Microsoft FY07Q4 Results
Here comes the fourth quarter results for FY07 and some peering into what FY08 has in store. Well, as much as we're willing to reveal. My favorite post analysis sites for the results:
I'll summarize what folks are saying and link to their posts later.
Some articles started showing up earlier in the week forecasting what the results might be and that totally got derailed by Mr. Peter Moore leaving Microsoft for a better, family friendly job location with Electronic Arts in the Bay area. I know a lot of gopher heads popped up questioning, "Accountability? In action? At Microsoft?"
That was quickly put to rest. Of course, even if Mr. Moore was asked to head for the nearest exit, we wouldn't want to piss him off over at EA. So, I'm marking this up as how it was presented, with zero amount of accountability being exhibited. Again. Whatever the SPSA metrics are for this upcoming shower of gold, I'm sure none of the bad news around Xbox will affect the payout.
What do you think will be the interesting parts of the end of FY07 results?
What questions would you ask if you were on the conference call?
Some topics:
Vista: how is deployment? And analysts will probably fish for news on SP1, given that SP1 should increase Vista deployment. To me, the secondary issue is around Vista 3rd party drivers. I still walk into people's office and see some cool device and hear, "Yeah, well, when the Vista drivers are released I'll be able to use it again..."
Oh, and hey Windows Vista: you remember Chris Pirillo? Let me jog your memory: (1) Copying Xerox, Vista Mistakes, and VP and Perspectives (2) There's Ray! Plus: Plenty of Room For More Brains at Microsoft. Don't shrug him off as a whiny complainer nor doubt his ability to get press, because last week the Chris Pirillo focused "6 Months Later, a Report Card on Vista" / "Six Months On, Vista Users Still Griping" / "Little Annoyances Still Big Vista Issue" took its sweet time spreading to about every news site I read.
Acquisitions: probably we should hear a question about aQuantive and how things are looking there. It would be nice to also conjecture about other acquisition targets... I know, we can't. Again, I would enjoy Microsoft acquiring Facebook and then letting only the best people help them build it out (e.g., sorry, no one from Spaces allowed - you had your chance and you'd probably be bitter). Of course, when it comes to acquiring Facebook, Scoble says we ain't good enough.
Duuude. We're well over having the Microsoft network membership pass one-fifth the number of current employees. We're not just dating Facebook here. We're (leaning forward with a knowing glance) involved. Ooo! I'm going to invite Bill Gates to be my friend on Facebook right now... okay, done.
Staffing: last year, Mr. Bishop was the first to gather that Microsoft had an explosive year in employee growth. How bad is it going to be this year? And who the hell are all these people? What parts of the company are growing and what is the demand that the growth is addressing? How the hell can we sustain this growth globally let alone poor little cluster f'd Redmond / Bellevue? It just makes my language go to pot.
Anti-Trust concerns: the elephant in the room. Do we expect any discussion about Europe progress, let alone the US? We yanked Google's anti-trust chain for the DoubleClick acquisition, now they are yanking our anti-trust nipple ring around desktop search.
(Later...)
Follow-up posts to our earnings announcement:
- Seattle-PI: Microsoft quarterly profit, ad revenues rise
- Seattle-PI: Slowing of headcount growth! Microsoft hiring slows from last year's record pace - Mexican Hat Dance time! Yes, I'm one broken blogger, down to celebrating moderate employee growth vs. actually shrinking and mini-fying Microsoft. Perhaps we finally woke up from our hiring bender, uttered, "Holy frickin' Nelly!" and things will start being far more reasonable.
- Mary Jo Foley: New hires, datacenter investments evident in Microsoft earnings - looks at data center growth and employee growth in certain parts of the company (hmm, maybe the field is exploding).
- MSFTextrememakeover Q4-07 Earnings
- Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Microsoft Q4 2007 by the Numbers - Office 2007 outshining Vista?
I was surprised that Liddell shrugged off the importance of Vista SP1. If it was an attempted Jedi Mind Trick, he forgot to wave his hand.
Other goings on:
- Oooo, you wiley Facebook, I'm even more intrigued with your acquisition of Parakey. I've had my eye on Parakey for a while given that they started implementing something that reminds me of a question Dave Winer posed on Scripting News way back in the late 90s. And of course, the wine loving devil on my shoulder is just tickled with the prospect of Microsoft acquiring Facebook while Blake Ross is an employee.
- What do you know, Google stock can actually go the other direction.
142 comments:
>>What parts of the company are growing and what is the demand that the growth is addressing?
If I were a cynic: they are in areas where we wouldn't want them working for the competition. For a while at least.
Long time no see. I thought you and your readers may want to read this:
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/information-technology/computers-software/TCH_ITS_CMP/68224-3961046
Cheers, fCh
"Whatever the SPSA metrics are for this upcoming shower of gold"
Well played, sir!
To me, the secondary issue is around Vista 3rd party drivers. I still walk into people's office and see some cool device and hear, "Yeah, well, when the Vista drivers are released I'll be able to use it again..."
I don't think this is true. What devices still don't have drivers? And if they don't have drivers by now, is there really any chance there will be updated drivers for the device?
What more can be done by Microsoft to help people get the drivers they need?
Device drivers is one of the concerns but many people are avoiding Vista even on new machines. They don't know if their favorite applications will work or not and they don't want to take the chance.
She lives by where I work (near QWEST). She’s even more gigantic in person.
I just got Roxio drivers for my <6 mo old Dell. Up until today, every reboot ended up with 7 PCA popups telling me the driver was blocked.
Well, no more! I'm free of the PCA tyranny!
What more can be done by Microsoft to help people get the drivers they need?
You're kidding right? Or were you a PM on the Longhorn Driver Model team?
How about - don't break the old ones until there are new ones available. Well, that trainwreck left the station a while back, but to me it's one of the most telling signs of Windows management being completely out to lunch. I wonder if there will be any questions about that?
