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Microsoft's Vista Blogger Quits
Preedit writes "Nick White, the in-house Microsoft blogger who wrote about all things Vista, has resigned.
White is leaving Redmond to join the blog-centric marketing and public relations firm BuzzCorps.
White did not provide a reason for his decision. InformationWeek, however, notes that his position could not have been easy. White's posts often elicited hundreds of responses from Vista users complaining about the OS's numerous glitches and quirks.
The story further notes that White is the sort of young, blogosphere-savvy manager that Microsoft needs if it hopes to outrun Google, and his departure raises questions about the company's ability to retain Web 2.0 talent."
The guy was a marketroid who got payed to blog about stuff. I'm guessing the motivation is that his new company offered him a basketload of money to blog about something else, and he took it.
Man finds new job, quits old one. News at 11.
"Web 2.0 talent" = Oxymoron?
C'mon - when was the last time writing anything that popped into your mind considered a "talent". Blogs...yeesh. I still can't figure out who has the time to read those things.
It is tough being the public face of a company. One of my friends was the spokesman for a large aerospace company. He was always "on-call" and had to be familiar with a ton of information at his fingertips.
In contrast, a blogging spokesperson sounds easy, as you can triple-verify everything through the tech staff, legal, and the upper echelons before publishing.
I'd be quite surprised if he left due to anything related to Vista. Heck, MS paid him to support Vista, and I'm sure he will continue to do so under the principle of "never bash a former employer until you retire".
Instead, I think he left for either an easier life and/or more money.
I'd be willing to wager that he got tired of getting paid to lie. Which is precisely the reason I will never again work for Microsoft or any of their sub-companies. I can take a lot of crap from an employer, but when they tell me to flat-out LIE to customers, that's when it's time to move on.
"Oh, Florida. Just think, somewhere in this state, right now, Jeb Bush is eating a live puppy."
Recent surveys indicate Microsoft's overall regard by college and university students has dropped over 40 points in relation to other, similar businesses since last year. Meanwhile, Apple was ranked #1 as having the most desirable image.
.COM/.BOMB fiasco - survivors included Amazon and eBay. Both of those sites didn't do so bad for themselves, did they?)
Today's college and university students are tomorrow's tech. consumers, so it actually IS important to maintain a good image with them.
Yes, paid corporate blogging and much of this other "Web 2.0" stuff is ultimately going to be shown to be more "fluff" than worthwhile pursuit. Still, sites like MySpace and Facebook are part of this "next generation of web apps", and by all counts, they DO succeed in keeping the attention of the younger computer-using audience. (History repeats itself, folks. Despite the nay-sayers who were USUALLY quite correct about all the stupid e-commerce ideas springing up all over during the
Microsoft just doesn't want to miss out again, if they ignore the wrong trend and it balloons into something huge....
Right now, their image is really tarnished on many fronts, including the "red ring of death" issues with XBox 360's AND the choice of backing the wrong HD technology for DVDs, the whole Vista fiasco, and an overall perception that the latest updates to their products don't offer very much for the money. (I just don't see nearly the level of "excitement" over the Office 2007 release that I remember people having when, say, Office 2000 came out. Most people using it just seem to be doing so because it was bundled with a new computer system purchase, or they needed to buy it to be legal on a new PC that didn't come bundled with it. Many of these people are students who got a huge price break through their school.)
Honestly, I think as much as people liked to bash Microsoft in the past, they often had a love/hate thing going on. It was difficult not to admire Bill Gates for his success, and/or for his willingness to donate to charities. People were really interested to see documentaries showing the inside of his mansion and so on. He generated a certain amount of "buzz" whenever he gave a speech to discuss his views on technology and ideas for the future. But now, Gates has pretty much retired and people like Steve Balmer are the new "figureheads". Who thinks of Balmer and thinks of anything positive?? He's often referred to as "monkey boy" and is best known for throwing chairs.
And Microsoft was sort of able to do one thing that no other company could really do. Microsoft was (more or less) able to build some really huge software projects in a few years. Such as WinNT/Win2000 and the Office suite. I'm not saying they were perfect, but they were good enough. And nobody else could execute projects on that scale.
My reading of the (years late, mediocre) release of Vista is that Microsoft has lost that one unique ability. My guess is that the kind of coders that used to put in their 7 years at MS are now headed elsewhere, such as Google. And without that steady supply of top tier talent, MS can't innovate quickly. Regarding the loss of one PR flack, PFFFFFT!
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
This story is certified Buzzword-Compliant (R).
I call BS. Microsoft has no business competing with Google in the first place. Microsoft software sucks because the company has become so bloated and the bureaucracy is so big that it's impossible to do anything innovative. Microsoft should focus on what made it such a success in the first place. Operating systems, it's suite of server software and Office on the desktop. Vista is a fucking disaster of epic proportions.
If Microsoft stopped trying to compete with every big tech company out there, eliminated the bureaucracy and spent all of that cash on R&D for the core software that it sells, it might actually be able to produce a half way decent operating system.