Microsoft, Just Walk on By
Walk on By: so, sure, we can get a little hissy and prissy with Yahoo not wanting to come to the table, but if even Microsoft's executive leadership is noting how the bloom and most of the petals are off of the Yahoo blossom, wouldn't that be a good idea to just walk away? Why are we out to buy a wilted arrangement? What does Mr. Kevin Johnson - the presumed architect behind the Yahoo acquisition - seem to know that most of the educated financial world doesn't?
I appreciate that we're at least threatening to lower the bid rather than pump it up.
I hope that this harsh strategic move can also be appreciated as an elegant way to walk on by, noting with disgust Yahoo's ability to deliver and be relevant.
Blabby McBlabster: SteveSi, "Pardon me, Mr. Gates, might you step in here for a moment of translucency re-education?" *Smack* Somehow the message to not talk about release dates didn't make it up to Bill Gates, all talking about Win7 rolling out next year rather than in 2010. You know, if that can be pulled off, it would be a lot better to start talking about it once the team has reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Throw this BillG comment in there along with the one of the Sony PS3 release walking head-on into Halo 3 (how'd that go? Oh, yeah, those guys seceded after they succeeded, having released when they were done).
Poor Me: yeah, I miss that DareO has adjusted his priorities and that blogging doesn't fit into them. I understand, but I'm sad for me and Dare's readers. This blog is indebted to Mr. Obasanjo because without his linkage to the early months Mini-Microsoft there's no way I would have built up that initial high quality readership and participation. Thanks for the links, Dare. One day, when this gig is up, I certainly owe you a lunch out.
Goodness knows I've thrown in the towel here, too. And I constantly wonder whether it's worth continuing, given that I'm not putting the deep research and reading into this that I did during those first two years. And the oodles of people we keep hiring is another reason to start fingering the towel: Mini-what? I don't know how many sharks we've jumped here already, and I always see fins in the water ahead.
MSFTExtremeMakeover: Is the Sleeping Giant Finally Waking Up, or Just Rolling Over? Snippet:
Like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, Ballmer seems to be preoccupied with GOOG while MSFT melts down - or at least while the first embers, which had already been apparent for years, now threaten to turn into something much more serious. Hence the recent ill-advised and fiscally irresponsible YHOO bid.
OO! OO! OOXML! What's interesting to me is to read the post-reactions to the approval of OOXML and how many respected people are appalled at the behavior of the anti-OOXML / pro-ODF fanatics. Now these people get to enjoy the experience of Slashdot-commenter-level idiocy crapping all over them and impugning their reputations. Thanks guys! You just opened a lot of doors to OOXML.
At least take some solace in: competition is good. Even for you.
MSPoll 08: a collection of interesting points made in the last post about the recent MSPoll 08: first, around actually implementing change for issues that come up in the poll:
I have been manager at Microsoft for several years. In each of the teams that I have been, the management team takes time to interpret the results of the surveys and try to find solutions.
However, it has always been extremely difficult to deal with the huge bureaucracy that have to be addressed in order to make any change (minor or major). [...] We have too much bureaucracy that prevents us from responding quickly, clearly and effectively to our employees and our customers.
Some hope to pass on that the MSPoll can help get 'er done:
Last year our PUM was wrecking our group, and the poll results showed it. Our fast-talking PUM convinced his management that this was a result of transient events outside the org, and a few months later we were actually asked to repeat the poll. By this time things were even worse and and the PUM had been publicly taking his frustrations out on his directs, so the 2nd time he really got slaughtered. He lost his team (it went to his GPM) and soon after left MSFT.
Viva the poll!
And another:
I've seen that the poll are almost magical to get rid of your lower performing managers up to GM level. You can't say it doesn't have effect although I don't think it changes any thing beyond that level. I've never heard a VP getting hurt by poll. Certainly won't change Ballmer's mind.
One disturbing theme did pop-up, though: happiness manipulation right before the poll. Beer, pizza, Xbox partying, espresso carts, and even saying that bonuses are directly tied to the team getting stellar poll results.
What's Going on in India? Okay, the last post also has a bit of a keg of gun powder in the comments, discussing the engineering quality of Microsoft India. Feel free to continue that conversation there, because the effective management of Microsoft India and Microsoft China is worthy of its own (tricky) post. Starting that off for now, some comments like the following have popped up:
I used to work in Microsoft India SMSG. In the past week, 10% of BMO quit. We've had people in EPG bail out in a hurry because the management does not care and is totally intellectually corrupt. Hiring is the exclusive domain of the GM who calls her cronies from HP to rape the company culture. I am done with MS India. DPE has a leader who is not a leader.
When people talk about MS Poll and how OHI has improved they forget that the the problem is that 50% of the hires in India are about a year old and they're still drinking the kool ade. To them, the mere act of joining Microsoft is something to be proud of. They're still giddy with delight at getting the MS offer letter because for years they have been shat upon by the Indian SIs they come from during their tenure there.
We've got a CVP who is preoccupied with seeing his face in the newspaper and magazines. To him, success is the number of publication impressions and not the well being of the employees.
Stock price?? It's important, but with grade levels sucking in India, the grants are miniscule. Unless of course you are a partner or VP in which case you are laughing all the way to the bank while the employees drive revenue and sweat in the mines.
This is the Microsoft India I left. I'm glad I am no longer part of it.
And:
I have heard the same about India Dev Center also. Lot of people at lower levels (dev/dev-II) seem to be leaving the company and salary seems to be the primary motivation. In some cases, even the entry-level salaries at these "rival" companies is more than these people's (with 3-5 years experience) current salary.