I don't know about microsoft not being good for facebook, but what would microsoft do with facebook? It would be a disaster to have to wade through 7 or 8 ads per page like on myspace. It would be a disaster to take ownership without a clear plan. Use silverlight and popfly to make way killer apps that can be shared on facebook, yes. But otherwise, it is not a matter of good or bad, it is a matter of how does it fit into the business model, and keeping it from getting screwed up.
I wouldn't be so keen to see MSFT get in bed with Facebook if I were you. If there's any truth to this: http://valleywag.com/tech/mythbusting/facebooks-fake-revenues-278437.php they are way overpriced.
Mini, some logistics issue:
1.When I click the comments link on your post, I am brought to this page, which is configured for posting comments and not for reading comments (comments are in a narrow column hard to read). Few months back, the same click used to bring me to comment page for reading. Now I have to press the blog-headline and then scroll down to reach the same page.
2. There is so much troll. Why do not you make the website accessible to Microsoftees only. It is possible, easy, and preserves anonymity. I am sure you could also think of a quick solution.
i am soooooo tired of vista, my awesome tablet pc has never worked the same since i installed it. the writing features work fine, but the screen rotation and using multi-mon NEVER worked again. whoever developed the multi-mon functionality for vista must have done so with the external monitor on the right because that's what my screen always defaults back to (i like to have mine on the left.) Boot up takes a brutally long time. i also disabled the stupid access control pop-up in the local policy and could therefore live with Vista. i feel like this whole OS is steps backward from XP.
So here's the great question of the day. With the stock price cruising past 31, and options expiring in 2011....do I exercise?
Heh... I should do an anonymous interview with you, eh? :)
It's funny, actually - I blogged that Microsoft should pay me ONE MILLION DOLLARS to market Vista better than them. Must've made it to the "Fit and Finish" department, as nothing ever happened.
More interesting is how I was raked across the coals for complaining about small things - when Apple fanatics cheered Jobs for stating that Leopard would have a consistent interface throughout.
Am I a Nitpicker, or a Switcher waiting to happen? I'm certainly not alone. The future of Windows for me may be a seamless VM experience through OS X.
Scoble says we ain't good enough
Geez Mini, why do you give that guy any exposure?
I'll seriously argue that the emergence of his like from Microsoft is like the appearance of buboes on a plague victim. Both a sign of deep illness. If we ever rise above the current circumstances, Scoble will return to his former gig as a Best Buy blue shirt.
Drivers that don't work or don't work right:
My sandisk sansa - was flawless in XP didn't work on vista for a while and now kinda works
My lexmark all in one printer - worked great in XP, even though they have Vista drivers on their website I still can't get it to print, although it does scan. I still dual boot XP for this reason alone.
My Toshiba M4 still struggles with external displays. But Toshiba laptops are horrible altogether.
Nvidia has no plans to release drivers for my 5600 even though it's running Vista now and is perfectly capable. I just get a limited feature set.
That's a pretty awful user experience if you ask me.
"What parts of the company are growing and what is the demand that the growth is addressing"
We're growing like crazy in the field! We have may too much business in Services and we have many unfilled positions. We're all overworked at the moment. The strategy is to put more MS folks closer to the customer -- not in Redmond.
Microsoft could afford to recognize the sh*tkicking it's getting from Linux.
Right now Microsoft is unable to compete. It struggles to even get a shape of where Linux assaults it.
Inevitably current trends will continue and it will force Microsoft to quietly skulk off and develop a main focus.
One that isn't just blind, frantic and completely amateur Windows boosterism.
Hmm...Doubt that's in the next year though.
During this "fiscal year" Microsoft will continue to be punch-drunk from Linux and continue making themselves look really bad.
So looks like MS had another good quarter (which would have been an excellent quarter if it hadn't been for the XBOX fiasco). But still. A good quarter. I'm dying to hear how the regulars here are going to spin Googles 8% stock slide on missing their estimates.
Tee hee.
Microsoft could afford to recognize the sh*tkicking it's getting from Linux.
Wha? I'd like to see some evidence for this statement. Server growth and desktop growth are both strong. Care to enlighten us as to exactly where Linux is crushing Microsoft?
Welcome back, oh somewhat-kinder-and-gentler Mini. Given this somewhat different perspective, are you going to drop the "lean-and-mean" tag line?
Anonymous wrote:
There is so much troll. Why do not you make the website accessible to Microsoftees only?
Is there any evidence that the TQ [troll quotient] is lower with Microsofties? We see a lot of the same kind of behavior internally on sites where anonymous comments are allowed ...
Also, I very much agree with Jasq's point about making killer apps for Facebook; that's a good thing to do whether or not we buy them.
jon
lockergnome - you are a douchebag and a troll. Please do us all a favor and switch. Or go spend a few hours with Apple's OS and post another multi-hour tirade video.
Mini - please moderate the comments again and bounce some of this lame crap.
Omega - Please leave the "shitkicking" linux comments outside please. I am an Ms employee in the field and the no. of people who are fed up with linux and moving to Windows is in the tens of thousands - Customers dont give a damn about it anymore.
Mini - your damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-dont tirade against MS is becoming tiresome.
Will there be any post forthcoming from you that will sound a little more positive?
Give me criticism over cynicism anyday.
Thinking more about this (interestingly I had a very similar same conversation at work today) ...
One obvious business model for Microsoft apps on Facebook is to attract traffic to our sites, services, and applications. We clearly have some destinations that are attractive to a lot of people: XBox Live, Club Live, Messenger, MSN, ... etc. etc. (yes, yes, I know our stuff has to be competitive for this to work; that's another discussion). Essentially, one way to look at Facebook apps is as a low-cost way of attracting users.
What are some good examples of Facebook apps that would play to our strengths?
jon
PS: For those of you who work at Microsoft, please feel free to join in the parallel discussion on the Ad Astra blog. While you're there, please check out (and join in on) our work-in-progress open letter to Ray Ozzie, discussion of transparency and the just-started brainstorming thread for our upcoming open letter to Mini.
