you did. The difference is, Scott, that you get to weep all over the steering wheel of your Porsche on the way home, wallow in a bathtub full of money when you get there and stare at your real Monets hanging on the wall. So fuck you, man.

BTW kids, the CIO role in MS is not a top exec spot. It's second tier. MS doesn't give shit for people who don't move PRODUCT. He MUST have been stealing. Guaranteed.

Oy.

[jkmiecik]

Figures, this thread is full of "MS IS FULL OF HORRIBLE PEOPLE" posts.

They found out he did something wrong and canned his ass. They didn't try to hide the violation, let him "step down" etc. They FIRED him.

I Called Bill and Found Out What It Was...

[bratwiz]

Turns out this guy had a poster of Linus Torvalds taped to the inside of his locker.

In best Linda Hamilton impersonation:

[ciaohound]

"You're terminated, fucker."

Re:obvious Karma

[TaoPhoenix]

Apparently not.

Every post I see that says "I will get modded down" gets modded Funny.

Obligatory whoosh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please report to the nearest citizen reeducation station for a much needed humor implant.

Computer Security Violation

[oldzoot]

Being the CIO, he is responsible for computer security within the company.
He violated due diligence by certifying the use of an insecure operating system at Microsoft, notably Windows Vista. /duck

OldZoot

It may be a good thing for him after all

[Cannelloni]

Ironically, getting fired from Microsoft might be the best thing that ever happened in that guy's life. I mean, just imagine how it must feel to work for a *bleep* like Steve Ballmer? To have a big, paranoid, evil corporation slowly eating away at your soul, eroding your mind and destroying your personal self? No money in the world is worth it. Really.

Re:EXACTLY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark who?

Sports Center Tag

[BooRolla]

Hello,

I wanted you to be sure you witnessed the first and last "Sports Center" tag to ever be used on /.

Re:He got fired for....

[notgm]

HE STOLE CLIPPY!

He was working on catchy sayings....

[gsfprez]

like:
"Cooler than the other side of the pillow"
and
"Booyah!"

instead of getting his damn job done.

Did he

[boltik]

failed the chair throwing test?

My Guess

[sirgoran]

His computer dual booted to four distros of Linux and no Win OS.

His web browser was Firefox.

His mail program was gmail.

His Office suite was Star Office.

His personal website ran PHP and Apache on a Sun box.

His cell phone was an iPhone.

He told Ballmer he was "just a stupid little panty waste".

I figure any one of those would get you canned...

Read the ToS

[Nom du Keyboard]

He should have read the ToS before he broke open the shrink-wrap on his office.

Re:He was caught...

[kclittle]

You think I read the f* article? You must be new here... :)

obligatory

[DeepHurtn!]

Gee, I bet you're a lot of fun at parties!

nope

[Quadraginta]

Er, on what basis? You can't sue someone for wrongful termination just because you don't like why you were fired, and then hope the jury sees it your way. There isn't some principle written into the law that says you can only be fired if a jury of your peers agrees it was "fair."

In essence, there are some very narrowly and specifically defined grounds for a wrongful termination suit, namely discrimination based on your sex, race or age, or if you were fired in retaliation for "whistle-blowing" to any of several government agencies. There may be others, too. But the point is that unless a legislature has defined specific grounds for a wrongful termination suit, you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all, and you have zero recourse unless the company failed to honor your employment contract.

Especially when, as is probable in this case, the guy agreed when he was hired -- in writing, or by the act of showing up for his first day of work -- that he would abide by certain clearly-stated corporate principles, e.g. not boffing people who report to you, and then was caught not doing so. A lawsuit that can't allege sex or race discrimination, and which has to overcome violation of his conditions of employment, probably won't even come before a jury -- a judge would toss it as soon as the defendant asked him to.

He threw a chair...

[gabrieltss]

at Balmer! Blamer didn't apprieciate it so they "threw" him out.

Re:Reading Slashdot / Not Porn

[Crypto Gnome]

Wash your mouth out!

Since when is slashdot not porn (for geeks)?

Well, that does it!

[Nybble's Byte]

I guess he'll never be promoted to chair-man of the board.

Imagine a young single woman named Eula getting hired by Microsoft, one day yelling in the back of a car, "Violate me! Violate me!" If the guy is also a MS employee, do you think he'll get canned?