And:
How bad is things in Microsoft India? The GM Neelam Dhawan is fired and going back to HP. She is taking Rajiv Srivastava with her.
Lastly:
My friends and fellow Microsoft people, let me tell you that the situation in SMSG India is horrible. People are leaving and the leadership never meets the employees. We have box manufacturers trying to sell software. We have Chairman who I have not seen in 6 months in person. I have seen him on TV and the newspaper a few times. We have MD Neelam Dhawan who interviewed at Cisco 2 times and did not get a job there and is now going back to HP. The Country Manager for Xbox has left. BMO has almost 100% churn.
Forecast is... Suckage. Pure Suckage. Finally, from the Thank God for Monster, Dice, and HotJobs department:
Weekly reporting !!!
The Walmartization of Microsoft is now complete. I am in EPG and am now expected to give a weekly sales forecast. What crack is he smoking?
Plus:
We are tired of scorecards and metrics and now Weekly Fucking forecasts????
Will Kevin-the-used-car-salesman please leave the building?
SteveB - what WILL wake you up?
240 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 240 of 240Meanwhile, Google added another 20 percent today with a whopping 89 point gain in share value. Holy shit. What is happening here, really? I contend it is all in the idea of good will and brand value perception. The rest as you contend has not yet even been proven, so what is going on?
Comments like this make me wish people had to pass a reading comprehension test before being allowed to use the Internet. GOOG's gains are a well deserved correction because they've lost around $150 per share (twice Friday's gain) in the past three months primarily due to speculation created by ComScore that their number of ad clicks was down.
However given that the number of clicks was down because Google made some changes to reduce accidental clicks (and thus improve their ad yield) the benefits outweighed the costs.
Since the market is full of sheep that don't understand GOOG's business, people sold the stock in droves. And now they're back. Big deal.
Now back to your regularly scheduled misinformed rantings, disgruntled viewpoints and myopic perspectives.
(Blink, blink) Wow. I'm not sure I'm even seeing the same company that has dominated the thinking of the computer industry for so long.
I've been reading through the comments and a common thread popped out at me. I saw it most glaringly in two of the interweaving conversations (namely, GoogleApps adoptions and *nix vs. Windows) although it was pretty obvious elsewhere. There seems to be more than a little wishful thinking going on within the halls of Microsoft these days. In the two cases that I cite, there were posts made by people that clearly didn't have a clue about the market and technical realities that Microsoft operates in today.
One guy commented that MS should be worried about customers moving to GoogleApps and posted a link to Google's own page of testimonials. There had to be 6? 10? people after that who responded to the comment saying something like, "It's not true! You still won't show me the evidence!" Umm, if you had just bothered to follow the link he provided, you would have seen testimonials from little companies like GE, Proctor and Gamble, Prudential, etc. Yeah, I'm sure that Microsoft shouldn't be worried about companies that are so small looking at using (or already deploying!) GoogleApps instead of MS Office.
In the other example that I mentioned, the *nix vs. Windows thread started with some oldtimer who's been in the business as long as I have bemoaning the fact that there was a subculture out there pushing *nix (mostly BSD and Linux, apparently) at the cost of creating a monoculture that excluded Windows. He further claimed that *nix was bloated, old, inflexible, etc. Yet in the same post he paradoxically pointed out the fact that *nix was everywhere /because/ of the fact that evangelists and fanbois ported it to everything.
There have already been several responses listing examples of small devices all the way down to the embedded market. The original poster noted in a response that Microsoft has purpose built variations to fit in these devices and gave a couple of concrete examples. However, I hope he concedes that outside of POS terminals and to a lesser extent, PDAs and phones, MS has never done well at the small end. Your OS is essentially non-existent in the embedded market.
Sadly, the same thing is true at the high end. For example, ever taken a look at Top500.org? They've been maintaining a list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world since 1993. They generally update their stats every November and June. In November 2007, they list just 6 Windows installations. Everything else is *nix. Every. Single. One. This, despite the fact that Microsoft has tried to crack this space for nearly a decade.
Another example. How many financial trades (futures, stock, etc) pass through *nix systems? How many through IBM mainframes? How many through Windows systems? Anyone at all familiar with the financial industry knows the answer to that one. Again, Windows is essentially at best trailing far behind the market leaders.
I contend that the premise of the original poster is way off. You just don't see people collectively spending billions on a technical solution just because some fanatics in their IT departments happens to like it. They do it because the technical solution works well for a reasonable cost. If Microsoft really had truly superior capability at a reasonable cost, then original poster's lament wouldn't be necessary. People would be buying the your solution instead of *nix ones.
My point in bringing all this up is not to bash Microsoft people. What I am concerned about is that Microsoft has apparently developed a collective vision of the world that is just not even close to reality. Love Gates or hate him, you have to acknowledge that he clearly understood the world he and his company operated in. Microsoft needs regain that kind of objective clarity if it wishes to remain relevant to those of us who make purchasing decisions.
Apple ONLY has OSX and MUST adapt it to every device because they have NO internal OS talent. NONE. ZERO. They gave up when Steve came back and forced NeXT back on them.
At the risk of inflaming this Apple/Microsoft thing even further, I have to say that Apple's OS X today is nothing like NeXT's OS from 2000. (Following that line, NextStep is very little like the BSD it grew out of.) There's been a massive amount of change both under the hood and in the UI, and denial from posters like the above can only hurt Microsoft. There are real competitors out there, but trash-talking them won't make Microsoft any better at all. Worse, downplaying competition often leads to being completely blindsided when a serious threat emerges.