PPS: Ooops. jasg, sorry about the typo in your name in my previous post.
Jon: please be sure to email me any open letter... or post it someplace public.
Administrivia: flipping moderation back on. I experiment with it on and off to see what difference it makes.
@ lockergnome:
Some people should know better than make a video of themselves. I threw up after watching the first three minutes. It's not that your comments against Vista aren't valid - it's the presentation. Let me tell you a secret. You're far less important than you think you are, even if news agencies refer to your blog. In fact, I'd bet a good deal of money that about 99% of Microsoft ecosystem hasn't heard of you and doesn't know who you are, much less why they should value your opinion. To the rest, you're even more irritating than Scoble, and that's an achievement in itself.
Do everyone a favor - refrain from putting yourself on youtube in the future.
> So here's the great question of the day. With the stock price cruising past 31, and options expiring in 2011....do I exercise?
When I was faced with this choice (not at Microsoft), I did a straddle. I sold some of it, to make sure that I got something at all. And I held on to some of it, so that if it went up, I could make more. (This was made easier since parts of my grant vested yearly.)
This strategy moderated both my upside and my downside.
MSS
Who da',
Of course! In fact, if you wouldn't mind, it would be great to do the same thing in parallel here as well -- and perhaps we could do one jointly on Facebook too. That way we could compare and contrast the results. It'd be a really interesting experiment.
jon
During this "fiscal year" Microsoft will continue to be punch-drunk from Linux and continue making themselves look really bad.
Wow. I typed like three paragraphs on this before realizing that it was a waste.
Dream on, fanboy.
I read through the Ad Astra stuff.
It looks to me like the type of navel-gazing and self-promotion that a lot of commenters on this blog are claiming is endemic.
I work in the field so don't fully subscribe to the political opinions raised here frequently - those things seem to be more of a corp "feature", but if Ad Astra is a sample of what is going on then I'm not too enthused about these type of overheads.
Jon, you are a GM, a leader in Microsoft. You are posting here on a forum critical to Microsoft is encouraging other employees.
Sure you can do this at a personal level as mini is doing. But as a manager of a company, you are not supposed to go against the company and encourage other employees. I hope that the senior leadership take notice.
I love the fact that Jon posts here. It shows that senior folks at MSFT are reading and not afraid to engage.
Jon - I dont think it is wise to carry on any discussion here. This forum is way too public for what are essentially internal issues. I dont think we should talk about the open letters and we definitely shouldnt talk about Facebook apps. That discussion should be happening internally
Mini - here's a suggestion (this is not really a comment, feel free to delete it). Why dont you write a Thinkweek paper? You could talk about your observations and the stuff learnt from your blog. You could ask people like Jon Pincus to help you out with the logistics to help submit to http://thinkweek2.
If you want a public response from BillG and others, that would be a good way.
Anonymous,
Thanks for checking it out. Good feedback; the blog is pretty chaotic and at any given point in time may look a lot like navel-gazing. For now I added a link to the work-in-progress "FY 08 pitch" to the Welcome page; it's admittedly imperfect, but probably the best description so far -- and also describes what we think are good next steps.
Without discussing anything confidential, a few things that I think are more than navel-gazing:
* Mashup events (and the associated threads) are an attempt to address the rather embarrassing lead that our competitors have over us -- back in March, only 4 of the 1500 mashups listed on programmableweb.com were on Microsoft services and APIs. (The Computerworld article on the Mashups at the MVP summit looks at this narrowly in the context of search.)
* the series of workshops we prototyped on innovating more effectively have gotten rave reviews from the attendees, and we're partnering to ramp those out more broadly
* Given how much people complain about execs not knowing what's going on, I think things like the open letter to Ray fill an important rule.
* The Third Rail Project (anonymous gathering of "unmentionables", forwarded on to Lisa) is a really valuable snapshot of what can't be discussed at Microsoft today -- in a way very complementary to Mini and other sites.
It is true that we still don't do a good job of conveying what Ad Astra's about. The grassroots, network-oriented approach we're taking is really different; and some peopel view the highly-participative approach we take as "too much talking". We're working on it.
The best way to get a feel for it is to participate; one of the reason we're on spsites is to make access easier for people in the field, who often have problems RASing in.
And if it's still not clicking for you after you try, oh well; apologies for wasting your time. Please consider coming back in a few months -- and in the interim check out some of the other things going on like OfficeLabs (there's a brief blog post on their productivity science fair).
Thanks again!
jon
PS: Mini, apologies if this comment is too long ... if you want, I'll resubmit something shorter.
Anonymous,
Jon, you are a GM, a leader in Microsoft. You are posting here on a forum critical to Microsoft is encouraging other employees....
True enough, and I am indeed encouraging other people at Microsoft to engage in constructive ways: here, on Lisa's blog -- and of course on our blog. [As was pointed out above, I'm also rather shamelessly promoting our work ... I'm a GM in a marketing organzation :-)]
Look: a lot of the criticisms here are at least somewhat valid, and some -- the lack of transparency of the SPSA, for example -- are 100% on target. More than that, this blog gives a voice to a lot of people inside Microsoft who don't feel safe speaking up and outside Microsoft who don't have any other channels. There are a lot of people here who care passionately about Microsoft, and that's a good thing.
I still find the tone here somewhat negative and harsh (that lean-and-mean thing again), but the attacking and trolling has decreased quite a lot over time. Why not engage?
I hope that the senior leadership take notice.
The ones I've talked to generally see it the same way as me. But please, feel free to publicize it further with them!
jon
PS: I'd certainly be a lot happier about being here if this were hosted on some Microsoft site (or even any place but Google); expect to see something along those lines in the open letter.
I remembered this blog today after about six months and I must say I am surprised it still exists and people still bother to post.
Props to you Mini. I don't know where you guys find the energy and time. Although skimming the site, I could tell by the quality of some of the recent posts and comments that the days of Minimsft being the place to go are long over.
