Slashdot Mirror
Why Microsoft?
theodp writes "Before a large crowd of students at the University of Washington computer science department, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was asked why students should care about Microsoft enough to want to work there. Aside from the ending, which begs for an if-you're-happy-and-you-know-it-clap-your-hands remix, Ballmer seemed to handle the question adequately for an MBA-type, although TechCrunch has a different opinion, suggesting 'maybe it's time for the great salesman to hang it up.' Oddly enough, a recent resignation letter from a Microsoft developer en route to Facebook ('Microsoft has been an awesome place to work over the past twelve years. In college, I never thought I'd work for Microsoft. Then I interned in 1997 and fell in love.') may be more what the skeptical CS student was looking for in terms of a Microsoft endorsement."
1. Fire Balmer (he's a bully and the bully pulpit is gone for Microsoft.)
2. Pay a large dividend.
3. Break up the company by design.
4. Put spending caps on useless shit like the "Windows Sound"
5. Give managers a % pay raise based on how much smaller they make their code while maintaining function.
6. Release a non backwards compatible operating system that kicks ass (they have at least two that have been shelved.)