Slashdot Mirror
Who is Winning the Web Talent War
jg21 writes "Ever since Fortune wrote an article about it, mentions have been occurring hither and yon about how Google is having problems retaining employees, and the latest comes in Web 2.0 Journal, where Dare Obasanjo interestingly tracks and interprets a couple of blog entries that he says leads him to hypothesize that "Google's big problem is that the company hasn't realized that it isn't a startup anymore." Of course Obasanjo works for Microsoft; it will be interesting to see if an equally prominent Googler posts a counter-theory."
direct glassdoor.com links:
reviews of microsoft
reviews of google
...it became apparent that microsoft is like a government job with tons of bureaucracy I currently work at Microsoft and previously I worked at a Dept. of Energy nuclear laboratory. Microsoft is nothing like a government job. The amounts of bureaucracy don't even compare. Here I have my computer set up the way I want, I don't have to punch a timecard every day, I can be open with my opinions to my boss and my team, I get as long of a lunch I want, I wear what I want to work, etc. etc. Microsoft has a lot of process (which we need -- and are trying -- to improve), but I wouldn't equate that to the "red tape" type of bureaucracy that a government organization has. The two aren't even close in terms of bureaucracy. Please don't make that comparison.
-Shippy
He won the election. You can complain about the Supreme Court ruling that led him to win the election. You can complain about voter disenfrancisment in Flordia that put it into the Supreme Court's hand. You can complain about the electoral college overruling the popular vote. But his declaration was only made (and not subsequently retracted) after the Supreme Court had handed him victory.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Okay, this always gets to me.
Repeat after me, marketing and sales are NOT the same. Both are completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
Understanding a customer's needs is a core element of marketing, and that includes user experience, user needs and the like. To just about any company, that is a very important thing, and in Google's case, that is a very distinguishing element. In fact, separating all the crap from the data and getting to the crux of what users want, and translating those into requirements to be designed and developed in products and services is not something that's easy, and it's one of the things that marketing is usually tasked with.
Marketing also deals with such things as appropriate pricing models (which includes a lot of math, let me reassure you) to find out the best way to market and sell something.
Finally, marketing also deals with promotions, distribution strategies, distribution channels etc. All of this involves significant amount of data analytics to understand what needs to be done.
Now, a part of marketing also includes branding, but once again, good branding is backed by strong data to suggest and recommend appropriate branding strategies.
While sales involves a lot of, well, selling (which usually necessitates schmoozing), marketing is entirely different.
Not that I'd expect a Slashdotter to know the difference, but still, please don't club the two together.
In the name of $DEITY... they've had more users and success in beta state than most apps out there, webbeased or not. Why do you possibly case if they call it a beta, a gamma or a zeta?
Technically you could say that Microsoft doesn't do anything profitably except OS and Office software.
You could indeed say that, but you'd be wrong by billions of dollars. The SQL Server group is highly profitable as well, making almost a billion in profit in the first quarter of 2008, and over 3 billion over the 9 months ending March 31. See the numbers here, in note 9 (SQL Server is under Server and Tools). Note that even the Entertainment division (makers of the XBox) made a profit that quarter, and also in the 9 month ending March 31. The only division in the red is the Online division (no surprise there).
Bullshit.
I have worked for MS as a consultant, and for government agencies. The BS at MS is outstandingly surreal. Them management bickering, people driving feature based on ego, and not on any form of reason. The outright lies to superiors who wanted to hear lies, gah.
MS's process doesn't need to improve, it needs to change completly.
Meanwhile, I don't ahve any of those problems with the government agency I work at. I come in on my schedule, and the software I have written has saved taxpayers millions of dollars.
If you say something people don't want to hear enough times at MS, you will be canned.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Uh, 'cause a lot of engineers don't want to talk to them? Even if they don't think of the customers as idiots, they think of 'em as a hassle. Even the understanding ones often have trouble with communication knowing what level to keep the conversation at so as not go over the customers heads and not be patronizing, the right questions to ask to figure out what the customer really wants (which is often completely different from what they requested in the first place), and just how to talk to them.
open source modern art: laser taggi