Suppose that what we are going to discover in the third film, is that all that was left of the REAL "real world", was a computer and the DNA of an extinct society of humans that was discovered by alien life, and used as an archeological experiment to find out about what humans were like.
SKIP AHEAD
Now suppose for a moment, that all human religion, philosophy, culture and education were programming attempts by "GOD" to keep humans from repeating the mistakes that led to their being wipe out the first time around.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that should NEO be successful and find the true "exit" from the Matrix, he will find himself either alone with a computer, or surrounded by aliens who have been working to free him for thousands of years.
"Shouldn't we all just use the languages we enjoy to use instead of fighting about what is the perfect mix of attributes for the ultimate language (tm)?"
Absolutely not!
Dont you understand that the reason we are here, is to gain validation for our technology choices. You see; most of us are fat fucking nerdy slobs, who would rather code than fuck a supermodel.
We gain self esteem from putting down others, and gathering up our groupthink-hate-microsoft numbers whenever we can in order to feel better about the fact that our last lover was our left hand.
It doesnt matter if VB is the single most productive enviroment ever produced, nor does it matter that VB.NET has fixed just about everything wrong with VB. It only matters that we all agree, we all hate microsoft, and we all go to see Matrix Reloaded with our buddies tommorow, because we cant get a woman who shaves her legs to go with us instead.
We are losers.
Therefore, hating VB and all things Microsoft is the fucking law of the land.
If you dont know that ASP is NOT a language, then the above applies to you. ASP sucks and nobody at Microsoft would tell you any different. Lucky for many, ASP sucked so bad, that Microsoft came up with ASP.NET, which completely rocks. No more spaghetti code. Codebehind is great for keeping the idiot designers from fucking with your logic. Being able to use C# when I feel like it or VB.NET when I feel like it is great. Of course, you would not know that, until you learn what makes a language a language.
Dude, what I posted was half of one out of about 20 reports I have on Sun Micro. Anyone who would put 20M on Sun is only confirming my suspcions.(Or do you know anything about how this works?)
Right now, Sun is an EXCELLENT market play, because they ARE GOING TO BE BOUGHT. Certainly, IBM will tender an offer worth more than the current share price. Shortterm holders are going to make some money, but long term players are not going to make back their investment on the sale.
SUN MICROSYSTEMS REPORTS NET INCOME IN FOURTH QUARTER
Delivers $.01 EPS and posts 10% sequential revenue gain
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - July 18, 2002 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) a leader in systems and solutions that make the Net work, reported results today for its fiscal fourth quarter which ended June 30, 2002.
Revenues for the fourth quarter were $3.4 billion, up 10 percent, as compared with $3.1 billion in revenues reported for the third quarter of fiscal year 2002. Net income for the fourth quarter was $28 million and the net income per common share was $.01 (excluding an $18 million loss on equity investments, a $4 million credit for adjustments to restructuring charges, and a $6 million benefit for the related tax effects). Including these amounts, GAAP net income was $20 million and GAAP earnings per share was $.01.
For the full 2002 fiscal year, Sun reported revenues of $12.5 billion, down 32 percent from record high revenues of the prior year. Neo3s per or the 2002 fiscal year was $255 million and the net loss per common share was $.08 (excluding a $517 million restructuring charge, a $99 million loss on equity investments, a $3 million charge for in-process research and development, and a $246 million benefit for the related tax effects). Including these amounts, GAAP net loss was $628 million and GAAP loss per share was $.19.
Sun's Chairman, CEO, and President Scott McNealy said, "We stated a goal of reporting a profit this quarter and we achieved that goal. I'm immensely proud of my team. They have integrity. They have talent. They have tenacity. And, they achieved this goal while protecting investments in research and development, aggressively managing cash balances, and gaining market share from competitors."
While losing more than half a billion bucks for the year, McNeely has the gall to talk about how proud he is of his team for managing a tiny profit in one quarter.
What a clown.
That is just one quarter's report, pal. The rest are just as bad or in some cases worse. Do your own research. Sun is a dead duck.
One, a marketing budget does not have to eat into product development in order to succeed. The point is to be smart and more importantly, AGRESSIVE. Microsoft fights for every sell in their space like dogs over a bone. No order is too small for their attention.
Two, regarding.NET; there are only two sales audiences for.NET, the developer and the CIO. Any company that develops for Windows, is either using.NET, or going under. Going from C++ and VB as options to C# and VB.NET is like going from Budweiser to Guinness. Both in productivity and functionality. The.NET Framework classes are outstanding.
The difference is that Microsoft marketed.NET towards creating a groundswell of interest, without having to explain what it is. You can look at the bookshelves at Barnes and Noble to gauge whether or not they have been successful. If you can sell a product without even having to explain it, I would call that pretty damm good marketing.