Personally...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I think that this particular post happens to be particularly insightful. If I was betting money on the reason for him getting fired, it'd be on that.

Re:Booyah!

[NeoChaosX]

Thank you, I knew I wasn't the only one who thought of the SportsCenter anchor when I saw the guy's name.

Duh

[Vexor]

He bought a mac, installed linux on it, end of story.

Re:EXACTLY!

[tiny1877]

Yes, but windoze sucks. It only took me a weekend because I had issues getting the program data to load properly and the PVR-150 card was not picked up with the correct tuner id. Most of the time I spent was researching the PVR-150 issue.

Re:EXACTLY!

[Penguinisto]

Mark who?

Clemens.

(wait for it...)

/P

one of three things

[jollyreaper]

My guess is snuff, kiddie pr0n, or necrophilia. Or he may have really crossed the line and gotten into the furry stuff.

Ballmer

[sentientbrendan]

is still pretty derideable. Not so much because he's running microsoft into the ground or anything. Overall, Microsoft is doing pretty well, and I'd probably say their stock and outlook is a bit undervalued by most people.

However, he's screwed up on two major fronts and kind of failed to repent on at least one of them.
1. He let the vista development get strung out like it did. This probably isn't largely his fault, but as CEO he should have realized something was going very wrong and forced the development team to start removing features instead of pushing back the launch date. Windows is still Microsofts most important product, and he should have kept a better eye on it.
2. He seems to have some vendetta going with Google, for reasons that are totally beyond me. I honestly don't see how or why Microsoft and Google are in competition, and I tend to think that Microsoft is wasting a lot of money pretending that they are a serious search and ads company like Google or Yahoo. Maybe they'll prove me wrong in the long run, they did with the XBox, but I tend to see their web initiatives as a distraction from more promising products.
3. He seems to have encouraged a very inefficient corporate culture with a lot of levels of management and lots of meetings. I don't think the Google style flat management structure is an appropriate approach for a company the size of Microsoft (or a company the size of Google for that matter), but I think that something has to be done to address how sluggish the company has gotten. Something like Apple style skunkworks projects for some of their key projects would probably make sense.

Sorry to burst your bubble ...

[jchenx]

Maybe his daughter was caught using an iPod? Or perhaps his work machine's cache was found to have a Google Search results page in it?

But, in all seriousness, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft had a very stringent agreement with it's employees such that you're guilty of violating company policy at all times. Something really vague and impossible to avoid like "you shall not support a competitor in anyway with any of your personal funds or free time." They only let you go if they want to and so few get let go on these grounds that nobody really cares about it. Does anyone know if this is the case?

It really wouldn't surprise me if they treated their employees the same way they treat their customers.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but as someone who works at MS, they don't treat their employees like that. (Nor do I think we treat all of our customers like that either, but that's a separate discussion!)

There are plenty of people around here (myself included) that use competing products. We're talking about Macs, Firefox, Google, iPhone, iPod, PlayStation, etc. Yeah, some of it is competitive analysis and such, but a lot of it is just due to personal preference, and it is draconian to think that an employer would force such measures on their employees. Obviously MS would like everyone to drink nothing but Kool-Aid, and will suggest people buy Zunes, use Live Search, etc. and I think that's fine and healthy. I would expect Google and Apple to do the same thing with its employees, allowing them to run/own/use the competition's products.

Why is the mainstream media not covering this?

[ostomator]

So yeah, I have been greppping the main stream media for the last twenty four hours, and the best i can find is this : microsoft stock price drops marginally (video, safe for work). I mean seriously. An executive at a major company gets fired and the talking heads don't think this is news worthy? What am I missing here? And by "grepping" I mean seriously searching for the sound "microsoft" being mentioned on any national television or radio news. Do you know if they have and I have just missed it? Not that I own stock or anything. Bob if at first you don't succeed, redefine success

Re:EXACTLY!

[deniable]

Mark Twann, invented the scanner driver.

Luckily French Melinda Gates Was Single

[meehawl]

I guess it's lucky, then, that Melinda French was a frisky 20-something single when she and Bill started shagging. And out of that union came Bob...

Moonlighting

[uvajed_ekil]

Microsoft has terminated its CIO Stuart Scott for 'violation of company policies'. They won't elaborate. Now what do you think this guy has done?

I think he was fired because he was moonlighting with ESPN, and being the most annoying guy on SportsCenter.

