If you were paying the legal bills (easily more than $20k per month and $100-200k for the actual trial), you really want bogus claims or the entire lawsuit dismissed. Even if you win, you probably won't recover your legal fees and nothing for your time. I've been there.
This is true, but... IANAL.... if the trial goes through and the defendant wins, doesn't that help set a precedent?
Well, there's some discussion that Microsoft planned every step of this. Hubris aside, Microsoft must realize Windows Phone wouldn't do better than low single digits, which means that any independently operating supplier would eventually either drop them or go under. Planting their own shill, or corrupting an existing shill in a major supplier, causing that suppler to be artificially devalued to a fraction of its former value, and then acquiring same, is the only reasonable way Microsoft can remain a player in this marketplace, using money from their other products to prop it up. This all seems pretty cut and dried.
As to *why* Microsoft needs to continue to be a player in this market where they're clearly losing, I speculate that it has to do with the decision to push a phone OS onto all platforms, which would look a little odd if you didn't actually, you know, have phones using it. I wonder if they have some strange idea that this leverages a major revenue stream (Windows on the PC) to artificially drive a wedge into a market which they couldn't win through having an attractive product. Parenthetically, you can just see the boardroom conversation -- "We've tried putting Windows on a phone. That was less than impressive. Clearly, the winning strategy is to do the opposite, put a phone OS on the PC. Oh, and we'll still call it Windows, of course." When that didn't work either, the only way to stay in the market was to acquire a handset company.
I don't know why anyone is upset about this. It shouldn't be a surprise. Tech history is littered with the remains of corporate entities who once partnered with Microsoft. What part of "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" did Nokia think did not apply to them?
Not sure what Nokia thought, but this time it looks like Microsoft skipped the "Extend" step.
Ah. So you're saying that if we take the time to check what time it is BEFORE consulting the broken clock AND if the broken clock is checked during the time when the 1/1440 odds of it being correct match up (okay, 1/770 for a 12-hour clock), we should give all credit to the broken clock and trust it implicitly from now own, no matter how many times it was wrong in the past?
I always took that saying to mean "If you disagree with everything a moron says because he's a moron, you're gonna look goofy in the unlikely event he turns out to be speaking the truth." This gives the moron interesting leverage; he can cause you to be discredited by speaking an obviously true thing and watching you automatically contest it.
everyone know this was his goal from the beginning. You don't become CEO, and make a statement like that without the intention of selling.
I would submit that it didn't surprise *anyone*. The people who insisted that this outcome was not planned from the start are the same people who benefit from the results. (In other words, they were lying. Everyone knows it, so they don't have to feign surprise.) The people who were hoping against hope that this was not the case, really had to know in their heart of hearts that this was the intended end game. And the rest of us could see this coming from 4100 miles away.
This should be yet another lesson to companies across the planet. Your CEO may not be working for you. If what any executive says doesn't make sense, INVESTIGATE. Don't just take their word for it. Their goals may be entirely different from the company's goals.
When outsourcing occurred here, the IT veep actually got on stage in our largest conference room and after telling us we were all unemployed in three months, and condescendingly telling us it's not our fault, the outsourcing company has better processes (turns out they didn't) and then shook his finger at us and said "I expect all of you to document your jobs before you leave." Like,,, that was gonna happen.
Less than 10% were retained (I was one), and seeing the handwriting on the wall, we desperately tried to scrape together enough information to allow the outsourcing company a fighting chance to take over (in vain, as it turns out -- they never even meant to succeed -- it was all a show) but we got the cooperation you'd expect from the people leaving.
We're told it's all supposed to go through change control
It does! But they're on different branches and never merge or rebase...
Yes, that does happen. And from a cohesive company-wide standpoint, that can be worse than no change control at all, because it gives you the illusion of process without the reality.
"encouraging attrition"? Am I interpreting this correctly as "create a hostile work environment, hoping to drive employees to quit at a rate, that works well with the pace of outsourcing transition"?
That sounds about as evil as it gets? "OK Bill, your department needs to pick up the pace, we need you to get in there and bump up your micromanagement, switch around some goals on all nearly completed projects, and start requiring employees to clock out for bathroom breaks, and see if that helps"
No wait, the argument for encouraging attrition goes something like this: We can't fire that many people for cause without looking bad and/or being sued, and if we lay them off we have to provide them with some kind of severance package and COBRA and all of that, so it's easier and cheaper to just encourage them to leave on their own.
Really truly, that's a real motivation. What I was trying to say is that this can (and often does) fall apart, in that the smartest and most highly motivated people invariably leave first. So you've successfully separated the wheat from the chaff, and you've kept the chaff.
If it makes them there bonus they don't care. They are only around a median of 3 years anyway!
Sigh. Unfortunately true. So one could say that the "mark" isn't necessarily the IT manager making the decision to outsource, it's the company the IT manager is about to drive off a cliff.
Listen to myself? I've heard "pretty package" used as an insult against Apple many times. I assumed "brushed metal and cute logo" to be a re-statement of that insult. Of all the complaints about my questioning of that, nobody has offered any other meaning.
What does it mean, if not a reference to Apple?
