Microsoft managers lack social ability. They have done ENORMOUS DAMAGE to the Microsoft brand name. That is my best understanding and opinion.
Some of the many, many reports of Microsoft managers thinking they can manipulate and control everyone, as though the managers are government dictators:
A huge problem: A high percentage of people who work with Windows computers make more money if there are more problems with Microsoft and Windows. There is a conflict of interest.
Apparently Microsoft managers decided they would try to be like Google's Android. They apparently decided to try to gather information about everything, and try to sell that information. Most people with cell phones don't have the technical knowledge necessary to know if they are being abused.
Can a company be sued for supplying computers with Windows 10? If a company supplies Windows 10 computers to businesses and doesn't get a signed agreement from all business customers that the customers know Windows 10 allows Microsoft to gather data from their computers, the supplier could be the target of court cases, and possibly even go to prison. No business customers want Microsoft employees to have access to their company information. My opinion, shared by many others.
People working with desktop computers don't want to be distracted by ads. They don't want to try to learn new, complicated user interfaces.
Quote the parent comment: Microsoft's "... insane unpredictable chaos..."
The Microsoft chaos existed 10 years ago, but yes, the chaos is worse now. See this Scientific American article: Microsoft Vista voted tech world's top "Fiasco" (Feb. 26, 2009)
It's amazing that a company can be so badly managed that there is an article about it in Scientific American magazine.
A year before that article: Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure. (April 21, 2008)
Some of John C. Dvorak's complaints:
6) Bogus Vista-capable stickers.
7) Missing drivers.
8) Conflicting advice.
11) Performance. You're not supposed to deliver a new operating system that's been in development for more than four years yet performs worse than the previous OS.
A Slashdot comment I wrote 10 1/2 years ago: Microsoft: "The whole world is our beta tester." That comment was way too positive, I realize now. Part of that comment seems correct to me:
"Another problem at Microsoft is apparently that the good people have left, and the people who remain are not knowledgeable enough to do the work."
It's time to stop joking about the many, many problems at Microsoft. (Regarding the parent comment: Cocaine will not fix the problems.)
Microsoft needs a new CEO and a re-organization of management.
1) "Economic loss from transport-related air pollution in Chengdu, China, was $3 billion in 2013, and that number is on the rise."
2) "Chengdu, the fourth largest city in China, has over 15 million residents and 4 million vehicles, with 27 percent of PM2.5 emissions coming from transport, increasing risks to public health, the environment and the economy."
I need a text editor that is very quick to load. Metapad is wonderful that way. But when doing search and replace, it brings up a new window that requires a mouse click. It should just show the number of replacements.
The book Paul Allen wrote avoids a full report, but gives the impression that Bill Gates was so angry, Paul Allen left the company because interacting with Bill Gates was bad for his health.
THREE DECADES AFTER teaching Bill and me at Lakeside, Fred
Wright was asked what he'd thought about our success with Microsoft.
His reply: "It was neat that they got along well enough
that the company didn't explode in the first year or two."
Page 96:
When
Bill pushed on licensing terms or bad-mouthed the flaky Signetics
cards, Ed thought he was insubordinate. You could hear them yelling
throughout the plant, and it was quite a spectacle-the burly
ex-military officer standing toe to toe with the owlish prodigy
about half his weight, neither giving an inch.
Page 177:
Bill was sarcastic, combative, defensive, and contemptuous.
Page 180:
"For Bill, the ground had already begun shifting. At product review meetings, his scathing critiques became a perverse badge of
honor. One game was to count how many times Bill confronted
a given manager; whoever got tagged for the most "stupidest things " won the contest. "I give my feedback," he grumbled
to me, "and it doesn't go anywhere."
My opinion: Jeff Bezos is not a sufficiently capable manager. Evidence: Look at any Amazon web page. As you are researching some product that is interesting, you are often distracted by other products. One fix: Put any distractions at the bottom of the page.
There are many other shortcomings of the Amazon web site.
Would you fly into space with a company managed by someone who makes those mistakes and doesn't detect them? Note that Blue Origins does not have the capability of orbiting the earth.
I'm reading the inappropriately named book, Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!. (Half the book is about other poor management, before Marissa Mayer worked there.)
As you said about Microsoft, many, many managers at Yahoo, not much clear thinking.
Reasons Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg should be replaced:
1) Don't announce a product before it is ready for sale. It is not possible to predict how many problems there will be, and how much time curing those problems will require.
2) Noise, as the parent comment says. Would you accept the noise in your neighborhood?
3) Danger. Would you accept that there could be a crash in your neighborhood, or into your house?
4) It is not known how long the FAA, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, would require to decide about all the many, many issues.