(ESPN is a cable television network that focuses mainly on sports, since you don't know. It is that channel you occasionally watch poker on late at night, and SportsCenter is a show other people watch sometimes. Naturally I don't expect anyone to mod my post up for being funny, because no one here will get it.)

Okay, here's the deal.

[DaedalusHKX]

Instead of saying "Microsoft sucks." (we all already know this)

Try saying "[Your flavor of OS] is great, here's why!" (perhaps we might learn something.)

As to the other arguments I seem to have spawned, I found something out. Every time I ended up running Linux or BSD, I ended up LEARNING something. The only thing I learned about computing, or crypto or anything else is this... "if they get physical access to your machine, it ain't your machine or your data ANY MORE... however, if you're running any OS that starts with Win... it ain't your data or your machine ANYWAYS! Read the EULA and the bug reports that go superficially fixed."

That's my 10 cents.

Re:Okay, here's the deal.

[NickFortune]

Instead of saying "Microsoft sucks." (we all already know this)

hmmm... but the clever people at Redmond are constantly inventing new forms of suckage, and these need to be discussed. For instance the recent software updates that affected even machines that had disabled updates; that is something people need to know about because it brings into question a widely trusted subsystem of what is probably the world's most widely deployed O/S. Just to pick a single example.

Try saying "[Your flavor of OS] is great, here's why!" (perhaps we might learn something.)

Gentoo is really cool. It's the most flexible distro I've encountered, and great if you have a wide range of computing interests and like to push the envelope a little. That said, it's not for everyone, and the lamentable "ricer" mindset of early enthusiasts have given it a bit of a bad name in some circles. All the same, it suits me just fine.

None of that means we shouldn't also discuss Microsoft.

I can applaud your attempts to inject a little positivity into a debate that all too frequently descends into ritual mud-slinging, and certainly, I hope we can aspire to a higher standard of criticism than "Microsfot Sucks!". On the other hand, there are many valid reasons to discuss Microsoft. To keep silent in the face of their anti-competitive practices and abuses of trust serves MS far more than it does either the free software community or Microsoft's own user base.

And that's my two ha'porth.

CIOs can do anything, IT security-wise...

[ibsteve2u]

Maybe he let some external organization or other access internal Microsoft records for some purpose or other...

Blogosphere answer

[roby2358]

Mystery solved?

http://www.trenchmice.com/scoop/433/microsoft-cio-underling-took-family-leave-before-firing/

Agreed :)

[DaedalusHKX]

We should discuss them, but descending into the "ritual mudslining" you just mentioned ends up losing us the little credibility we "geeks" have with those who sign the purchasing orders or checks.

Everytime we recall what is bad, we should be suggesting more evidently what OS has a track record of NOT doing this. Instead of a 20 piece website about why M$ sucks, why not a 20 piece website why such suckage doesn't occur in (your flavor of OS here).

Even the idiotic flame wars between the distros. WTF?! As if the distros had enough turf to fight over, instead of biting at the big boy's heels...

So having had some background in geekdom and in pin striped salesmanship (don't ask), I find that its EASIER to sell YOUR idea or product by pushing it more than slandering your opposition. Bring up their failures, answer questions but PUSH YOUR PRODUCT.

Why do you think M$ has survived the "Linux Onslaught" so far? Because they give Linux VERY LITTLE of their limelight. "We are aware of it but not concerned." Is this true? Sure they are aware of Linux and BSD (they used the BSD net tools didn't they?) but they are outright lying about their level of concern. I mean hell they got a "Linux and OSS Strategy Group" (or whatever it is they call it nowadays). This kind of stuff should be learned from.

This is what I meant. RedHat on the other hand has been bungling their own attempts. Slow servers, etc. I like Gentoo and will continue to use it. I like LFS, but again its the "ricer" factor... its easy to tweak. Ubuntu, Debian and Kubuntu have been my "kiddie grade" linuxes, good for all things I don't do (for the more "mainstream computer user" types among us.)

I like the pro liberty concept amongst some of the Linuxes, their usage generally suggests, sure, its free, but it A, takes work and B, takes responsibility. Getting all that done can be expensive on those of us who aren't trained to handle either of those options.

Re:640k

[unitron]

640k (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07, @11:05AM (#21267877)
He installed 641k of memory.

Mod points! My kingdom for mod points!