Still no one can deny that this blog started something
>>Jon, you are a GM, a leader in Microsoft. You are posting here on a forum critical to Microsoft is encouraging other employees.
Sure you can do this at a personal level as mini is doing. But as a manager of a company, you are not supposed to go against the company and encourage other employees. I hope that the senior leadership take notice. <<
God its people like you who make my experience at MS a living hell. I did not see Jon giving away any details what so ever on anything competitive. You remind me of a moron in ehome ...
Sure you can do this at a personal level as mini is doing. But as a manager of a company, you are not supposed to go against the company and encourage other employees.
Jon (or some GM like him) has to step on and try to win back the disaffected. Microsoft is about to find itself in one hell of a fight. We can't have soldiers giving 50% in the daytime and skulking around on Mini at night. No offense, Mini.
Jon, sure you are not giving away any detail. But this blog is trespassed by press regulalry.
If the senior management really wanted to give any official rocognition to this blog, then the management would have been posting here. Lisa does not even mention Mini by its name.
Microsoft is not a charity organization so we must take care of investor's interest. Investor's interest hurts if this blog gets official recognition. A GM posting here does give official recognition to this blog.
The blog is supposed to work as an informal unofficial place to force certain changes. Getting official recognition to this blog may be hurting this blog's agenda also.
Jon, both you and me know that the management wants to deal with this blog by ignoring it. Tomorrow do not say that I did not warn you. Good luck!
Jon, also if you want to criticize the transparency of SPSA grant, since you are a GM you could raise this issue quite effectively inside the company. Or on your blog you can discuss why you think you deserved (or did not deserve) that grant. Basically you are in a position to tackle the issue of transparency starting from yourself.
Anonymice,
Thanks for the support! One of you said:
I dont think it is wise to carry on any discussion here. This forum is way too public for what are essentially internal issues. I dont think we should talk about the open letters and we definitely shouldnt talk about Facebook apps. That discussion should be happening internally
Totally agree that we have to be very aware that this forum is public. There are many topics I wouldn't get involved in here.
Also agree that discussions should be happening internally. It's not an either-or thing, though: we can carry on discussions internally and externally at the same time, and sometimes that's very useful.
For the open letter to Mini, I'm really curious what the differences will be between something constructed with open and anonymous participation here, with (almost as) open and pseudonymous participation on Facebook, and with Microsoft-only and non-anonymous participation at Microsoft.
As for using Facebook apps to drive traffic to our other properties, getting other people involved in that can only help us. Others are just as likely (if not more) than we are to have ideas about what the opportunities are -- or aren't. And if somebody who's not at Microsoft takes one of the ideas and (for example) writes something linking Facebook to XBox Live or MSDN, or says "I can't see how to do this in the current release of Popfly but it's really easy in Yahoo! Pipes" ... that's a good thing. [I double-checked this with one of Satya's directs before bringing it up here.]
Yes, this is counting on Microsoft employees having the good sense to keep from posting any patentable ideas here. I think people understand that; and realistically those are likely to be in the underlying services anyhow, so the risks are pretty low.
jon
Why dont you write a Thinkweek paper? You could talk about your observations and the stuff learnt from your blog
Great idea, if you 've got the time! [For those who don't know about it, this WSJ article from 2005 is a good description of the "twice-yearly ritual" of ThinkWeek.] I'm happy to be the bridge here.
In the past there's often been some kind of provision for submitting external papers. There are some caveats ... I'll check with the folks running Thinkweek and see whether it's possible and if so what the deadline is.
jon
"I still find the tone here somewhat negative and harsh (that lean-and-mean thing again),"
Jon, no offense, because fwiw I applaud you personally for engaging here directly. But after YEARS of MSFT under performing across a number of key criteria, and many of the criticisms that you concede are at least somewhat valid left unresolved (SPSA lack of transparency, for example), I suspect that some folks are tired of candy-coating their feedback. I know I am. So maybe the harshness of the critics is a function of the tone-deaf nature of current MSFT senior leadership? As a shareholder, I see ZERO openness to change/rethink coming from that group despite numerous failures and missteps. Indeed, there's an unwillingness to even acknowledge many of these (e.g. the abysmal multi-year track record of the stock, or ROI - more accurately, lack thereof - from "big bets"). But I'm encouraged by your leadership example and hope you're not alone in the executive ranks. I also agree that more constructive engagement on both sides is sorely needed. Finally, I think the street would reward a leadership team that was more open to feedback and honest about what's working and what isn't. It's the "dam the torpedoes, full speed ahead regardless" attitude they find scary - as should anyone looking at the track record this decade versus last.
I remembered this blog today after about six months and I must say I am surprised it still exists and people still bother to post.
Step 1: Insinuate that mini is "passe" and those who still read and/or post are out of the loop.
Check!
Props to you Mini. I don't know where you guys find the energy and time. Although skimming the site, I could tell by the quality of some of the recent posts and comments that the days of Minimsft being the place to go are long over.
Step 2: Demean the quality of the current discussion and suggest that effort to monitor or engage in same is wasted.
Check!
Still no one can deny that this blog started something
Step 3: Finish by exhorting folks to go find that "something" without actually saying what it is (although an inference that "something" is the internal discussion forum wouldn't be far off).
Check!
Lisa B's newest lackey, ladies and gentlemen! What, you thought that headcount would have been better allocated to a group that actually produces something?
"Microsoft is not a charity organization so we must take care of investor's interest. Investor's interest hurts if this blog gets official recognition. A GM posting here does give official recognition to this blog."
Seriously, I can't see how this hurts investors any more than the incompetent way the company has been run the past several years (I think the investors that post on this blog regularly would agree).
To be honest, if this blog can no longer be ignored it would be a good thing: it's about time the senior management faced up to the fact that there are serious problems in the company that need to be addressed rather than burying their heads in the sand.
>> we must take care of investor's interest.
I was an investor. Granted, small scale, with just over $100K in MSFT part of my portfolio but an investor nevertheless. I've sold all my MSFT a year ago, tired of waiting for a miracle.