Java = Great Idea, Sucky Marketing, Barely Decent Implementation.
.NET = Someone else's idea, Great Marketing, Great Implementation.
I dont agree with your "glittering tower" argument, because those of us who write for.NET are estatic with the tools we have from Microsoft. Can ANY Java developer say that about Sun?
What.NET has done, is give Microsoft the time and distraction nessesary to fix Win2K. Windows Server 2003 is MUCH more secure, faster, and with a SUPER IMPROVED IIS. ASP is fixes as well, so no more spaghetti code.
Marketing is not just selling, ya know? Microsoft waved their left hand and you paid attention to it, while their right hand was fixing Win2k. Had.NET not been around to talk about, Microsoft would have had a lot of explaining to do about security. Now, for the most part, security is much improved, and developers got a new language, and a new set of classes to work with.
If Sun's military contracts were enough to sustain the company, then this thread would not exist, would it? Hell, Microsoft has Billions of dollars in Military contracts, but they are a drop in the bucket.
In case you havent noticed, it doesnt matter if dog poop tastes better than pizza if Sun were selling it. If Microsoft was selling MS dogpoop up agaist Sun Pizza, odds are that Microsoft would win anyway, because Sun cant do Marketing. It's just a fact, not a troll.
Whenever I say anything good about Apple, I am only talking about the Steve Jobs years. Any of that time in between was a lesson in how not to do business.
I have gotten up from a long match to find the sun has gone down, wife has gone to bed, and dinner near frozen in the oven, while dancing around because my Zerg has wiped out some Terran assholes.
Starcraft is the most engrossing game I have ever played.
Linux does have tons of marketing, but that marketing is supported by us geeks who love the fact that we can still get meaningful stuff done on 486 class computers. That is actually how I got into Linux myself; I had 3 486's that I was going to toss, but now they make up the DMZ of my lab's network. That is an effective marketing message; low cost is ALWAYS a good thing to sell.
However, it can only go so far inside the Corporation, because at the end of the day, it has got to do EVERYTHING the competion does; not just do some things more reliably than Microsoft.
Linux will succeed only when two things happen; it gets a Directory service, and they come up with something AS GOOD as Exchange Server. The Exchange Server/Outlook combination is what keeps Microsoft in play in the BackOffice.
It may suck, but it SUCKS LESS than anything else for messaging, and any reasonable person will tell you that.
You wont get those products under OSS because those would be huge undertakings by people who want to get paid. It may happen, but not soon enough for Microsoft to get a secure share in the server space.
The marketing cant be "We are different, and we are cheaper", it has to be "we are better AT WHAT YOU WANT and we are cheaper".
The point is that for all of the bullshit that comes out of Apple, they know what makes people buy things.
Apple just never had the dollars, nor the large enough audience for their products. They took essentially good home and school products and tried to sell them in the boardroom for the same reasons.
They are great marketers, but sometimes they sell to the wrong person, instead of developing what the client actually wants. Steve Jobs can sell ice to an Eskimo, but if that Eskimo wants BLUE Ice, then Jobs is fucked.
Apple = Great marketing, bad products for corporations, could be fixed with lots of dollars.
Sun = Shitty marketing, great products for corporations, cant be fixed with any amount of money.
You've got no marketing; In the media, your N-1 gets mentioned once for every 100 times that.NET mentioned. Your Engineers are demoralized because no matter the good shit they come up with, no one talks about it, because your CEO is such a raving maniac about Microsoft that it's all he can talk about.
Oh, by the way, make sure you do that resume in WORD, so that people can actually READ it.
Does anyone remember when Sun was the little guy, going up against Dec, Apollo, HP and the other workstation vendors? What was the difference?
MARKETING.
Back then, Sun was CLOBBERING those guys with a better message and machines that were just as fast or FASTER for less money, but the main thing is that they were hammering their message constantly and consistantly every where you looked. They were the upstart trying to get people to think differently about technology and it worked.
The problem with Sun is that they BELIEVED everything they said about themselves to the point of anointing themselves as technical genuises, instead of understanding that they won because they had superior marketing than the other guy. They SAID things that got them attention, regardless of the fact that they built things too.
Now, Sun just builds things and everything they say is directed at the technical people, instead of the BUYERS of technology that decide what gets bought and what doesnt. Geeks may recommend, but they dont to the buying; which is based on more than just who has the better technology. Much of the time it comes down to how much a business can afford to buy versus internal costs and other considerations like THE BOTTOM LINE.
