Sunday, October 03, 2004

Riffin with Reifman - Citizen Microsoft

Jeff Reifman (a former Microsoftie) has a new article about Microsoft that doesn't make any Microsoftie flush with pride: Citizen Microsoft. Here I've been squawking about how we're turning into IBM. Even worse, we might be turning into Boeing.

One interesting bit from the article (bold mine):

In May, Microsoft announced $80 million in cuts to employee benefits. When employees asked why the company couldn't dip into huge cash reserves instead, Ballmer, in a July memo, brushed them off: "The cash is shareholders' money, so we need to either invest in new opportunities or return it to them." Historically, Microsoft's generous benefits and employee stock options have been pretty good for shareholders, too. The company might one day regret Ballmer's pound-foolish approach to morale. But according to Ballmer, Microsoft needed to be "prudent now so we avoid severe measures later." Later in July, Ballmer announced plans for the $75 billion stock dividend for shareholders, the payout of which will be worth nearly 1,000 times as much as the employee benefits that were to be cut. So much for prudence.

In another blow to employees and the Seattle economy, Microsoft is investing in a new technology center in Hyderabad, India. As hiring in metropolitan Puget Sound slows, the company is preparing to ramp up in India, where it can save as much as 70 percent on labor costs. Yet, according to Marcus Courtney, organizer of WashTech, a union for technology workers, there's an oversupply of labor locally. "Microsoft made those profits off our universities and our infrastructure. They have an obligation to us," he says.

(SteveB: it's time for severe measures now. First, fire all upper management that have been directly responsible for slipped schedules and bad products. It's okay: they've got enough riches to live on and we don't need that much expertise on How to Fail. Next, optimize for profit by cutting loose all the products with losses and zero-chance of brining in profit during the next year.)

There are several threads in Reifman's article, winding along to how an amoral corporation will make unhealthy decisions, and noting one of Google's principles is "Don't be evil." But Google has the luxury of having a clean slate (well, except for all of that censoring they quickly buckle to - perhaps they are the worst evil of all: complicit uncaring). Microsofties, at least traditionally, have been very hands on and involved in a higher purpose for the company. Yet the lawsuits and out-right dumb monopolistic behavior puts us in way too deep a moralistic hole to endeavor to higher purpose.

It would be interesting to see if the shift from employee hands-on attention to where we are now correlated with some of the slimier practices Reifman details in his article. We took the eye of the ball and things went from bad to worse.

Note that Reifman also has a blog entry about the article, should you want to comment.

And wrapping up Riffin' with Reifman, I want to point out his earlier Seattle Weekly article: Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow. If you read it, you'll certainly find a lot of the stuff here resonates with that article and the general discomfort with Microsoft's recent accomplishments and foreseeable dithering. An even better exchange is in his follow-up blog entry to the Cash Cow article.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeff thinks that since he made his millions from MS that it is cool to talk crap about them. Why doesn't Jeff give up his cash and go back to work like a normal person.

Anonymous said...

Or, even more admirable would be to work there as a wealthy AND effective contributor.

Anonymous said...

Microsoft is a publicly held corporation. As such, it receives all sorts of benefits of incorporation from the public. Microsoft seems to be increasingly betraying the public trust, which probably shouldn't be surprising for a big corporation, but I do think if Bill Gates is the genius he's frequently alleged himself to be, he should be thoroughly ashamed of Microsoft's behavior. Genius? I dunno. Einstein was truly a genius and clearly hewn from different ethical timber. There's a thing about betraying the public trust in a democracy. When you betray the public trust in a democracy, you may find yourself getting spankings in the form of class action suits, punitive damages, more antitrust charges, insider trading charges, etc.

Anonymous said...

I don't personally know the two people you mention and therefore can't make any declarations about their integrity, but I think your comparisons are unfair.

I think there is a lot of difference between running a company and in doing the kind of work Einstein was doing.

Anonymous said...

I never asserted that Einstein and Gates practiced the same trade. I'd like to think though that genius, as hard as it may be to define, might play a role in one's degree of ethical and moral development. Cf. Lawrence Kohlberg, Nazi leader IQs, whatever. I expect more from the [alleged] smarties than the dummies.

Anonymous said...

I never asserted that Einstein and Gates practiced the same trade. I'd like to think though that genius, as hard as it may be to define, might play a role in one's degree of ethical and moral development. Cf. Lawrence Kohlberg, Nazi leader IQs, whatever. I expect more from the [alleged] smarties than the dummies.

Anonymous said...

Let's hear some specifics: list some examples of decisions that Bill Gates has made that were unethical or immoral?

Anonymous said...

I dont work for Microsoft and I have no love for the company but I have to ask this question: You basically seem to suggest shutting down all money losing projects. However, surely aren't these the results of the management's efforts to diversify? I would think that MS would need to subsidize all kinds of nonremunerative projects in order to get at least one that might strike it big.

Anonymous said...

I agree that the leadership should be able to expirement with non-profitable projects because you never know where the next big hit is going to come from.

While I'm not sure if all leaders would appreciate having the companies dirty laundry aired to the world, I personally like working with people that are willing to ask the tough questions.

Anonymous said...

Follow Up to Citizen Microsoft:
http://www.idealog.us/2004/10/follow_up_to_ci.html

Scott said...

I know this is an old post but as an outsider it seems to me that Microsoft's motto regarding customers is "lock'em in and tighten the screws".