>> Investor's interest hurts if this blog gets official recognition.
Just because you say it doesn't make it true.
"Jon, you are a GM, a leader in Microsoft. You are posting here on a forum critical to Microsoft is encouraging other employees.
Sure you can do this at a personal level as mini is doing. But as a manager of a company, you are not supposed to go against the company and encourage other employees..."
Enough with the rulebook nonsense. If you've noticed most of the people here care about the company and want to fix what's broken and there have been plenty of suggestions on what needs to be fixed and how.
The thing that's wrong here is these people had to post here because they wouldn't have been listened to internally and they may have been retaliated against individually.
If the "negative and harsh" goes away then you know that Mini has been assimilated. Any exec thats blogging in a public forum - and who believes in free speech - knows that any type of comment may appear on Mini at practically any time. That's a by-product of having an open mike. In my view, its worked pretty well to this point. Had it not worked well, execs would not be here attempting a dialogue. The anonymous are here to improve the company without losing their jobs. Referring to them as anonymice only displays more arrogance and ignorance. Please do come out and say something bold that you will have to back up among your peers on Monday morning. Not comfortable with that? If you don't like the heat stay out of the kitchen.
We can't have soldiers giving 50% in the daytime and skulking around on Mini at night.
Perhaps someone high up should be asking what demotivates those once highly motivated soldiers?
what's with all this "open letter" stuff. where is the value?
will it deliver better products faster? increase share price? raise OHI??
Navel gazing indeed. This makes me want to puke.
PS: I'd certainly be a lot happier about being here if this were hosted on some Microsoft site (or even any place but Google); expect to see something along those lines in the open letter.
And how many of those who've experienced the repercussions of speaking the truth in the halls of MS when syncophancy was actually what was desired will post on a Microsoft-run site? I know I would never even read it. The notion that anonymity is real is false in so many other aspects of our corporate life that I cannot imagine believing it to be real in a situation such as this.
Microsoft is not a charity organization so we must take care of investor's interest. Investor's interest hurts if this blog gets official recognition. A GM posting here does give official recognition to this blog.
Puh-lease. Arguments that the MS leadership has MS investors in mind as their top priority is a waste of my time, and lowers my perspective of your sincerity completely.
When is this year's review result being communicated?
I'm waiting.
I instantly mistrust the tone of any GM posting here. It looks like a grand and brave conciliatory gesture until you think it though and realize that the weird vibe you're getting is accurate.
The postings I'm referring to have all the fake enthusiasm and sincerity of a parent or teacher grinning as he or she attempts to ingratiate him/herself into a teenage discussion. "Hey, man! What's going on?" the adult says, all smiles. "Don't mind me; I just want to be part of your 'rap session.'" Don't believe it. The parent or teacher has an agenda: find out what's going on here; break down defenses and ingratiate smoothly; amass data and strategy to bring back to the mothership and try to figure out how to stop the kids from doing whatever rule-breaking they're doing.
Something's wrong with the company. The employees have gone outside the corporate channels to communicate about their grievances. Despite attempts to caricature this as some kind of after-hours "bitch session," if you think it through you'll realize that it's an extraordinary event: the employees actually care so much, believe so much, and are so frustrated that they've gone off the reservation and into a public space in order to hear each other and to make noise for others to hear. That's amazing: it shows dedication, seriousness of intent, maturity, and innovative problem-solving.
So when a company authority figure sidles into the huddle, smiling broadly and announcing that he's here because he's "interested" but he doesn't like the "negativity" and he wants to try to find a less acrimonious way to bring the discussion inside the mothership, don't you believe it. They want these blogs gone. They want them gone right now. They can't stand the dirty laundry in public. They will make the right concerned noises about how good points are being raised, but that's just smoke. If these people really cared about the problems being identified here they would use their influence to try to loudly identify and fix them, rather than "shrewdly" ingratiating with the revolutionaries like the FBI did with radical groups in the 'sixties. Once this blog becomes hidden from public view its power is gone and its influence is meaningless. Don't give in! A better Microsoft can only come about when GMs stop trying to "smooth ruffled feathers" and "remove the harsh tone" and start taking up torches themselves.
"Perhaps someone high up should be asking what demotivates those once highly motivated soldiers?"
How about one of the oldest time tested rants on this blog, over and over again. Here I am, trying to get to the next level. Got Exceeded/Strong last review, ship its, gold stars, but it's been long enough from my last promo. Beginning of last year, frank discussion with my manager (a partner) about wanting a level bump. All year long, talked with him and skip level manager about it. "You're doing all the right things" they say, all year long. Then just last week got some very VERY strong indicators that it wasn't going to happen. And that my manager is going to go run some fun project somewhere else and leave me holding the bag..."might be a good time to look around at what you want to do". So positive feedback all year, career discussions, and clearly communicated desires...all for nothing. NOTHING!!!!!
That means, I'll take my few % this year, and next year, I'm phoning it in. NO MORE passion from me. Where does it go?
Msftextrememakeover,
No offense taken (and thanks). I didn't mean to imply that feedback should be sugar-coated; I just think that the tone here sometimes crosses the line from direct to hostile, attacking, and caustic.
If your goal is to reach people and create change, this matters a lot because lot of times Microsoft people (as with anybody else who feels beseiged) will react so defensively to attacks that they'll disregard or disparaget the valid information, analysis, and criticism in the same thread or forum. [This used to come up very strongly in reactions to Slashdot, for example.]
In terms of negativity, a lot of times people here spend time wallowing in what's wrong and looking for reasons why everybody involved is an idiot. Of course I agree it's vital to identify, diagnose, and acknowledge problems; once you've identified the patterns, then it's a lot more valuable to spend the bulk of your time discussing how to make progress on them -- given the (often apparently-irrational, but real) constraints. And once again, this gives people who aren't naturally inclined to hear the messages an excuse to tune things out.