In my opinion, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has shown he is not qualified to lead a large company. Anyone who can't communicate clearly, sensibly, and logically cannot lead a large, important company.
The parent comment seems correct to me: "There's only one industry that's even more corrupt and self-serving than the financial industry, and that's health care." However, I think the finance industry may be even worse than the health care industry; the finance industry is more hidden.
Suggested SMALL improvements for finance organizations:
1) Links should ONLY be to web sites owned by that financial organization. No Google tracking, for example.
2) CD rates should have very clearly explained early withdrawal penalties.
Suggested BIG improvements for finance organizations:
1) ALL involvement of finance organizations and the government must be explained clearly and with complete detail.
2) ALL receipts for payments with credit cards must show the amount charged by the financial institution for that sale on the receipt.
Humans have a history of accepting new technology before all the issues are fully understood.
Scary joke: Maybe those mosquitoes will escape the attempt to eliminate them through genetic modification that occurs naturally. May they will become as large as eagles and need to drink all of the blood of a human every day.
The U.S. government could "Break up" Google, Twitter, and Facebook? And Microsoft?
I think the government is not well-managed, either. It would be a mistake to think that the government would know what to do to correct the problems. At least that is true of the U.S. government we have now.
Those companies need better management. A long time ago I had a long discussion about Google management with a mid-level Google manager. The manager said that "Google has more money that it knows how to spend". Also, that Google didn't help staff understand what was happening at Google.
Google is EXTREMELY important in my opinion, because of the Google search engine. (People say that Microsoft's Bing search is used to find Google search. Ha!)
However, in other ways, in my opinion, Google has been poorly managed. Android should have been released in a way that allows updates. Now, many web sites use a Google facility, so Google tracks people in a way that is socially offensive.
"Break up" implies destruction. What is needed is better management.
There have been continuous price increases in the United States.
The grocery stores and food producers are extremely hostile toward customers. Cans of Tuna, for example, went from 6.5 ounces to 6 ounces and the reduction continued to 3 ounces. They found a weakness in the customers. The customer may remember the price, but may not notice that the can size has been reduced by 0.5 ounce, and the amount of water has increased.
It's good to make your own bread. For example: Adm Whole Wheat Flour # 17688, $13.98 / Unit (50 lb). When you buy bread, it may be $2.50 per pound or more, and the weight includes the water in the bread. You can buy the flour used to make bread for $0.28, 28 cents per pound.
1) "... there is no reason to believe that Microsoft has the strategic skills needed to revive LinkedIn's growth."
2) "Nadella touted the idea that business people working on projects will love the way the combined company will be able to spam them with more targeted newsfeeds!
Is this the kind of magic that $26.2 billion buys? It sounds like a good reason for me to dump my LinkedIn account."
3) "This deal makes no sense to me and in the wake of its efforts to force people like me to upgrade to Windows 10 malware style, I am beginning to question Microsoft's governance."
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up!! However, that comment may, in some ways, be too kind.
Microsoft is poorly managed? Plenty of evidence.
Microsoft was badly managed 10 years ago.
Microsoft managers lack social ability. They have done ENORMOUS DAMAGE to the Microsoft brand name. That is my best understanding and opinion.
Some of the many, many reports of Microsoft managers thinking they can manipulate and control everyone, as though the managers are government dictators:
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)
Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)
Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)
Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)
A huge problem: A high percentage of people who work with Windows computers make more money if there are more problems with Microsoft and Windows. There is a conflict of interest.
Apparently Microsoft managers decided they would try to be like Google's Android. They apparently decided to try to gather information about everything, and try to sell that information. Most people with cell phones don't have the technical knowledge necessary to know if they are being abused.
Can a company be sued for supplying computers with Windows 10? If a company supplies Windows 10 computers to businesses and doesn't get a signed agreement from all business customers that the customers know Windows 10 allows Microsoft to gather data from their computers, the supplier could be the target of court cases, and possibly even go to prison. No business customers want Microsoft employees to have access to their company information. My opinion, shared by many others.
People working with desktop computers don't want to be distracted by ads. They don't want to try to learn new, complicated user interfaces.
"Microsoft again is late to the party in protecting its users with better security solutions and instead created its own performance robbing patches."
Microsoft: More than 10 years of poor management
Microsoft needs a new CEO and a re-organization of management.
Quote the parent comment: Microsoft's "... insane unpredictable chaos..."
The Microsoft chaos existed 10 years ago, but yes, the chaos is worse now. See this Scientific American article: Microsoft Vista voted tech world's top "Fiasco" (Feb. 26, 2009)
It's amazing that a company can be so badly managed that there is an article about it in Scientific American magazine.
