Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's 'Cannibalistic Culture'
theodp writes "In the provocatively titled Microsoft's Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant, Vanity Fair offers a teaser for a story that will appear in its August issue on Microsoft's Lost Decade, which promises an unprecedented view of life inside Microsoft during the reign of Steve Ballmer. 'Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed — every one — cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,' contributing editor Karl Eichenwald writes. 'If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,' says a former software developer. 'It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.' Also discussed is the company's loyalty to Windows and Office, which induced a myopia that repeatedly kept Microsoft from jumping on emerging technologies like e-readers and other technology that was effective for consumers. Having seen an advance copy of the full piece, GeekWire offers its take on what it calls an 'epic, accurate and not entirely fair' tale."
Hey, I was enjoying a mai tai until I read your remark.
How about having more respect for the dead ?
- Ken Lay
Indeed. I look forward to the book 5 years from now detailing how in 2013-2014 Apple lost every market they dominated. Fact is it's coming, and Apple doesn't have anything cards up it's sleeve anymore. Between WinRT and Android they are going to get squeezed out of the industry. The enterprise doesn't have their backs, in fact most enterprise admins will welcome being able to beat back the security brush fire of "bring your own pretentious device."
Much like the 80's, Apple is about to collapse under their own arrogance. I wonder what the expiration date is on their CPU contracts with Samsung. Now you want to talk about cannibalism, how about a company that is a preying mantis to every company that develops the difficult technology for them while they adapt their existing software to run on it.