Even more importantly, this negative focus passes up the chance to build on our strengths. We just had a damned good quarter, and in case nobody noticed our search query share is up and Google's down for the first time ever. Okay, still need to see how sustainable all this is (the search gains are due to Club Live) but there clearly are at least some good things happening. As well as dealing with our dysfunctions, the way to get the stock price moving up again is to distill what's working ... and then do more of it.
I'm not trying to downplay people's sense of frustrations; and when you feel that nobody's listening, it's natural to turn up the volume and intensity. Things evolve, though; at this point, I think a lot of people are at least trying to listen, and the tone here means Mini's influence is a lot less than it could be otherwise.
jon
Anonymous,
Apologies if "anonymice" came across as disrespectful; I was trying to address two anonymous posters in the same letter and it seemed to me that this was a funny plural. I'll cop to not thinking about the message it may have sent. Why do you think it shows arrogance and ignorance on my part?
Any exec thats blogging in a public forum - and who believes in free speech - knows that any type of comment may appear on Mini at practically any time.
I haven't noticed posters here restricting their attacks to people appearing in this forum. [And I'm not just talking about execs, unless Scoble posted earlier in this thread and I missed it.]
Had it not worked well, execs would not be here attempting a dialogue.
As far as I know, I'm the most senior person from Microsoft who's here openly, and I stayed away for a long time for exactly the reasons I mentioned. What execs were you thinking of?
jon
PS: for future reference, other anonymous posters, are you also offended by "anonymice"?
On the ThinkWeek paper, I checked with somebody on Bill's TA's staff, and the rules are the same: an FTE [me, in this case] can submit an outside paper as long as there are no IP issues.
Of course there's no guarantee that Bill will read the paper (there are now enough submissions he doesn't read them all); and even if he reads it, there's no guarantee that he'll comment; however, it will get posted on an internal site for all full-time employeess to read and comment on.
This year's deadline is August 25. Getting it in about a week earlier is good because it gives a chance to react to employee feedback -- I'll ask for permission to post at least some of it publicly.
jon
PS: Msftextrememakeover, if you'd like to collaborate with Mini on this, I think something coming from the two of you together would have even more force.
what's with all this "open letter" stuff. where is the value?
will it deliver better products faster? increase share price? raise OHI??
Many Microsoft employees feel that they don't have any effective ways of getting their views to executives; so if the open letter process works at least some of the time, it will help contribute to raising OHI. I've already gotten a chunk o' mail saying variants of "this is great" and "thanks for doing this" so I think we're on track there ... have to see about Ray's reaction, of course.
In terms of delivering better products, one thing I'm trying to do with these is to help those of us at Microsoft learn to work more collaboratively (in this case, specifically constructing documents a wiki and a blog). Another thread on the blog discusses a series of experiments along these lines and there's been steady progress over the last year. I think that getting better at this will lead to better products and services much faster. [For those of you who have access to the blog, please check out the "highly collaborative environments" thread.]
Also, one of the offshoot threads in the letter to Ray is on distributed development. I think if Microsoft can do this better, we'll do a much better job at creating products and services for countries other than the US -- and we'll do much better at recruiting both in the US and abroad.
And a common theme both here and at Microsoft is that some of the executives just don't get it. Can find a way to use the open letter process to help them understand things they're missing? It's too early to know (and I started with Ray because in my and most others' opinion he clearly does get it) but I think there certainly are possibilities.
So yeah, I think things like this do help the share price.
jon
And very briefly ...
I have and continue to raise transparency issues internally. Please don't overstate my influence!
In terms of this site being hosted on a Microsoft site, I certainly understand the concerns -- note that I also said "anywhere else but Google. Being a shareholder, I'd really like to see at least the revenue (and ideally the page views) of this accrue in some way to Microsoft ... or at least not to our arch-rival.
It seems to me that experiments like InsideMS and others show that Microsoft really does understand the value of anonymous speech, and that a lot of employees currently do trust the company not to violate commitments to anonymity in situations where it is technically possible. However, I also agree that a lot of people still might have very good reasons not to feel safe in this kind of environment. If this is something that really concerns you, I really hope you're using Tor or some other anonymizing facility to read this blog.
jon
I began to ponder a question today...
With all these high profile execs leaving MS, forced for voluntarily, over the past year, at what point does someone on the board ask the question "is the problem that all our VP's suck, or is the problem with their leader, Mr. Ballmer?"
If everyone is jumping ship, then will we never make the captain walk the plank?
> Microsoft is not a charity organization so we must take care of investor's interest. Investor's interest hurts if this blog gets official recognition. A GM posting here does give official recognition to this blog.
Wow. This has so much that is wrong packed into just three sentences.
First: Microsoft has to look out for the investor's interest. True - but not exclusively. Microsoft also has to look out for the customer's interest, and the employee's. It cannot focus exclusively on the investor's interest.
Second: The investor's interest is not served by ignoring the issues raised here, and is not damaged by official "recognition" of this blog. The investor's interest is damaged by official inaction on these issues, and attempting to sweep them under the rug and pretend that everything is fine.
Third, Jon coming here, admitting that he is a manager at Microsoft, and posting using his real identity is not "official" recognition of this blog. He's not nearly high level enough to speak for Microsoft as a corporate whole. Official recognition would be Ballmer or Lisa.
To the person ragging on Jon because he's a manager, accusing him of being like the adult trying to infiltrate the group of kids: Look, being a manager doesn't automatically mean that Jon's a sellout, a corporate guy, an empty suit. You seem to say that everybody else is here because they care, but you don't think that a manager could feel the same, because he's a manager. Maybe Jon can see the same problems you do? Maybe he actually cares, too? Judge him by what he says and does, not by his job title.
To Jon: Personally, I think "anonymice" is cute, but then, I'm not a pure anonymous since I sign with a handle...
Can't live with 'em. Can't live without 'em
WRT not involving a GM simply because they are a GM is unnecessarily paranoid and ultimately counter-productive. If you can't get the management to change or can't change the management, then things will only get worse. Besides, if that's how you view the management, why are you still working in such an environment?