It *was* a reference to Apple. It was a contrast to the Surface, to wit: People want Apple products. Even, I stipulate, to a degree that strikes others as... a bit fanatic, and for reasons having nothing to do with function. That's the truth -- you really need to make yourself comfortable about it, or you're going to be a unhappy Apple user, and happiness seems to be a major goal of Apple products. (I'm losing patience here.) In contrast, people generally don't *want* the Surface. If they choose the Surface, they do so with the intention to run some legacy app that won't run on an ipad. And that makes the Surface the opposite of a premium product -- it's a product one buys as a last resort for a very specific purpose, not because of a desire to pick one up and fondle it. And that's why a premium price for the Surface makes no sense from a marketing standpoint.
I can't believe we're still stuck on this point. I'd expect apple users to be sensitive, but not quite so touchy. Yeesh.
It's amazing how clueless and completely useless most of these offshore companies are.
Not really. You get what you pay for.
Exactly. The problem is not that the victim, er, company is not getting fair value for money received, it's that they don't understand what IT does. They're sold on the idea that it's a lot of overpaid geeks that occasionally get a call and press a button. I mean, a monkey could do that, right? And since the execs really don't understand deep in their hearts what IT actually does, they're willing to go with the salesperson's concept that it's an unnecessary expense. And so, the fleecing begins.
You're both right. The best people leave soonest, causing things to start to come unglued shortly after the announcement to outsource. So the plane is already heading for the ground before offshore takes over and makes it so much worse.
In any case, it's not necessary to sabotage, because the company has already done worse things to themselves than you could do.
Hm. Well, my understanding is that the term originated with TWA. I always thought it referred to the actions of dumping your fuel, opening the cargo bays, then ejecting from the plane, leaving the passengers behind, and getting paid a bonus to do all of this.
But really, it's more widespread than that. Were it entirely an Obama problem, we'd only have to live with it for a few more years. For people who actually believe that, I have a shiny new bridge to sell them.
It's like they're trying to fail. I guess the same people who choose to stick with a business model that clearly doesn't work anymore, don't have the judgement to create effective deterrents either.
Slashdot Mirror
If you were paying the legal bills (easily more than $20k per month and $100-200k for the actual trial), you really want bogus claims or the entire lawsuit dismissed. Even if you win, you probably won't recover your legal fees and nothing for your time. I've been there.
This is true, but... IANAL.... if the trial goes through and the defendant wins, doesn't that help set a precedent?
Well, there's some discussion that Microsoft planned every step of this. Hubris aside, Microsoft must realize Windows Phone wouldn't do better than low single digits, which means that any independently operating supplier would eventually either drop them or go under. Planting their own shill, or corrupting an existing shill in a major supplier, causing that suppler to be artificially devalued to a fraction of its former value, and then acquiring same, is the only reasonable way Microsoft can remain a player in this marketplace, using money from their other products to prop it up. This all seems pretty cut and dried.
As to *why* Microsoft needs to continue to be a player in this market where they're clearly losing, I speculate that it has to do with the decision to push a phone OS onto all platforms, which would look a little odd if you didn't actually, you know, have phones using it. I wonder if they have some strange idea that this leverages a major revenue stream (Windows on the PC) to artificially drive a wedge into a market which they couldn't win through having an attractive product. Parenthetically, you can just see the boardroom conversation -- "We've tried putting Windows on a phone. That was less than impressive. Clearly, the winning strategy is to do the opposite, put a phone OS on the PC. Oh, and we'll still call it Windows, of course." When that didn't work either, the only way to stay in the market was to acquire a handset company.
I don't know why anyone is upset about this. It shouldn't be a surprise. Tech history is littered with the remains of corporate entities who once partnered with Microsoft. What part of "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" did Nokia think did not apply to them?
Not sure what Nokia thought, but this time it looks like Microsoft skipped the "Extend" step.
> Anyone else think it was going to be a revision for where they are today? On the burning platform that is Windows Phone...
Well, yeah, but for that they wouldn't have to change the presentation hardly at all, and it wouldn't have been as funny.
Even a broken clock is right once a day...
Ah. So you're saying that if we take the time to check what time it is BEFORE consulting the broken clock AND if the broken clock is checked during the time when the 1/1440 odds of it being correct match up (okay, 1/770 for a 12-hour clock), we should give all credit to the broken clock and trust it implicitly from now own, no matter how many times it was wrong in the past?
I always took that saying to mean "If you disagree with everything a moron says because he's a moron, you're gonna look goofy in the unlikely event he turns out to be speaking the truth." This gives the moron interesting leverage; he can cause you to be discredited by speaking an obviously true thing and watching you automatically contest it.
everyone know this was his goal from the beginning. You don't become CEO, and make a statement like that without the intention of selling.
I would submit that it didn't surprise *anyone*. The people who insisted that this outcome was not planned from the start are the same people who benefit from the results. (In other words, they were lying. Everyone knows it, so they don't have to feign surprise.) The people who were hoping against hope that this was not the case, really had to know in their heart of hearts that this was the intended end game. And the rest of us could see this coming from 4100 miles away.