It doesnt matter that every programmer in the world knows what Java is, what it does, and why it is a great advance in both platforms and languages. How many people think they can go into a meeting with a CIO and talk about how Java's garbage collection is going to help his company become more profitable? Maybe it can through cost reductions in programming projects, but when is the last time you saw SUN SELL THAT?
I have never seen them make the BUSINESS CASE for their technology beyond it's geek-appeal, and that is why they are dying. At Sun for the last 10 years, the message has always come from it's Engineers, which is totally and completely wrong.
At Microsoft, everyone understands that no matter what we come up with, if Marketing cant sell it, it gets shit-canned (except MS Bob, thanks Melinda) If Microsoft marketing can make a company believe that radioactive rocks in their lobby can improve their bottom line, guess what is going to be developed? MS Radioactive Rocks, thats what.
Sun has had it ass-backwards for a decade, and time has run out on them. Great technology that cant be sold has killed every one of Microsoft's competitors in the same way. How long a head-start did NOTES have over Exchange? Netware over Active Directory? It's the same old story. They pitched to the techie, while Microsoft convinced corporate management that you dont base your business on field level replication, as much as on messaging and calendaring.
This is the same reason that Linux has NO CHANCE to beat Microsoft in the near future. Linux may be wonderful for those of us who want to invest the time in learning to use it effectively, but most people dont want to face the reality that this group of people will NEVER be the majority.
Most people just dont give a shit how it works, they only want write their documents and to get and send their fuckin email with a minimum of issues. That is 90% of corporate computing, and Microsoft owns it.
Sun and others have decided that they can just change what is important in the corporate boardroom, and they cant. The only company that ever had a real chance against Microsoft was/is Apple.
You forget that among the technically competent, there is usually a mutual respect that overides the impulse for a jerk to be a jerk. It doesnt work that way, when a jerk is confronted by an idiot. It can be brutal.
On top of that; conceit and self assurance are exclusive of one another. You dont find one of those traits in people who have the other. Self assurance can be supported by results, where conceit cannot.
Social skills wont get you anywhere at Microsoft if you cant do the job. I know of a guy here who rarely bathes and has horrible breath, who is fought over by product groups, because he can code his ass off with no mistakes. If we had to work in cubicles, he would be a problem.
Egotistical swine usually reside in Marketing. However, since we have the best marketing group in the industry, who gives a fuck? Results matter, dude. However, I dont know of anyone in Marketing, or who deals with customers who cant smooze your ass off when required.
As for your last question, results dont lie, do they? I dont argue with success. I'm a pragmatist.
Nowhere, will you find any of the practices you mentioned, expressed as corporate policy, no matter how much many would like to think so. Do those things happen? Yep. But in every case, it is subject to interpretation between the screwer and the screwee(sic).
Also, when those things happen, they are usually the act of one, or a group of employees, or even sometimes top management of a corporation that are guilty of the act, not the organization as a whole.
When a company fails, it is usually only through the act of individuals just doing the company's professed mission, whether that mission is sound or flawed.
Thousands of companies start with incredibly stupid ideas regarding how they are going to turn a profit. Some think that they can create demand just through their own brilliance, instead of a viable product or service.
All that said, I do agree with your final thought; any company in danger of going under, probably should just get on with it. Shoot it like a lame race horse. Put it out of its misery.
I'll try to answer as best I can, but understand that these are my opinions, and others might have a different take.
I'll be honest, and admit that those "balancing behaviors" are pretty much in short supply at Microsoft, although effort towards them does exist. There is very little compromise going on that I can see, but I dont see that as a negative. Products like M.E.and NT4 were the result of too much compromise.
The worst thing someone can do is to pretend to know something when they dont, because it's always too late when it's found out. Therefore, people ask a lot of questions, and try to keep a good reputation. Having a bad rep is the single worst thing, and impossible to recover from.
On a group level, failure is usually a management issue; post-mortems are routine to prevent it happening again for the same reason. People usually quit, before having the chance to be fired. It is really easy to find out if you suck, and need to go. You wont have to wonder.
From a corporate perspective, it's really just herding cats, no matter what people will tell you. You cant control large groups of smart people, they will either fuck up or succeed in spectacular fashion. If assumptions are correct, things go fine. If not; = Microsoft Bob.
Bottom line; competition works to find the people best able to fulfill company goals, not so much to find the very best solution. This works, because the best solution is not always affordable or timely. Market pressures determine whether you have time to be elegant, and you usually end up doing what works FIRST, rather than works best. That is just reality. Look at Server 2003. You could argue that it is what Win2K should have been. If we waited until now to ship Win2k, we would have lost market share. Win2k works fine, Server2003 kicks ass.
You are correct though. Combative Individualism is a very accurate term for what goes on at MS. Is it the best way? I dont know. It works better than the competition, that's for sure.