Apple have lots of OS talent. They've released six versions of OS X since the beta and the OS has jumped forward in leaps and bounds. Pretending they're all about shiny marketing is the best thing Microsoft could do for Apple, a real gift.
Apple slaughtered Microsoft with the iPod/iTMS. The iPhone is taking the world by storm and so many reviews call out the Windows Mobile efforts as just plain crap while they sing the praises of the iPhone. How can a company with a tenth the resources of Microsoft destroy your products so thoroughly?
I wish I knew, but part of it is that people at Microsoft dismiss Apple as 'all about the shiny' and are blindsided all the time. That's a serious error, but it's repeated so often.
I use Apple as a case in point, and because I started on the OS X point, but with slight modification you can talk about Google and the Internet. Microsoft had everything necessary to own these spaces, but failed to make a dent. The Yahoo! bid is pretty much an admission that the Microsoft offerings just aren't up to par (we see that anyway through actual data). Why were Microsoft so blindsided by the entire Internet, online search and online advertising?
I put it down to lack of vision.
Another point on the whole Google Apps versus MS Office thing. I worked for half a decade at GE, in one of their consumer finance arms. They have call centres all over the world and the operators sit there working in the mainframe app day in, day out. Every single operator also has the full MS Office suite installed, thanks to the site licence.
That's a lot of money tied up with users who never open Excel, only use Word to read internal memos and don't even know about Powerpoint.
Google apps may be a viable competitor, but even if it's not, someday soon the CIOs of the companies like this are going to be asked to cut costs and you know they'll dump the useless licences - it's a no brainer. Office profits will drop hard.
My last point is this: someone posted above that the only time they ever hear Vista mentioned on TV is in an Apple ad. I have to agree. I've never seen a Microsoft ad on TV for Vista. Do you actually have an advertising department, or are they too busy producing feel-good-but-means-nothing ads like the "Your people, our passion" series? Why no Vista ads?
>Microsoft increased profits by 30% in a recession to, dumbass.
To too, or not to too? That is the question Einstein.
>Take a gander at Google's movement over the last 3 years -- it's not especially reassuring and the needle hasn't really moved on the stock much since 2005.
Which is true for Microsoft too. I think your point is the same as mine, e.g., Google is the Wall Street prom queen. But until Google Apps takes dominance over Office and the promise of SaaS on line becomes the dominant mechanism for using computers it will continue to stay in a high trading range. SaaS will be slow to uptake this decade because of the drag on broadband service and cost, but once the pipe becomes essentially free or very low cost and available everywhere it is inevitable.
But for reasons of vast interest, Google has presented itself as the replacement to Microsoft, and it has driven stock and cap value through the roof. I am also saying it is because Google seems to have the vision correct and in tune with the research and development--but we will not know for sure for a while yet. The catch phrase is seems to.
But the possibility of an enterprise Google App dominance is real. In fact I am considering it myself as a way to make my web presence more useful and utilitarian and because the part I would need is free for now, it is a no-brainer, and I am considering running it with Linux as my desktop OS. All of my Windows apps are highly specialized not requiring all machines to be on Windows. I would also like to lower my software and computing costs, and free or near free subscription software and cheaper hardware will do that.
How all this pans out in terms of the definition of the operating system (still up for grabs for the next ten years at least); whether it is windows 7 (an interim solution?) or some kind of Google browser OS that ties in to the Google Apps plan or whether it is some kind of Linux version of that who knows. It won't be Apple because Jobs is too stupid to sell his OS stand alone and every day he does not, is a day enterprise will ignore him.
Look, along with great research has to come a focused and accurate vision. So far Microsoft has stumbled on the vision which has thrown the research out of whack despite the fact that what Microsoft is doing there is absolutely fabulous, but is it where the world is going or may go in 20 years?
shrinking dollar - whatever you earn in US is still the same. whatever you earn elsewhere is 10-30% more. this quarterly result is easily predicted !!!
I was just looking at Android and Sergey's video on that page. F**k! We are going to get kicked on the nuts really hard very soon by Google. They did even more smarter move. There are no apps for their platform so they announced $10M (YES!) price for apps and they received 1700 entries. The *1700* apps ready even before Android is released! I haven't seen that many apps for WM on wmstuff! It's been a year now iPhone is out. I'm not sure what the hell WM team is doing (is WM7 slatted for 2010?). I can't recall any software I have more despised than WM. This piece of shit I bought only because of discounts we have and now I'm stuck with it for 2 year.
One thing that worries me is how we have lost customer focus or rather ability to read their minds. When I was outside, I remember I used to anxiously wait about every single new MS product release and even SPs and I used to find the product improvements in right direction as if PMs at MS had read my mind. Somehow this has reversed. I now know it will be all screwed up. When I installed first internal Vista and O12 betas I was shocked how completely unusable and non-sensical those things were. How someone can even think of as stupid UX as putting File Open, Save menus in top left corner of icon that even doesn't look like a button. And then to fix that they decided to to blinck it on first install. I mean we have seen stupidity but this was beyond that. The user interfaces in likes of Vista shell, Media Player, IE7 toolbar defies logic. I know we haven't hired lot of smart people in last decade but I hoped atleast we didn't hired mental patients. I've seend quite a few discussions on litebulb regarding this just to have idiots PMs on Vista coming back saying it worked well in our usability test. What f**cking usability test? The one with the aliens?
Anyways... need to stop digging all those bad memories... RIght now the problem is WM. This is a space were complexity is far lower than mainstream desktop OS and so the cost to entry is lower. Plus there is no real baggage of platform compatible applications. And so if smart company like Google wants they can completely hijack this before we know it.