A year before that article: Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure. (April 21, 2008)
Some of John C. Dvorak's complaints:
6) Bogus Vista-capable stickers.
7) Missing drivers.
8) Conflicting advice.
11) Performance. You're not supposed to deliver a new operating system that's been in development for more than four years yet performs worse than the previous OS.
A Slashdot comment I wrote 10 1/2 years ago: Microsoft: "The whole world is our beta tester." That comment was way too positive, I realize now. Part of that comment seems correct to me:
"Another problem at Microsoft is apparently that the good people have left, and the people who remain are not knowledgeable enough to do the work."
It's time to stop joking about the many, many problems at Microsoft. (Regarding the parent comment: Cocaine will not fix the problems.)
Microsoft needs a new CEO and a re-organization of management.
See my comment posted yesterday: Microsoft is poorly managed? Plenty of evidence.
"microsoft's system of 'ship first-fix later-never test' (SF/FL/NT)"
Microsoft is poorly managed. There is plenty of evidence for that:
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)
Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)
Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)
Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)
The problem is that some countries allow plastic waste in their rivers.
For example: Five Asian Countries Dump More Plastic Into Oceans Than Anyone Else Combined: How You Can Help (Apr 21, 2018)
Depending on the clouds, most of the light would be reflected back to outer space.
From the story, China's Clean Air Challenge: $3 Billion Air Pollution from Transport in Chengdu
Quotes:
1) "Economic loss from transport-related air pollution in Chengdu, China, was $3 billion in 2013, and that number is on the rise."
2) "Chengdu, the fourth largest city in China, has over 15 million residents and 4 million vehicles, with 27 percent of PM2.5 emissions coming from transport, increasing risks to public health, the environment and the economy."
Chengdu weather: Of the 8 days shown, 5 are cloudy. No illumination from space then.
I think it would be better if they would ask for volunteers.
I would like a UI fix for Metapad text editor.
In return, I could help write the documentation.
I need a text editor that is very quick to load. Metapad is wonderful that way. But when doing search and replace, it brings up a new window that requires a mouse click. It should just show the number of replacements.
The book Paul Allen wrote avoids a full report, but gives the impression that Bill Gates was so angry, Paul Allen left the company because interacting with Bill Gates was bad for his health.
Quotes from the book, Idea Man by Paul Allen.
Page 49:
THREE DECADES AFTER teaching Bill and me at Lakeside, Fred Wright was asked what he'd thought about our success with Microsoft. His reply: "It was neat that they got along well enough that the company didn't explode in the first year or two."
Page 96:
When Bill pushed on licensing terms or bad-mouthed the flaky Signetics cards, Ed thought he was insubordinate. You could hear them yelling throughout the plant, and it was quite a spectacle-the burly ex-military officer standing toe to toe with the owlish prodigy about half his weight, neither giving an inch.
Page 177:
Bill was sarcastic, combative, defensive, and contemptuous.
Page 180:
"For Bill, the ground had already begun shifting. At product review meetings, his scathing critiques became a perverse badge of honor. One game was to count how many times Bill confronted a given manager; whoever got tagged for the most "stupidest things " won the contest. "I give my feedback," he grumbled to me, "and it doesn't go anywhere."
My opinion: Jeff Bezos is not a sufficiently capable manager. Evidence: Look at any Amazon web page. As you are researching some product that is interesting, you are often distracted by other products. One fix: Put any distractions at the bottom of the page.
There are many other shortcomings of the Amazon web site.
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace (New York Times, Aug. 15, 2015)
Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."
Amazon warehouse jobs push workers to physical limit (Seattle Times, April 3, 2012)
Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers (Salon.com, Feb. 23, 2014)
Amazon paid no US income taxes for 2017 (SeattlePI, Feb. 27, 2018)
Undercover author finds Amazon warehouse workers in UK 'peed in bottles' over fears of being punished for taking a break (Business Insider, April 16, 2018)
The undercover author who discovered Amazon warehouse workers were peeing in bottles tells us the culture was like a 'prison' (Business Insider, April 18, 2018)
Amazon Gets Tax Breaks While Its Employees Rely on Food Stamps, New Data Shows (The Intercept, April 19, 2018)
Quote: "Though the company now employs 200,000 people in the United States, many of its workers are not making enough money to put food on the table."
Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany (bloomberg.com, Feb 19, 2013)
Would you fly into space with a company managed by someone who makes those mistakes and doesn't detect them? Note that Blue Origins does not have the capability of orbiting the earth.
That sounds as though it could be correct.
I'm reading the inappropriately named book, Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!. (Half the book is about other poor management, before Marissa Mayer worked there.)