While there may be trolls or undercover spies posting to this anonymous, public blog, my guess is that the vast majority are concerned employees and managers who are reading and/or posting. I'd guess is that the vast majority of posters are concerned and passionate but frustrated. (Perhaps Machiaveli should be required reading for CS grads?) Sure there are trolls who like to stir the pot just to watch it boil and I have no doubt that some of the bad managers that are described here are paranoid or evil enough to go digging for dirt to throw back at their subordinates, but, as a group, you/we have to rise above this sort of behavior and start working for the better not being drawn down by the worst.
The employees have gone outside the corporate channels to communicate about their grievances. Despite attempts to caricature this as some kind of after-hours "bitch session," if you think it through you'll realize that it's an extraordinary event:
Not really, no. It's not extraordinary. It happens any time a group of quality, self-motivated people find themselves being led by incompetents*. The self-motivated, used-to-winning folks see a problem and start looking for ways to solve it. It's a tough problem, so allies are important, and they look for other people in the company who see the same problems. In the Top-Middle-Bottom Barry Oshry world, this is Middles Uniting, a classic coping mechanism.
I saw it in two of the three companies I worked for before joining Microsoft. It didn't work there any better than it will work here.
See, unfortunately, if you work for an idiot, you can't fix him. If you work for a company that places a large number of ineffective people into leadership positions, you can't fix that. The only people who can fix it are the executive leaders of the company, and they are the ones who created the problem in the first place. For them to fix it, they need to a) realize they made a mistake and b) admit it long enough to fix it.
The problem is, in an organization where bad management has become common, b) is nearly impossible. The institutional insecurity among bad managers coupled with the need to do something about mounting performance problems, makes admitting to a mistake career suicide. The only way out of the mess is a wholesale turnover at the top. The new executives can freely acknowledge their predecessors mistakes without tarnishing themselves.
So, the only real hope for Microsoft is a wholesale slaughter at the executive level. When Jack Welch took over as CEO of GE, he fired 12 of the 14 VPs who reported to him. Microsoft needs that scale of turnover at the top to fix things.
*this doesn't mean every leader at MS is incompetent, just that a large number, perhaps the majority, are. And it's getting worse, since the adage A's hire A, and B's hire C's is true, and true of A's promoting A's and B's promoting C's.
Jon,
Thanks for clarifying. I agree with virtually all of what you wrote. However, I think there's a big disconnect between the problems Ballmer et al would concede as problems versus the list the rest of us would likely submit. As that list is the basis from which all else flows, that's a critical issue that needs to be resolved up front.
MCS Email:
During FY07 we had very strong results from your participation in the MSPOLL and we grew our organization significantly throughout the course of the year. We added 60 new members to the team in FY07. Among these were 24 new consultants, 10 new TAMS, 8 new Engagement Managers, 2 new Support Engagement Managers, 9 new Sales Executives, 4 new GM & PM coordinators, and 3 new PDMs! One aspect of our “new” hiring that I am particularly proud of this past year is that we added six recent colleges hires to the team.
These “MACH” hires are a true testimonial to vibrant nature of our company and how well ALL of you embrace new talent! Thank you for your sense of inclusiveness and teamwork! Again, I re-welcome each of you who joined the team in FY07 and I thank you for your enthusiasm and for you commitment to our business!
I'm one of those new college hires. And I can tell you that I worked very hard this year, and that I personally delivered 10's of thousands of dollars of revenue and profit to MCS.
We're growing in the field and doing a damn good job.
Anonymous @ Sunday, July 22, 2007 10:01:00 PM said...
"Perhaps someone high up should be asking what demotivates those once highly motivated soldiers?"
...
my manager is going to go run some fun project somewhere else and leave me holding the bag..."might be a good time to look around at what you want to do"
Speaking of demotivators. How about the once-every-six-to-twelve-months reorg that leaves employees scrambling to find a new job. Can you imagine working for a company where once a year or so you have to go out and interview for a new position and face the uncertainty of having no job at all? I can't. What a lousy environment to work in.
Jon,
Lots of people have proposed LOTS of constructive solutions to many of the problems kevetched about here and on InsideMS. (Many, many solutions have been proposed on InsideMS to mostly deaf ears as well - but that's a different conversation. Kind of.) They propose them here, they suggest them to management in person (sometimes). There is no shortage of people problem-solving about the Big Problems.
What is the result? THAT's what people are frustrated about the most. NOTHING CHANGES. Ok, strike that. VERY LITTLE CHANGES. Tidbits and scraps are dropped to appease the masses and demonstrate "good will." But overall, it's either the same-old, same-old dressed up in different packaging (e.g. review changes, where the stack rank just moved to another area) or it's something totally trivial in the grand scheme of Things That Are Broken.
What specifically would you like the people here to do that would be more constructive than making proposals that no executive ever picks up on? Sure, the suggestions could (and DO!) go through official channels. Go to your manager, your second-line, HR, send mail to Lisa, etc. The problem is that all of those channels come with a price, and it's one too many of us have already paid (and learned from).
Please be specific about what you'd like to see happen HERE on Mini, rather than just "be less negative."
Thanks.
Apparently, anonymice is not all that flattering a term How about using anonymi?
Jack Shafer, in Slate.com, introduces us to the term "anonymice" with a colorful metaphor:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/01/092928.php
"Like insatiable vermin eating and rutting their way through a bulging grain elevator, anonymice continue to multiply in the pages of the top dailies. This proliferation comes despite the public promises made by some newspapers to stamp out--or at least reduce--the number of anonymous sources quoted."
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=anonymice
anonymice
People (typically n00bs) who insist on posting anonymously to online communities, usually just to cheese non-anonymous people off.
Jon said: "We just had a damned good quarter ..."
The street expected .39 per share and we delivered .31 per share. I call that damned sucky.