Every time new WM version comes out I think they would have "got it" this time and every time I've been wrong. I'm not sure this is a problem with developers or managers but I think PMs and UX people in this team are sure incompetent. I really hope they have been fired or moved to something ignisicant after iPhone release for being so dormantly uncreative. Now we are not asking them to innovate, we just expect to copy what iPhone did but I'm sure these f**king infertile team will screw even that up. The only way I see to compete is to somehow encourage these people to join Google so their pace of innovations can be slowed down or stopped completely. I look at Android and I just see WM going a route to hell. Well, that were it deserves anyway.
I think some people who are so fined tuned to think in old "Office" way just don't get it how big a threat is Google docs. Let me explain. At present most computers that are sold in consumer segment don't come pre-loaded with Office. The MS Office is something that consumers have to make conscious decision to pay extra when buying their PCs or additional effort to buy it off the shelf at a stores.
Now as it happens, thanks to our innovative customer caring PUMs or PMs or whatever, it is seriously hard to share or collaborate anything created in MS Office. A typical home user don't have Sharepoints and have little interest to create account in things as obscure as Office Live and install addins so they can share their docs.
On the other hand, Google docs are FREE and an URL away. Most importantly, it has one-click-away-no-setup-required Share and Collaborate functionality. This instantly gives it viral adoption abilities. When you invite people to work with you via Google Docs, they suddenly become aware about it and that they are free, easy to share and they from beloved Google! Then that person further spreads this awareness to others. An exponential avalanche starts and pretty soon you will find that all the robotics societies and kite flying clubs that you are member of use Google Docs instead of old way of sending Word and Excel for their newsletters and annual budgets. Your daughter sends her essay to you for review via Google docs. Your wife keeps a shopping list of Google docs. Your friends have put up trip expenses on Google worksheet to share with you.
The thing is that documents don't live by themselves. People create documents so they can share with others. In olden times we used word processors so we can print hard copies and share it with others. In 90s we used emails to share docs. An ability to easily share and collaborate can easily compensate for some limitations in advanced formating. The customers in this segment are not obsessed with absolute paragraph spacing and exact margin sizes. Yes, they will miss fancy stuff like Wordart and cliparts but that's where Google will have to make their next strides. Once that's done (and I'm sure that can be done), people will think twice or thrice before shelling out extra money for Office.
I just tested the offline functionality that Google just added and it just works like a charm. This is one of the feature that most people thought will take a long time if not plain impossible. Google will also continue improve on the ability to import documents created in Office via OpenOffice backend and that will spell end of our big fat cow or atleast its big fat.
Once consumer market refuses to pay for Office, small businesses will be the next. The only customer who can't live without and won't mind paying for Office is enterprise segment. This is a huge hole in revenues - big enough to abandon our several of other loosing businesses and prevent us from making big investments elsewhere.
To our unfortunate, our leadership think they knows what to do: dump half of our cash in buying Yahoo! Yes, this cash that we earned by working hard for 33 years in releasing multitudes of products and countless sacrifices. All of it was meant so one day Ballmer can go out and buy Yahoo! I know Ballmer is hopeless but I got shocked when even Gates was justifieng this money throw away party for Yahoo. They are probably all asking what else should we rather do? Here's the answer:
1. Merge MSN brand and properties in to Live.com. Make Live as our only online brand and market it like we did for Win95 with all our money.
2. Shamelessly copy every single thing from Google to Live. Remove stupid blue background and ugly fonts - just make it absolutely look like Google to every little detail. Even copy Google Toolbar just removing its logo.
3. Buy small companies and startups to get additional people to do #2. Buying Yahoo isn't option because unlike small startups big companies always end up having tons of bozos. Even worse, they also have seasoned 20 year experienced professional. You don't want those dinosaurs! You want that fresh flesh and energetic brains who finds these 3 words very strange: Work Life Balance.
4. Redefine the role and responsibility of PMs putting it back in to 1997 where they can guide not command. Reduce their proportion to dev and test members.
5. Stop worrying about "what will happen to Windows and Office if I make these online apps". Yes, Stop Worrying! If customers uses them, you will find a way to get money out of it. Trust it. Trust it whole heartedly!
Hi,
I think Microsoft India management is worse than you think, They have put all microsoft philosophies out the door. A very simple example of that is that there are cublicles in micrsoft india unless of course you are a manager or an Admin, because those two do the real work for Microsoft. Can you imagine that? Microsoft started with offices in redmond for a reason... to remind our management because it is believed that those are more efficient. Now who cares about efficiency in india? Software engineers are most neglected people here by managers. There is one more interesting thing, if you are a software engineer ie level <63 then you are gonna get very less salary because all the money should be given to management isnt it? The software engineers really dont do anything for microsoft.. isnt it? thats why we have so many managers doing nothing in IDC and thats why everyone wants to be manager...
I want to suggest an alternate career path to the DPE GM in India. The Windsor Manor in Bangalore has openings for Banquet Managers. They need people only who can talk but need not deliver.
And yes, the bonus is that he gets to work with some really nice looking ladies (which might be a point of consideration) ;-)
D'Souza is a partner now, how did *that* happen? Maybe he redeemed himself somehow with Vista Server 2008, but in Vista client he was all big talk and small results. If you decry Vista for being bloated and hard to componentize, start with David.
No wonder Mobile Developer Group is unhappy.
The lithmus test of whether Microsoft will be/will have been transformed over the next 10-15 years, should Microsoft choose to accept such mission is doing /something/ (I'll let the MS Board of Directors figure out what that something is) that will capture the hearts of the people whom are most emotional about creating software - geeks (in particular Linux, Mac OS X geeks).
