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Microsoft Employees Love Their iPhones
portscan writes "There is an entertaining and telling article in the Wall Street Journal about iPhone use by Microsoft employees. Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file. The head of Microsoft's mobile division tried to explain it away as employees wanting 'to better understand the competition,' although few believe this. Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products."
I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone. My preciousss. It's pretty and seductive, but it locks me out of stuff. For just about everything, there's an app for that, except for when Apple pulled it. It can do just about everything, but not when Apple or AT&T says it can't, like tethering. But for all it makes me crazy, I still can't seem to pause in the middle of the day without pulling it from its holster and stroking its sleek, responsive, beautiful face for a few minutes.
Damn this stupid phone. I really should throw it back into the depths of Cupertino from whence it came, but you'd probably have to gnaw my hand off to get me to drop it.
John
I wonder how many Apple employees use Microsoft Office. Or Microsoft employees search with Google. Why are people so intent on declaring one product the winner that everybody should use? Did it benefit Microsoft to switch Hotmail to MS IIS before IIS was ready to handle a site of that scale? This isn't a failure for Microsoft's phone efforts as much as it is a victory against Microsoft's mono-culture mindset.
The Apple culture is about obsession. This goes from creation to use. Despite any flaws the iPhone it has, it feels likes someone actually thought how non-engineers would use it. This is an important factor IMHO, because even with the 'wow' factor, a device will only work if people can find it usable. Too many gadgets, IMHO, are designed by engineers and almost feel like the primary user was an engineer. To many people the "it just works" element is as important as any of the features that the device it may include.
There are other companies who have understood the people factor, but all to often it doesn't feel like it is running through the veins of the companies.
Looking at Microsoft, I feel that they are confused about what it means be user friendly. There are elements of the company who seem to get it, while there are other parts that thinks bells and whistles are what user friendly is about. For me being user friendly is something a little complex, it is that right balance of simplicity and richness of functionality. Hiding features or dumbing down an application is not going to magically solve the problem, if the humans factor is forgotten in the process.
The irony in all this is that Apple spends less on R&D than Microsoft, yet whether it is through focused R&D or some other factor I feel they seem to capture the magic combination better. Maybe there is something to be said of having a company run by a guy who is so obsessive that his passion captivates people, rather than alienating them - yes, I am insinuating that Balmer's passion at developer conferences is more an after thought than something that drives the company in a cohesive way.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolerant company on the inside. You're not required to drink the kool-aid, and using non-Microosft products and services is not frowned upon. Almost everyone (at least in Redmond) uses Google for search, for instance. A lot of smartphone users use iPhone. Some use Android even (even though corp discounts obviously don't apply to either iPhone or Android plans or phones). It is not uncommon to see a Mac running Mac OS X, even though the corp network doesn't really support it. I haven't seen any Linux use on laptops, but that's probably because ACPI support in Linux sucks ass.
There are folks who proudly drink the Kool-Aid, and refuse to use anything non-Microsoft, of course, but they're in minority.
Having worked elsewhere after Microsoft, I've gained a lot of respect for this aspect of Microsoft corporate culture that I had taken for granted. I think at least someone at Microsoft understands that Microsoft has a lot to learn from the rest of the world, and corporate inbreeding is its worst possible enemy.
I contend that for your average ACPI non-expert (99.999% of the population), it seems to be the other way around. I don't care who's wrong, I just want to my laptop to fucking wake up when I open the lid, like it does in Mac OS X and Windows.