This should be yet another lesson to companies across the planet. Your CEO may not be working for you. If what any executive says doesn't make sense, INVESTIGATE. Don't just take their word for it. Their goals may be entirely different from the company's goals.
When outsourcing occurred here, the IT veep actually got on stage in our largest conference room and after telling us we were all unemployed in three months, and condescendingly telling us it's not our fault, the outsourcing company has better processes (turns out they didn't) and then shook his finger at us and said "I expect all of you to document your jobs before you leave." Like,,, that was gonna happen.
Less than 10% were retained (I was one), and seeing the handwriting on the wall, we desperately tried to scrape together enough information to allow the outsourcing company a fighting chance to take over (in vain, as it turns out -- they never even meant to succeed -- it was all a show) but we got the cooperation you'd expect from the people leaving.
Oooh, good point. I wasn't aware of that.
The aircraft was useless as a fighter. It cant carry anything and is just a lawn dart.
Seriously? Compared to what?
Is it just the "texting zone" sign? How much did someone get paid to think of this?
It's mostly about finding the time. And when you're waiting to be outsourced, you tend to have a lot of free time, and a cube in which to work.
We're told it's all supposed to go through change control
It does! But they're on different branches and never merge or rebase...
Yes, that does happen. And from a cohesive company-wide standpoint, that can be worse than no change control at all, because it gives you the illusion of process without the reality.
"encouraging attrition"? Am I interpreting this correctly as "create a hostile work environment, hoping to drive employees to quit at a rate, that works well with the pace of outsourcing transition"?
That sounds about as evil as it gets? "OK Bill, your department needs to pick up the pace, we need you to get in there and bump up your micromanagement, switch around some goals on all nearly completed projects, and start requiring employees to clock out for bathroom breaks, and see if that helps"
No wait, the argument for encouraging attrition goes something like this: We can't fire that many people for cause without looking bad and/or being sued, and if we lay them off we have to provide them with some kind of severance package and COBRA and all of that, so it's easier and cheaper to just encourage them to leave on their own.
Really truly, that's a real motivation. What I was trying to say is that this can (and often does) fall apart, in that the smartest and most highly motivated people invariably leave first. So you've successfully separated the wheat from the chaff, and you've kept the chaff.
If it makes them there bonus they don't care. They are only around a median of 3 years anyway!
Sigh. Unfortunately true. So one could say that the "mark" isn't necessarily the IT manager making the decision to outsource, it's the company the IT manager is about to drive off a cliff.
Listen to myself? I've heard "pretty package" used as an insult against Apple many times. I assumed "brushed metal and cute logo" to be a re-statement of that insult. Of all the complaints about my questioning of that, nobody has offered any other meaning.
What does it mean, if not a reference to Apple?
It *was* a reference to Apple. It was a contrast to the Surface, to wit: People want Apple products. Even, I stipulate, to a degree that strikes others as... a bit fanatic, and for reasons having nothing to do with function. That's the truth -- you really need to make yourself comfortable about it, or you're going to be a unhappy Apple user, and happiness seems to be a major goal of Apple products. (I'm losing patience here.) In contrast, people generally don't *want* the Surface. If they choose the Surface, they do so with the intention to run some legacy app that won't run on an ipad. And that makes the Surface the opposite of a premium product -- it's a product one buys as a last resort for a very specific purpose, not because of a desire to pick one up and fondle it. And that's why a premium price for the Surface makes no sense from a marketing standpoint.
I can't believe we're still stuck on this point. I'd expect apple users to be sensitive, but not quite so touchy. Yeesh.
The XBOX 1 lost 4 billion dollars. It's now a solid market that Microsoft dominates. Why would they not use that same strategy here?
Because it's a different market.
It's amazing how clueless and completely useless most of these offshore companies are.
Not really. You get what you pay for.
Exactly. The problem is not that the victim, er, company is not getting fair value for money received, it's that they don't understand what IT does. They're sold on the idea that it's a lot of overpaid geeks that occasionally get a call and press a button. I mean, a monkey could do that, right? And since the execs really don't understand deep in their hearts what IT actually does, they're willing to go with the salesperson's concept that it's an unnecessary expense. And so, the fleecing begins.
You're both right. The best people leave soonest, causing things to start to come unglued shortly after the announcement to outsource. So the plane is already heading for the ground before offshore takes over and makes it so much worse.
In any case, it's not necessary to sabotage, because the company has already done worse things to themselves than you could do.
Listen to yourself. You don't think you're perhaps proving the stereotype?
Hm. Well, my understanding is that the term originated with TWA. I always thought it referred to the actions of dumping your fuel, opening the cargo bays, then ejecting from the plane, leaving the passengers behind, and getting paid a bonus to do all of this.
Well, yea but, how can we make this Obama's fault?
Um, ok, I'll bite.
But really, it's more widespread than that. Were it entirely an Obama problem, we'd only have to live with it for a few more years. For people who actually believe that, I have a shiny new bridge to sell them.
It's like they're trying to fail. I guess the same people who choose to stick with a business model that clearly doesn't work anymore, don't have the judgement to create effective deterrents either.
My current favorite concept is to outsource security overseas. There's NO way that could go wrong...