Apple pulled it off several years ago - so can Microsoft.
My suggestions on how Microsoft could recapture the hearts of technocrats:
1) Get rid of DirectX on Windows.
2) Get vendors to create games for the XBox platform rather than the PC platform.
3) Adopt Singularity as your next OS (nice to have this kind of OS for the first time ever!)
4) Figure out what to do about backward compatibility.
- most people aren't interested in running GAMES on Windows, see point #1. Accordingly then, migrate and/or subsidize migration (you can't afford it? too bad) of PC gamers to XBox.
- provide a VM layer with the old Windows XP (NT) kernel installed on the new Windows platform for backward compatibility. This will insure business users who aren't interested in gaming w/the latest ATI/NVidia GPU they can run their business apps, namely, MS' other cash cow - Office/Exchange, etc (SQL Server, Visual Studio, etc).
5) "Steal Linux" and write the perfect OpenGL-based GUI for Linux which will give OS X a run for its money, while leveraging the hardware support Linux has, and get hardware manufacturers onboard with the Linux device driver program so they fill in whatever missing gaps there might be. Again, pricey proposition - but it's workable, since it gives MS leverage like nothing else and transforms Microsoft into a geek-star with a meteoric rise virtually overnight, if they make such a public declaration.
Microsoft can not reinvent itself as the techno geek it once was unless it makes some sacrifices.
Worrying about Google is tantamount to stupidity. Google and Microsoft aren't even in the same ball game - yet Microsoft with its infantile desire to /compete at all cost/ and enter the ad market, is prepared to pay the ultimate price - the slow, inevitable death of Windows, first in corporate settings then eventually on the user desktop.
Linux may suck as a desktop alternative for John Q Public, with its outdated X Windows-based GUI (God bless Ubuntu's heart, they polished it as much as possible - but it's a far cry from OS X's look & feel, or even MS Windows' look and feel relevant to the average user), but how long before some mammoth company (Sun? IBM? Both of them combined?) creates the perfect GUI atop the Linux kernel which is rife with various hardware drivers? Not very long, I imagine. Yes, the uptake might be slow on a new desktop, but unless Microsoft "shifts gears", or in other words, gets back to what it can do best - writing OPERATING SYSTEMS (as well as office suites) - and changes the Windows paradigm 100%, all I see in MS' future is more of the same, and the ultimate demise, albeit slow, of Windows as the platform of choice.
Pray tell me that someone at MS' top is actually reading this blog?
Mini - I have an offtopic question that I wanted to throw out for feedback.
I'm in a situation where I manage (inherited, actually) a small, yet fairly senior team. The most senior employee on the team (who happens to be a female minority) is also the most difficult person I have ever had to manage. I realize that we have different styles, but nearly all of her efforts are put into making herself look good, while the rest of the team tends to focus on team results. I have been attempting to set appropriate expectations with her - i.e. letting her know that she's not meeting my expectations, is not committed to the team, etc. She makes excuses, rarely follows up, and generally drops the ball on everything that isn't high profile.
Now, here's the problem. My manager told me that because she's a senior woman, and has done some high profile work, that she's considered a high potential employee and should get special attention. In between the lines, he basically told me that if I didn't reward her well, that the axe would fall on me. It's an uphill fight, but I am spending hours a week educating everyone up the management chain on the work she actually does (and doesn't). It's a huge time sink for me on what I often see as a lost cause.
I find it funny that I'm told that this person is "great", yet nobody on the team likes her, and she does nothing to help her teammates - yet I'm told that she's pretty much a lock for 20% / Exceeds.
There's a lot of discussion as to whether or not google docs will ever compete with Office, whether people are actually using it, etc, etc, etc.
Perhaps everyone is missing the point? Maybe, in a battle between two companies with a combined valuation approaching half a trillion dollars, a few tens of millions invested in a distraction that has a potential payoff is a no-brainer?
But first, let's step back a decade or so. Microsoft is in the process of killing off a threat by giving away a product that competes with the rival's primary source of income. "Cut off their air supply" is the battle cry. This move succeeds, the threat goes away, even if it later costs MSFT a billion or so.
Now, let's look at today. MSFT has two cash cows, and a bunch of businesses burning that cash.
There's not a hope in Redmond that google could "cut off the air supply", but perhaps there's another approach. Google doesn't care if Microsoft sells a billion copies of office - it does care that the profits from those sales are what's funding competition. Isn't in obvious that they need to do whatever it can to reduce the value of those cows?
By developing and giving away on-line apps (and putting a bit of money into Open Office, just to cove all the bases) GOOG is trying - and starting to succeed - in reducing the perceived value of the office suite. It doesn't have to be much - to start with - but eventually, the value approaches nothing...why would you pay hundreds of dollars for something you can get for free?
As an added bonus to this approach, MSFT is reacting by spending tons of cash trying to compete! Of course, given enough time and money, Microsoft might even be able to pull something off, but I think the chances of it ever making any money are about the same as xbox being profitable.
So that covers one of the cash cows.
GOOG hasn't really done anything to threaten the other, OS cash cow - yet. Sure, they may be picking off the weak herd members (Windows Mobile?) but there hasn't been a direct attack, so how about this for some speculation:
First, GOOG obviously has a way to remotely deploy OS images across hundreds of thousands of machines. They're also spending billions to build out data centers all around the world. And most computers these days can now boot off a USB drive.