Failure, from a Business perspective, is clearly unethical. Businesses exist to profit. Profit is responsible for growth, resulting in jobs.
If a business fails at success, then people suffer. Most people depend rightly or wrongly on the availibility of a job, in order to support themselves and their families. No one goes to work for a company, knowing that the actions a company takes will result in it's failure.
Now, one can argue that most Business failures are the result of OTHER businesses, but that would be false. Some company HAS to succeed, or there would be no market for the particular sector that company was created to supply.
If one company can succeed in a market sector, it is logical to assume that others can as well, either as feeders to the market leader, or as competitors. If a company chooses to compete, then they must assume responsibility for doing whatever works to win. It they cant win, then they should capitulate and gear their business towards supporting the winner, or a WORTHY competitor. Companies that do neither are in my opinion unethical, because they really have no reason to be in Business. Their employees are at daily risk of being let go, which has a negative effect on the overall economy. The employees of stressed business dont buy things. The whole economy suffers, including persons who dont even work for the stressed company.
Succeeding in business is hard, therefore it should be left to those willing to do what it takes to succeed. Those companies that take risks, and either succeed or go under, instead of flailing around, throwing good money after bad, in search of a market.
Consider how many companies, with arguably brilliant people, have been made to eat dirt by Microsoft.
There are downsides to Microsoft's competive nature, but that is easily outweighed by the positives. You lose good people; Brad Silverburg is probably the best example of what can happen if you dont know how to fight as good as the other guy; but overall, it is a huge benefit to know that your company is staffed with people willing to back up what they say.
Contrast that with companies like Sun Microsystems and Oracle. Each headed by someone who considers himself a "street-fighter", but staffed with pussies, unable to get their ideas beyond the boardroom for fear of taking a risk. Sun and Oracle talk big, but that's all. No one even pays attention to the rantings of McNeely or Ellison anymore, because what do they deliver? Both have great technologies, that they cant manage at all. What does it say about a company, when your most important product(Java) was a fucking accident? These companies can only talk about what Microsoft does wrong, instead of what they do right.
The most unethical thing that a business can do, is FAIL. I would rather work for a company that has the occasional fist fight, then the company that has the occasional retreat or ass-whooping, courtesy of Microsoft. Say what you want about Ballmer, but that man is the heart and soul of the company, and were it not for him, Microsoft would be a shell of what it is.
The "distructive forces" can, and are channeled into productivity; something Microsoft's competitors could learn from. Everyone loves to bitch about our company, but funny thing, no one seems to actually get around to shutting up long enough to beat us.
Look at Linux. Great opportunity, with practically NO chance of beating Microsoft. Not because there are not some very smart people trying, but because too many people would rather devote their energies to being pissed off about Microsoft, then improving their own products.
Sure, lots of good stuff falls through the cracks, but a lot less good stuff gets lost here because someone didn't fight for it. Sometime shit gets out the door too, only because someone argued well for it. Microsoft is the only company that I know of, that takes HUGE risks in developing new products. Sun doesnt and neither does Oracle. They just flail their arms and bitch about Microsoft, then go to court and cry when all else fails. You dont win customer loyalty that way. "We'll ship this, but if it doesnt work out, we'll just sue". Yeah, that works.
Like I said before, everyone working here is already pretty bright, or they would not get through the interview process to begin with. What matters in not being smart; what matters is can you be smart and kick ass at the same time.
When these questions and other, better ones are asked, the first point of evaluation is the reaction of the candidate. Some will freeze, some will quess, some will actually become upset about the question. What is being gauged first is whether the challenge is responded to emotionally or logically. Whether the candidate knows the answer or not hardly matters.
Second; how and how QUICKLY does the candidate begin to work the problem towards a solution. If the candidate just quesses, he will be challenged about the answer to determine how he came to it. It is best if the candidate explains the process for breaking the question down into solvable chunks, or agreeable perameter assumptions.
At Microsoft, it is assumed that if you got through the phone screening and invited out for an interview, that you are smart. Brains are not in question at this point. What is in question, is how easy or hard it will be to get those brains working the way Microsoft prefers.
How agressive is the candidate towards solving the problem? How afraid was the candidate in getting the wrong answer? How did the candidate respond after answering rightly or wrongly? Was he sheepish or reserved, afraid to say anything else?
When I was asked these questions, I asked to use the white board in my future supervisor's office, and drew diagrams while explaining the answers I came up with. Major plus points. Microsoft is competitive in the extreme. They want to know if you can back up your ideas with force, and not be talked down because someone challenged you. What good are you to them if you are brilliant, but afraid to speak up?