Oh, that's right, you don't hold Robbie accountable for one of the biggest fuck ups in the history of business. You just write it off as a "one time charge" and pretend like it didn't happen. AWESOME QUARTER. Hopefully XBOX can blow another billion next quarter! Maybe Live can lose a record amount too. I know, let's settle .03 per share of lawsuits too. Then we can celebrate a trifecta of one time charges!!!
And for the record Robbie, Xbox won't be a "profitable business this year" or next or the next. Maybe by 2015 - more likely 2020. For a business to be profitable, you have to look at the entire business, which includes the $6.5B you mismanaged down the shitter. You might be cash flow positive in FY08 (if you were fully burdened, you probably wouldn't even make that mark), but your business won't be profitable until you pay back - with interest - the $6.5B.
Sorry if I'm being too negative, but it's embarrassing when our supposed leaders pretend like we're stupid and try to blow smoke up our ass.
nff
I haven't noticed posters here restricting their attacks to people appearing in this forum. [And I'm not just talking about execs, unless Scoble posted earlier in this thread and I missed it.]
I wasn't referring to behavior on the blog as much as to its success. In my opinion, MM is a well-attended blog because it allows passionate discourse. Can that be carried too far? Yes. Does that detract from the blog's overall value? No. If MM had 4 posts a month it wouldn't garner the attention its getting now.
As far as I know, I'm the most senior person from Microsoft who's here openly, and I stayed away for a long time for exactly the reasons I mentioned. What execs were you thinking of?
Sorry for not being clearer. I was referring to you specifically and not execs plural.
Jon, you stayed away from MM until now because - why? I mean, why didn't you or another senior person engage 3 months ago, or 6 months ago, or a year ago? In my view, this blog may have toned down recently, but not that much. Could one of the reasons why senior staff stayed away because there was an informal(possibly career-threatening) policy against blogging here, and now, for some reason, MM is strategic, and its important to manage MM messaging? Just curious.
jon:
In terms of negativity, a lot of times people here spend time wallowing in what's wrong and looking for reasons why everybody involved is an idiot. Of course I agree it's vital to identify, diagnose, and acknowledge problems;
the italicized is emphasis mine. i wanted to point out that that sentence describes in a nutshell the Microsoft culture. it can be seen everywhere from interview loops to spec reviews to cross-group engagements to post-mortems. it is the way people have been trained to 'add value'.
and it comes from the top. this is what Bill does and has always done and we all want to be Bill. we want to find the one little hole in everyone's best-laid plans and then dig and dig until the other person acknowledges that they are, indeed, a lesser mind than you and that they have to go back and think about it some more.
and you wonder why this is what we all do here? do you wonder why on aliases like Litebulb people shoot each other down because of some esoteric factoid that only people who've been involved in the problem space really have any understanding of or exposure to? do you wonder why interview loops are these horrible things that attempt to measure people on having thought about a problem for all of 2 minutes and then castrating them for not having a bulletproof design/plan?
THIS IS WHO WE ARE.
we find the problems and do it as a means of 'adding value'. it doesn't matter if the problems we find are esoteric or inconsequential. contributing silence is ALWAYS WORSE than contributing random noise. you risk being labeled a 'no op' if you don't 'contribute' somehow. and it's the silent no-ops that are deemed worse than the fuck-up no-ops who at least try to 'add value' but are really just inept.
you take the culture we've built and add dissatisfaction to it, there can be only one outcome. the thing that brings it out in public is the blogging tidbit.
"I instantly mistrust the tone of any GM posting here...The postings I'm referring to have all the fake enthusiasm and sincerity of a parent or teacher grinning as he or she attempts to ingratiate him/herself into a teenage discussion. "Hey, man! What's going on?" the adult says, all smiles. "Don't mind me; I just want to be part of your 'rap session.'" Don't believe it. The parent or teacher has an agenda: find out what's going on here; break down defenses and ingratiate smoothly; amass data and strategy to bring back to the mothership and try to figure out how to stop the kids from doing whatever rule-breaking they're doing."
Let me put in my two cents in support of Jon. If you read his postings internally, you'll know that he posts the same way inside Microsoft, and if you've ever seen him speak or been to one of the events he puts on, you'll know he's genuine in his desire to make Microsoft great. So don't discount him as "just another GM", he's trying to fight the same good fight that Mini is (but possibly in a different way).
Also, I think when he commented about wishing this was on a Microsoft site, he just meant he wished it was on Spaces or something, not that it should be brought inside the firewall.
- adam
Mini and Anonymice, everybody must be happy with the morning townhall meeting. Robbie Bach came out as a leader.
>The postings I'm referring to have all the fake enthusiasm and sincerity of a parent or teacher grinning as he or she attempts to ingratiate him/herself into a teenage discussion. "Hey, man! What's going on?" the adult says, all smiles. "Don't mind me; I just want to be part of your 'rap session.'" Don't believe it.
I'm not sure that folks DO believe it. Do YOU believe it, gentle reader? That said, Jon, if you have ideas/opionions on:
- "Share of the Pie" vs. Partner/non-Partner
- inept or downright mendacious managers
- watering-down of innovatiion due to design-by-concensus of who-knows-how-many groups and stakeholders
- purging of the Kims
- fiscal responsibility
- the Old Boys Network
- all the other frequent issues raised here...
... then let us know about them, here, and we can respond to you (or not), here, where there is a measure of accountability-by-visibility.
I don't think that internally, there is any high-level intention or desire, whatsoever, to change many of the things that are regularly discussed here. The only goal that "taking it inside" satisfies is... not having it discussed here.
Ever heard of the good-guy-bad-guy tactic used against someone? Jon is the "good guy". Don't believe him.
A lot to respond to here and I may not be able get to all of it; apologies in advance.
Probably the most important thing is to apologies to the anonymous posters (and thank the person who linked to the Jack Shafer article). I honestly didn't realize that the term had such negative overtones, and can see how it badly undercut my message. And to the person who brought it up originally, thanks as well, and you're right: I was ignorant.