Wouldn't it be interesting if Google were to offer a "managed OS" option to end users? Load a google boot image onto the USB key, pull the rest of the OS & apps off the network, using whatever HDD is available as a cache, then save settings & data back to the datacenter when you shut down. No matter where you go, you've got your desktop, application, and data. Oh, and over time - as companies start looking at and evaluating the technology - the Windows cash cow becomes less and less valuable.
Just idle speculation, right?
There was this phrase I read when I was a little boy - Everybody reaches gets promoted and reaches their level of incompetency. This is especially true for Indian management, we have all top managers who have reached their level of incompetency at the same time - Neelam - she doesnt know what strategy is or what technology is, Ravi - he never knew what technology is, Rajeev S - he was selling PCs, now that is not technology, Rajeev M - he was earlier in the collection business - doesnt involve technology, Tarun G - he was a banquet manager as someone pointed out - but with a long tongue, again does not involve technology. Now the million dollar question is if your management does not know technology - how the hell they lead a technology company. If Microsoft needs to regain its glory, attract talent and grow 20% overnight, it must understand while our products might sell like bananas - they are still technology and a banana salesman in a banana republic would not do.
If Microsoft has time to spare maybe they can enrol these execs into a technology class so that they can learn some basics of technology. It should not include Excel.
My suggestions on how Microsoft could recapture the hearts of technocrats:
...
4) Figure out what to do about backward compatibility.
Yeah, and in your spare time, maybe bring peace to the Middle East, cure the common cold, and fix the transportation mess in King County.
You think DX and too much attention to games are what's holding Windows back? That DX is the only impediment to a VM solution to compatibility issues?
Hmmm. I think you're missing some issues and underestimating the problem.
For the guy with the unproductive protected class employee, ugh, sounds like a lousy situation. My advice, since your management chain has seen fit to hand you this mess, is to (very slyly) hand it back to them. Convince this woman that she's outgrown your team - that to make her next career jump, she needs to tackle projects bigger than your team has. Then let her agitate with your boss, or you GM, for a new job, on some other team.
Or, if all that sounds too sleazy, you could quit and get another job yourself.
D'Souza is a partner now, how did *that* happen?
I was cracking up when I saw it. Look at setup and componentization under his watch - a f... piece of $hit and now he is going to fix WM now - amen to that.
However, he was very proud showing off his $200,000 chandelier in his house on Mercer Island to people who worked for him. That's where his excitement, commitment, and dedication lies.
"Weren't Windows products, until 2000, laughable OSes in enterprise when compared to Unix?"
I've got news for you: they still are.
-jcr
" she's considered a high potential employee and should get special attention"
So, give her some special attention. Call her into your office, and tell her exactly what you wrote above. If you just cave in and give her a good review because your chain of command wants to be politically correct, then you're not doing your job.
-jcr
I'm in a situation where I manage (inherited, actually) a small, yet fairly senior team. The most senior employee on the team (who happens to be a female minority) is also the most difficult person I have ever had to manage. I realize that we have different styles, but nearly all of her efforts are put into making herself look good, while the rest of the team tends to focus on team results.
I admire that you're trying to set things right, but it looks like she's figured out the game. At Microsoft, I would watch out for myself and do what's best for me, like she did. If the higher management is so blind, the team will suffer sooner or later. The competent team players will eventually leave. And this wont be the first at Microsoft.
This is why I respect BG. Sad to see him move on!
(Bill Gates and Charles Simonyi donated a combined $30 million to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST))
Guys, Thank you!
Managing a difficult poster girl...
I'd build a documentation trail and 2.5 her. In the end, this benefits her (warning shot - she will have no trouble improving from there), the team (look, we're not screwing you folks relative to her), you (difficult decision you can leverage in further career discussion, respect) and your direct management (they might get a better employee and better integrated team out of it and get to point the finger at you for a politically unpopular opinion).
As a manager at MSFT, you have an amazing amount of power. Try using it - I found I didn't get any of the pushback I thought I would.
I can help Mr. Gulati frame his BMO commitments for FY09 -
1) Poach at least 3 of his favourites from DPE to join BMO. No prizes for guessing who they are!
2) Form a core team who can strategize his dance steps and keep fine tuning the choreography for every retreat. This team MUST include diversity hires. You know, He is very passionate about the DIVERSITY HIRES ;-)
3) Understand who is really good at their respective job function in the BMO org and then immediately move them out of it.
4) Focus on everything and anything that is outside of BMO's scope. That can include anything from EPG, SMS&P, PS or even DPE. But whatever he does should not be even remotely connected to BMO.
5) Be the defacto keynote speaker irrespective of the event, launch or internal event. And then screw up every bit of it.
6) Continue to show off to the CVP that he is really committed to S+S, CSR and community activities.
7) If something gets messed up badly, just blame it on the previous BMO lead and move on to the next big thing.
8) Force himself into every exec. meeting with customers even if there is no relevance to BMO.
9) Attend One India Women's Conference every year. Remember the passion for DIVERSITY HIRE?
10) Start planning for the next career move - Replace Neelam. Will discuss more on that during MYCD.
Neelam - Please sign off on this and upload it to the hrweb. The new BMO lead is already on track for most of the line items.
All the very best Mr. Gulati!
I am not sure how the new BMO India lead will survive with so much of resistance from the team.
He should be really....really concerned. Looks like no one wants him in the team.
I don't understand why the senior management is brute forcing him upon the BMO team!
Re the protected female minority employee: I've heard similar from others at MSFT (not a softie myself). If true, it sure explains a lot about MSFT output the last few years. So, are any Atlases left at MSFT and are their shoulderblades starting to itch just a bit??