This is why Microsoft gets a reputation for arrogance. Most everyone here is ready to defend their point of view to the death, until proven wrong. The challenge is leaving those battles on campus, and not bringing them home with you, which is all but impossible. Many great ideas get left on the table and forgotten, because someone lost an argument with a better debator. When that happens, you almost want to kill someone. I witness many occasions where discussions almost came to blows, and heard of a few that actually did.
Those interview questions are designed to find out how wimpy you are, how committed you will be to getting something right, and defending your point of view. Naturally, you cant determine 100% accuracy through the interview process, but it is a start.
Slashdot Mirror
Suppose that what we are going to discover in the third film, is that all that was left of the REAL "real world", was a computer and the DNA of an extinct society of humans that was discovered by alien life, and used as an archeological experiment to find out about what humans were like.
SKIP AHEAD
Now suppose for a moment, that all human religion, philosophy, culture and education were programming attempts by "GOD" to keep humans from repeating the mistakes that led to their being wipe out the first time around.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that should NEO be successful and find the true "exit" from the Matrix, he will find himself either alone with a computer, or surrounded by aliens who have been working to free him for thousands of years.
Yeah, I'm taking bets.
Absolutely not!
Dont you understand that the reason we are here, is to gain validation for our technology choices. You see; most of us are fat fucking nerdy slobs, who would rather code than fuck a supermodel.
We gain self esteem from putting down others, and gathering up our groupthink-hate-microsoft numbers whenever we can in order to feel better about the fact that our last lover was our left hand.
It doesnt matter if VB is the single most productive enviroment ever produced, nor does it matter that VB.NET has fixed just about everything wrong with VB. It only matters that we all agree, we all hate microsoft, and we all go to see Matrix Reloaded with our buddies tommorow, because we cant get a woman who shaves her legs to go with us instead.
We are losers.
Therefore, hating VB and all things Microsoft is the fucking law of the land.
Got it?
If you dont know that ASP is NOT a language, then the above applies to you. ASP sucks and nobody at Microsoft would tell you any different. Lucky for many, ASP sucked so bad, that Microsoft came up with ASP.NET, which completely rocks. No more spaghetti code. Codebehind is great for keeping the idiot designers from fucking with your logic. Being able to use C# when I feel like it or VB.NET when I feel like it is great. Of course, you would not know that, until you learn what makes a language a language.
Get a clue, or dont bother with this.
Delivers $.01 EPS and posts 10% sequential revenue gain
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - July 18, 2002 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) a leader in systems and solutions that make the Net work, reported results today for its fiscal fourth quarter which ended June 30, 2002.
Revenues for the fourth quarter were $3.4 billion, up 10 percent, as compared with $3.1 billion in revenues reported for the third quarter of fiscal year 2002. Net income for the fourth quarter was $28 million and the net income per common share was $.01 (excluding an $18 million loss on equity investments, a $4 million credit for adjustments to restructuring charges, and a $6 million benefit for the related tax effects). Including these amounts, GAAP net income was $20 million and GAAP earnings per share was $.01.
For the full 2002 fiscal year, Sun reported revenues of $12.5 billion, down 32 percent from record high revenues of the prior year. Neo3s per or the 2002 fiscal year was $255 million and the net loss per common share was $.08 (excluding a $517 million restructuring charge, a $99 million loss on equity investments, a $3 million charge for in-process research and development, and a $246 million benefit for the related tax effects). Including these amounts, GAAP net loss was $628 million and GAAP loss per share was $.19.
Sun's Chairman, CEO, and President Scott McNealy said, "We stated a goal of reporting a profit this quarter and we achieved that goal. I'm immensely proud of my team. They have integrity. They have talent. They have tenacity. And, they achieved this goal while protecting investments in research and development, aggressively managing cash balances, and gaining market share from competitors."
While losing more than half a billion bucks for the year, McNeely has the gall to talk about how proud he is of his team for managing a tiny profit in one quarter.
What a clown.
That is just one quarter's report, pal. The rest are just as bad or in some cases worse. Do your own research. Sun is a dead duck.
Two, regarding .NET; there are only two sales audiences for .NET, the developer and the CIO. Any company that develops for Windows, is either using .NET, or going under. Going from C++ and VB as options to C# and VB.NET is like going from Budweiser to Guinness. Both in productivity and functionality. The .NET Framework classes are outstanding.
The difference is that Microsoft marketed .NET towards creating a groundswell of interest, without having to explain what it is. You can look at the bookshelves at Barnes and Noble to gauge whether or not they have been successful. If you can sell a product without even having to explain it, I would call that pretty damm good marketing.
Java = Great Idea, Sucky Marketing, Barely Decent Implementation.
I dont agree with your "glittering tower" argument, because those of us who write for .NET are estatic with the tools we have from Microsoft. Can ANY Java developer say that about Sun?