As you said about Microsoft, many, many managers at Yahoo, not much clear thinking.
Reasons Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg should be replaced:
1) Don't announce a product before it is ready for sale. It is not possible to predict how many problems there will be, and how much time curing those problems will require.
2) Noise, as the parent comment says. Would you accept the noise in your neighborhood?
3) Danger. Would you accept that there could be a crash in your neighborhood, or into your house?
4) It is not known how long the FAA, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, would require to decide about all the many, many issues.
In my opinion, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has shown he is not qualified to lead a large company. Anyone who can't communicate clearly, sensibly, and logically cannot lead a large, important company.
It seems to me that Microsoft has insufficient management, and many poor managers.
The parent comment seems correct to me: "There's only one industry that's even more corrupt and self-serving than the financial industry, and that's health care." However, I think the finance industry may be even worse than the health care industry; the finance industry is more hidden.
Suggested SMALL improvements for finance organizations:
1) Links should ONLY be to web sites owned by that financial organization. No Google tracking, for example.
2) CD rates should have very clearly explained early withdrawal penalties.
Suggested BIG improvements for finance organizations:
1) ALL involvement of finance organizations and the government must be explained clearly and with complete detail.
2) ALL receipts for payments with credit cards must show the amount charged by the financial institution for that sale on the receipt.
The badly named and poorly edited book, Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer lists numerous ways in which medical procedures in the United States are poor.
On page 8, that book recommends another book, Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health. I haven't read that one yet.
"... I did not expect them to keep living..."
What is their purpose in producing Vivaldi? Do they make money? How?
What privacy issues does Vivaldi have?
Humans have a history of accepting new technology before all the issues are fully understood.
Scary joke: Maybe those mosquitoes will escape the attempt to eliminate them through genetic modification that occurs naturally. May they will become as large as eagles and need to drink all of the blood of a human every day.
"Smaller units with simpler well-defined purposes are inherently easier to manage...
That makes sense to me. However, "break up" is not a good way of expressing "limiting management to divisions that are easier to manage".
Also, I see no evidence that the U.S. government is, at present, capable of a careful, thoughtful arrangement of divisions.
The U.S. government could "Break up" Google, Twitter, and Facebook? And Microsoft?
I think the government is not well-managed, either. It would be a mistake to think that the government would know what to do to correct the problems. At least that is true of the U.S. government we have now.
Those companies need better management. A long time ago I had a long discussion about Google management with a mid-level Google manager. The manager said that "Google has more money that it knows how to spend". Also, that Google didn't help staff understand what was happening at Google.
Google is EXTREMELY important in my opinion, because of the Google search engine. (People say that Microsoft's Bing search is used to find Google search. Ha!)
However, in other ways, in my opinion, Google has been poorly managed. Android should have been released in a way that allows updates. Now, many web sites use a Google facility, so Google tracks people in a way that is socially offensive.
"Break up" implies destruction. What is needed is better management.
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: A Handbook for Personal Liberty
Download a PDF file of the book: Entire book, 312 pages (PDF file)
Review of the book.
There have been continuous price increases in the United States.
The grocery stores and food producers are extremely hostile toward customers. Cans of Tuna, for example, went from 6.5 ounces to 6 ounces and the reduction continued to 3 ounces. They found a weakness in the customers. The customer may remember the price, but may not notice that the can size has been reduced by 0.5 ounce, and the amount of water has increased.
It's good to make your own bread. For example: Adm Whole Wheat Flour # 17688, $13.98 / Unit (50 lb). When you buy bread, it may be $2.50 per pound or more, and the weight includes the water in the bread. You can buy the flour used to make bread for $0.28, 28 cents per pound.
There are many examples like that.
A quote from a Slashdot comment: It started going downhill about six months after Microsoft bought it.
A comment on that comment: "uSoft is the kiss of death."
How did Microsoft buying LinkedIn affect your experience?
4 Reasons Microsoft Wasted $26.2 Billion To Buy LinkedIn.
3 Quotes:
1) "... there is no reason to believe that Microsoft has the strategic skills needed to revive LinkedIn's growth."
2) "Nadella touted the idea that business people working on projects will love the way the combined company will be able to spam them with more targeted newsfeeds! Is this the kind of magic that $26.2 billion buys? It sounds like a good reason for me to dump my LinkedIn account."
3) "This deal makes no sense to me and in the wake of its efforts to force people like me to upgrade to Windows 10 malware style, I am beginning to question Microsoft's governance."
They can't define "extremist content", but it's banned.
2 much better laws, with the same lack of logic:
1) Everything bad is banned.
2) Everything good is required.