Now we are not asking them to innovate, we just expect to copy what iPhone did but I'm sure these f**king infertile team will screw even that up.
Even if the WM team copied the iPhone UI pixel for pixel I think it would still be screwed up. Whatever they're doing with that system just isn't right. Why does it take so long to boot? Why is the performance so unpredictable? Half the time, basic operations happen instantly and the other half they take 10+ seconds. Why does the screen switch to low power mode at completely random times even though I've set it to "15 seconds" in the menu? Everything about using WM screams "too complex and fragile."
> I realize that we have
> different styles, but
> nearly all of her efforts
> are put into making
> herself look good,
Don't fret - this is what life today is about, at least in the United States - looking good and avoiding looking bad.
I got and understand your complaint about managing this difficult, yet senior, employee, in your group.
Since you are her manager, and since I am not an employee of Microsoft nor am I vested in any outcomes Microsoft produces, I can offer you a suggestion on how to deal with the situation.
#1 Above all, instead of talking about her here (tantamount to gossip), you should invite her to your office and share your concerns about her, with her in person. Better yet, is to bring the ENTIRE team - those people whom, I am going to assume, TOLD YOU THEY DO NOT LIKE HER (you aren't lying to us about that, are you?), in the same room with her and you for a team building exercise.
If you notice people are flaring up when you start talking about these issues - you will take an object, e.g. a pen, a ball, a magic marker, whatever - which will serve as the 'right to talk' object - and proceed in a moderated, court-room like, Socratic manner, to talk about your and your team's concern with her "wanting to look good" behavior.
Give _everyone_ on the team facetime with her, and make sure she gets to hear everyone's opinion, regardless of how "wrong/right/good/bad" it is.
Request of her, prior to this, that she doesn't need to respond to them, but just to hear them out, either as a group or individually, and take mental notes.
Then, once you've had this concern-sharing session with her and your team, and she has heard ALL of your thoughts/feelings/concerns/etc. (including you, her manager), allow her some time to reflect on what she had heard from the team & you, about yours and the team's concerns about her wanting to just look good, rather than be focused on results.
She may or may not, during this session feel quite "uncomfortable", e.g. she may not LIKE what she hears about how she occurs to the rest of the team with the things she does... She may even cry, or walk out of the room during this session, and you have to make a powerful request of her to NOT do that, before you engage in this concern-sharing session, and to contain herself and hear her teammates and her manager (you) out completely.
To be fair to everyone else - you should also allow EVERYONE else, in an orderly mannger, to SHARE ALL THEIR CONCERNS about each other, including any concerns that the team may have about YOU as a manager - and you best prepare to stomach those responses as well.
The mood of the session should be SHARING - not shouting at each other, justifying or invalidating each other and/or making each other wrong. Just allow people to TALK and SAY what's on their MIND, rather than what they want you to hear, which is what you get all the time - a polite, albeit hypocritical, conversation with everyone, yet what's on their minds (their concerns) are never heard.
Once you have completely heard/listened to her, and everyone else's thoughts, feelings, concerns, etc. and allowed them the freedom to share those with the team (including you as the leader, rather than just the manager), ask them the following question:
"What kind of a team do you ALL want to have to have everyone happy, committed and fulfilled in what they do, with no one left out?"
and question #2 should be:
"What specific requests do you have of me or your team mates that you would like them to honor in order to have that kind of a team?" (and use whatever adjectives they used to describe the team they wanted, and tell them that YOU, their leader, are committed to having that kind of a team)
Then stop talking, and allow them to make REQUESTS of each other, and of YOU (the manager, e.g. the LEADER) that would enable them to have the team they ALL want, not just you, or that employee that wants to look good, etc.
Then once they have made those requests - ASK THEM (don't EXPECT/HAVE IT IMPLIED PLEASE) this:
"Are you all willing to be committed to fulfilling each other's requests so that we can have the team be all that we want it to be?"
And then watch the show of hands.
If you allow this to happen in the manner that I described to you just now, I promise you, that once ALL concerns your team has had are out in the clear, heard and honored by the team (including you, the leader), and each other, the show of hands as to what you are committing to (a NEW kind of team, with everyone being happy and fulfilled w/their job) will be 90-100%.
Do this with your team - and make sure that whatever future you create for your team that you are committed to is in line with Microsoft's vision, e.g. your manager's vision.
What you want is _EVERYONE_ on the team, including yourself to be committed to that vision, but you will never attain such cohesiveness between your team members unless you allow them to voice what is in their hearts/minds, namely concerns/worries about each other and about where the company's going.
If you get your team to be happy about who they are and the difference they are making at Microsoft, then you will also set an example for other teams to follow.
So, to recap:
1) request an HONEST concern/thought/sharing session in a meeting, outside of the company if you can so they don't feel "trapped"
2) address EACH and EVERY team member's concern to their satisfaction (or not - and if they are not satisfied, ASK, don't tell them, what would they want to happen in order to have them be happy with the team?)
3) create a new vision for what the team should look like so that EVERYONE is HAPPY and FULFILLED in their role and REQUEST (dont EXPECT) that everyone COMMIT to this vision. Have a show of hands of who is committed to the vision and who isn't.
Prepare to go through step #1 and #2 several times, until ALL hidden/concealed concerns are OUT in the open, and there's nothing left anymore to talk about, make promises about what you are willing to do or give up as a manager to have their needs addressed, and FOLLOW THROUGH with your promise (set a date by when you will!)