What .NET has done, is give Microsoft the time and distraction nessesary to fix Win2K. Windows Server 2003 is MUCH more secure, faster, and with a SUPER IMPROVED IIS. ASP is fixes as well, so no more spaghetti code.
Marketing is not just selling, ya know? Microsoft waved their left hand and you paid attention to it, while their right hand was fixing Win2k. Had .NET not been around to talk about, Microsoft would have had a lot of explaining to do about security. Now, for the most part, security is much improved, and developers got a new language, and a new set of classes to work with.
Pretty smart if you ask me.
Zander should have been running that company years ago, and now he's gone.
This is a badly kept secret, but Sun will be part of IBM before the year is over. Just remember to comeback and tell me I was right when it happens.
In case you havent noticed, it doesnt matter if dog poop tastes better than pizza if Sun were selling it. If Microsoft was selling MS dogpoop up agaist Sun Pizza, odds are that Microsoft would win anyway, because Sun cant do Marketing. It's just a fact, not a troll.
Whenever I say anything good about Apple, I am only talking about the Steve Jobs years. Any of that time in between was a lesson in how not to do business.
I have gotten up from a long match to find the sun has gone down, wife has gone to bed, and dinner near frozen in the oven, while dancing around because my Zerg has wiped out some Terran assholes.
Starcraft is the most engrossing game I have ever played.
Embarassing.
Sun has to change their whole persona. With McNeely in place, any changes they make will look like desperation.
Only getting rid of him, will convince people that Sun is serious about change.
Linux does have tons of marketing, but that marketing is supported by us geeks who love the fact that we can still get meaningful stuff done on 486 class computers. That is actually how I got into Linux myself; I had 3 486's that I was going to toss, but now they make up the DMZ of my lab's network. That is an effective marketing message; low cost is ALWAYS a good thing to sell.
However, it can only go so far inside the Corporation, because at the end of the day, it has got to do EVERYTHING the competion does; not just do some things more reliably than Microsoft.
Linux will succeed only when two things happen; it gets a Directory service, and they come up with something AS GOOD as Exchange Server. The Exchange Server/Outlook combination is what keeps Microsoft in play in the BackOffice.
It may suck, but it SUCKS LESS than anything else for messaging, and any reasonable person will tell you that.
You wont get those products under OSS because those would be huge undertakings by people who want to get paid. It may happen, but not soon enough for Microsoft to get a secure share in the server space.
The marketing cant be "We are different, and we are cheaper", it has to be "we are better AT WHAT YOU WANT and we are cheaper".
The point is that for all of the bullshit that comes out of Apple, they know what makes people buy things.
Apple just never had the dollars, nor the large enough audience for their products. They took essentially good home and school products and tried to sell them in the boardroom for the same reasons.
They are great marketers, but sometimes they sell to the wrong person, instead of developing what the client actually wants. Steve Jobs can sell ice to an Eskimo, but if that Eskimo wants BLUE Ice, then Jobs is fucked.
Apple = Great marketing, bad products for corporations, could be fixed with lots of dollars.
Sun = Shitty marketing, great products for corporations, cant be fixed with any amount of money.
Get it?
Your company has nothing going for it. NOTHING.
You've got no marketing; In the media, your N-1 gets mentioned once for every 100 times that .NET mentioned. Your Engineers are demoralized because no matter the good shit they come up with, no one talks about it, because your CEO is such a raving maniac about Microsoft that it's all he can talk about.
Oh, by the way, make sure you do that resume in WORD, so that people can actually READ it.
Good luck, pal.
100 percent, totally correct. Wish I had mod points.
Does anyone remember when Sun was the little guy, going up against Dec, Apollo, HP and the other workstation vendors? What was the difference?
MARKETING.
Back then, Sun was CLOBBERING those guys with a better message and machines that were just as fast or FASTER for less money, but the main thing is that they were hammering their message constantly and consistantly every where you looked. They were the upstart trying to get people to think differently about technology and it worked.
The problem with Sun is that they BELIEVED everything they said about themselves to the point of anointing themselves as technical genuises, instead of understanding that they won because they had superior marketing than the other guy. They SAID things that got them attention, regardless of the fact that they built things too.
Now, Sun just builds things and everything they say is directed at the technical people, instead of the BUYERS of technology that decide what gets bought and what doesnt. Geeks may recommend, but they dont to the buying; which is based on more than just who has the better technology. Much of the time it comes down to how much a business can afford to buy versus internal costs and other considerations like THE BOTTOM LINE.
It doesnt matter that every programmer in the world knows what Java is, what it does, and why it is a great advance in both platforms and languages. How many people think they can go into a meeting with a CIO and talk about how Java's garbage collection is going to help his company become more profitable? Maybe it can through cost reductions in programming projects, but when is the last time you saw SUN SELL THAT?
I have never seen them make the BUSINESS CASE for their technology beyond it's geek-appeal, and that is why they are dying. At Sun for the last 10 years, the message has always come from it's Engineers, which is totally and completely wrong.
At Microsoft, everyone understands that no matter what we come up with, if Marketing cant sell it, it gets shit-canned (except MS Bob, thanks Melinda) If Microsoft marketing can make a company believe that radioactive rocks in their lobby can improve their bottom line, guess what is going to be developed? MS Radioactive Rocks, thats what.
Sun has had it ass-backwards for a decade, and time has run out on them. Great technology that cant be sold has killed every one of Microsoft's competitors in the same way. How long a head-start did NOTES have over Exchange? Netware over Active Directory? It's the same old story. They pitched to the techie, while Microsoft convinced corporate management that you dont base your business on field level replication, as much as on messaging and calendaring.
This is the same reason that Linux has NO CHANCE to beat Microsoft in the near future. Linux may be wonderful for those of us who want to invest the time in learning to use it effectively, but most people dont want to face the reality that this group of people will NEVER be the majority.
Most people just dont give a shit how it works, they only want write their documents and to get and send their fuckin email with a minimum of issues. That is 90% of corporate computing, and Microsoft owns it.
Sun and others have decided that they can just change what is important in the corporate boardroom, and they cant. The only company that ever had a real chance against Microsoft was/is Apple.
Why?
FUCKING MARKETING, thats why.
On top of that; conceit and self assurance are exclusive of one another. You dont find one of those traits in people who have the other. Self assurance can be supported by results, where conceit cannot.
Social skills wont get you anywhere at Microsoft if you cant do the job. I know of a guy here who rarely bathes and has horrible breath, who is fought over by product groups, because he can code his ass off with no mistakes. If we had to work in cubicles, he would be a problem.
Egotistical swine usually reside in Marketing. However, since we have the best marketing group in the industry, who gives a fuck? Results matter, dude. However, I dont know of anyone in Marketing, or who deals with customers who cant smooze your ass off when required.
As for your last question, results dont lie, do they? I dont argue with success. I'm a pragmatist.
Also, when those things happen, they are usually the act of one, or a group of employees, or even sometimes top management of a corporation that are guilty of the act, not the organization as a whole.
When a company fails, it is usually only through the act of individuals just doing the company's professed mission, whether that mission is sound or flawed.
Thousands of companies start with incredibly stupid ideas regarding how they are going to turn a profit. Some think that they can create demand just through their own brilliance, instead of a viable product or service.
All that said, I do agree with your final thought; any company in danger of going under, probably should just get on with it. Shoot it like a lame race horse. Put it out of its misery.
I'll be honest, and admit that those "balancing behaviors" are pretty much in short supply at Microsoft, although effort towards them does exist. There is very little compromise going on that I can see, but I dont see that as a negative. Products like M.E.and NT4 were the result of too much compromise.
The worst thing someone can do is to pretend to know something when they dont, because it's always too late when it's found out. Therefore, people ask a lot of questions, and try to keep a good reputation. Having a bad rep is the single worst thing, and impossible to recover from.
On a group level, failure is usually a management issue; post-mortems are routine to prevent it happening again for the same reason. People usually quit, before having the chance to be fired. It is really easy to find out if you suck, and need to go. You wont have to wonder.
From a corporate perspective, it's really just herding cats, no matter what people will tell you. You cant control large groups of smart people, they will either fuck up or succeed in spectacular fashion. If assumptions are correct, things go fine. If not; = Microsoft Bob.
Bottom line; competition works to find the people best able to fulfill company goals, not so much to find the very best solution. This works, because the best solution is not always affordable or timely. Market pressures determine whether you have time to be elegant, and you usually end up doing what works FIRST, rather than works best. That is just reality. Look at Server 2003. You could argue that it is what Win2K should have been. If we waited until now to ship Win2k, we would have lost market share. Win2k works fine, Server2003 kicks ass.
You are correct though. Combative Individualism is a very accurate term for what goes on at MS. Is it the best way? I dont know. It works better than the competition, that's for sure.
If a business fails at success, then people suffer. Most people depend rightly or wrongly on the availibility of a job, in order to support themselves and their families. No one goes to work for a company, knowing that the actions a company takes will result in it's failure.
Now, one can argue that most Business failures are the result of OTHER businesses, but that would be false. Some company HAS to succeed, or there would be no market for the particular sector that company was created to supply.
If one company can succeed in a market sector, it is logical to assume that others can as well, either as feeders to the market leader, or as competitors. If a company chooses to compete, then they must assume responsibility for doing whatever works to win. It they cant win, then they should capitulate and gear their business towards supporting the winner, or a WORTHY competitor. Companies that do neither are in my opinion unethical, because they really have no reason to be in Business. Their employees are at daily risk of being let go, which has a negative effect on the overall economy. The employees of stressed business dont buy things. The whole economy suffers, including persons who dont even work for the stressed company.
Succeeding in business is hard, therefore it should be left to those willing to do what it takes to succeed. Those companies that take risks, and either succeed or go under, instead of flailing around, throwing good money after bad, in search of a market.
There are downsides to Microsoft's competive nature, but that is easily outweighed by the positives. You lose good people; Brad Silverburg is probably the best example of what can happen if you dont know how to fight as good as the other guy; but overall, it is a huge benefit to know that your company is staffed with people willing to back up what they say.
Contrast that with companies like Sun Microsystems and Oracle. Each headed by someone who considers himself a "street-fighter", but staffed with pussies, unable to get their ideas beyond the boardroom for fear of taking a risk. Sun and Oracle talk big, but that's all. No one even pays attention to the rantings of McNeely or Ellison anymore, because what do they deliver? Both have great technologies, that they cant manage at all. What does it say about a company, when your most important product(Java) was a fucking accident? These companies can only talk about what Microsoft does wrong, instead of what they do right.
The most unethical thing that a business can do, is FAIL. I would rather work for a company that has the occasional fist fight, then the company that has the occasional retreat or ass-whooping, courtesy of Microsoft. Say what you want about Ballmer, but that man is the heart and soul of the company, and were it not for him, Microsoft would be a shell of what it is.
The "distructive forces" can, and are channeled into productivity; something Microsoft's competitors could learn from. Everyone loves to bitch about our company, but funny thing, no one seems to actually get around to shutting up long enough to beat us.
Look at Linux. Great opportunity, with practically NO chance of beating Microsoft. Not because there are not some very smart people trying, but because too many people would rather devote their energies to being pissed off about Microsoft, then improving their own products.
Sure, lots of good stuff falls through the cracks, but a lot less good stuff gets lost here because someone didn't fight for it. Sometime shit gets out the door too, only because someone argued well for it. Microsoft is the only company that I know of, that takes HUGE risks in developing new products. Sun doesnt and neither does Oracle. They just flail their arms and bitch about Microsoft, then go to court and cry when all else fails. You dont win customer loyalty that way. "We'll ship this, but if it doesnt work out, we'll just sue". Yeah, that works.
Like I said before, everyone working here is already pretty bright, or they would not get through the interview process to begin with. What matters in not being smart; what matters is can you be smart and kick ass at the same time.
You dont have to like it.
Right.
Manhole covers and Gas stations in not the point.
When these questions and other, better ones are asked, the first point of evaluation is the reaction of the candidate. Some will freeze, some will quess, some will actually become upset about the question. What is being gauged first is whether the challenge is responded to emotionally or logically. Whether the candidate knows the answer or not hardly matters.
Second; how and how QUICKLY does the candidate begin to work the problem towards a solution. If the candidate just quesses, he will be challenged about the answer to determine how he came to it. It is best if the candidate explains the process for breaking the question down into solvable chunks, or agreeable perameter assumptions.
At Microsoft, it is assumed that if you got through the phone screening and invited out for an interview, that you are smart. Brains are not in question at this point. What is in question, is how easy or hard it will be to get those brains working the way Microsoft prefers.
How agressive is the candidate towards solving the problem? How afraid was the candidate in getting the wrong answer? How did the candidate respond after answering rightly or wrongly? Was he sheepish or reserved, afraid to say anything else?
When I was asked these questions, I asked to use the white board in my future supervisor's office, and drew diagrams while explaining the answers I came up with. Major plus points. Microsoft is competitive in the extreme. They want to know if you can back up your ideas with force, and not be talked down because someone challenged you. What good are you to them if you are brilliant, but afraid to speak up?
This is why Microsoft gets a reputation for arrogance. Most everyone here is ready to defend their point of view to the death, until proven wrong. The challenge is leaving those battles on campus, and not bringing them home with you, which is all but impossible. Many great ideas get left on the table and forgotten, because someone lost an argument with a better debator. When that happens, you almost want to kill someone. I witness many occasions where discussions almost came to blows, and heard of a few that actually did.
Those interview questions are designed to find out how wimpy you are, how committed you will be to getting something right, and defending your point of view. Naturally, you cant determine 100% accuracy through the interview process, but it is a start.
I take it your dick sucking offer doesn't get you much IP, bitch? LOL! Kiss my ass. Humor is in the eye of the beholder; dont like it? Too bad.