Push people's buttons a little to get them to talk - don't insult/offend them, just USE what they told you in the past about their concerns, complaints, etc to bring it up again when you get into this group session. The point is to get them to TALK about what's on their minds, rather than be silent. You will get them to talk if you are AUTHENTIC about YOUR concerns too - e.g. you share with them what you shared here with us on Mini's blog. Sharing it on Mini's blog isn't going to make a difference. Sharing it with them - I assure you will make ALL the difference. YOU BE AUTHENTIC TOO!
4) Make requests of everyone to commit to the new vision. Empower the team to ALWAYS come to you with ANY and ALL concerns they may have - you want them TALKING TO YOU AS IF YOU ARE THEIR SPOUSE, NOT THEIR MANAGER! If someone sees a problem with the new common vision for your team, they should address it immediately with you or whomever can do something about it - without any further adue.
5) Make SURE that everyone is INSPIRED by the new vision for the kind of team you want to have. If they are not, then they will revert back to being all about looking good/avoiding looking bad, and you're back at square 1. Make sure YOU are inspired as a manager by the new vision.
And 6) Above all, be committed and unflinching about the new common vision to the team. If it inspired you, then do whatever it takes to keep that spirit going! Always be open to anything, including shifting the vision, if it becomes unworkable in the future.
Do this, and you will have a team you love and a team that will love you.
And last, but not least - do not allow yourself to tell them what it is they should be doing - they ALL know why they are there, to make a difference for Microsoft - and they ALL know exactly what they're supposed to be doing too (they have roles/education/experience/support from MS to do that and have been doing it). The minute you feel tempted to tell them what they should be doing, you should be asking a QUESTION as to why they aren't doing what you think they should be doing, rather than directing them to do something without having their concerns addressed. If you just MANAGE rather than INSPIRE employees to do their job, they end up resentful of you and their work and ultimately, themselves, the end result of which is typically either getting fired or they resign.
You have to alter reality for them, and it's not easy.
For more details about where you can learn how to do this in GRAVE detail, write me at: balkanboy@gmail.com. I know some of this might leave you with questions, and I want to answer them for you because I've had major successes in team leadership with this type of attitude toward your team and I can share those with you in detail if you want.
You think DX and too much attention to games are what's holding Windows back? That DX is the only impediment to a VM solution to compatibility issues?
Hmmm. I think you're missing some issues and underestimating the problem.
Well, I'll speak for myself - I am a gamer and there's nothing that can give me GPU performance on Windows XP inside of a VM as it would a bare-metal XP installation.
I do think the PC gaming industry is a sizable chunk of the market, and leaving these people (e.g. me) in the cold, could hurt Microsoft.
The other issue would be backward compatibility. Well, I run Windows XP on VMWare Server (the free edition downloadable from VMWare.com) on Ubuntu Linux where I am at work, and there's no application I need to run to be productive at work that I haven't been able to run with this setup (Windows XP SP2 on VMWare Server on Ubuntu Linux). It's awesome, and it beats solutions like Wine for Linux because you get to actually run XP.
What else besides #1 backward compatibility, and #2 gaming performance (directly related to DirectX) does this kind of set up currently not resolve?
With the Xen supervisor and on the newer Intel VT architecture (or AMD's Pacifica or whatever their virtualization fix was called), the overhead of running Windows XP SP2 is < 5%, kind of like the overhead one experiences with Java on the JVM and/or C# on the CLR, versus native C++ code.
This is why I suggested Microsoft take Singularity and make it a first class citizen while slowly weaning off the population from Windows, give everyone time to port their apps to the new OS (whichever one they choose, Singularity, "steal" Linux and build a top notch GUI, etc).
Yes, I understand there are logistics problems to pulling this off and issues that have yet to be resolved, but if I heard people correctly on Slashdot (http://tinyurl.com/ylb4s3), they really don't care about the logistics of how this could be done, nor do they care about Microsoft's Board of Directors feelings, opinions, personal philosophies/logic, angels/demons on their left/right shoulders telling them what they should be doing, nor about how things should pan out into the future.
All they care about is, and I'll be like Obama now - CHANGE :).
Well, if Microsoft doesn't effect the change, then who will? If not in the next 10 years while they still have a lot of muscle left (while competitors are chipping away on every corner of the OS/apps market), then when?
I'm not asking for an overnight miracle - all I'm asking for, as someone who isn't employed by Microsoft and/or vested in the outcomes of the company, but how does one transform Microsoft from "I hate Microsoft" into "I love Microsoft"?
If I said 15 years ago, "Apple kicks ass" - you'd think I'm brainwashed or stupid. If I said it now, it 'rings true'. Who caused Apple to kick ass? Apple. Who will cause Microsoft to kick ass all over again? You guessed correctly - MICROSOFT.
But it HAS to begin at the TOP. Change hardly ever occurs at the bottom, because those at the bottom (or even in the middle), are stuck on surviving the game of life at Microsoft, looking good and avoiding looking bad.
And that's precisely what got Microsoft to where it is now.
And no, praying to God isn't going to make this general discontent with Microsoft to go away - it'll take some self-introspection and honesty in Microsoft's board room to effect this kind of change, up to and including bringing in someone like a Microsoft version of Steve Jobs to run the company, much in the same way Jobs did for Apple, or Gerstner did for IBM, e.g. resurrected them from the dead.
Freud said - being HONEST with one's self, is a good exercise. How do you know when you are honest with yourself? When what you tell yourself about yourself matches what others tell you about yourself. A bit like a conundrum, isn't it? :) Most people will say, "but I AM HONEST with myself - I want MORE MONEY or ACKNOWLEDGMENT :)" - but are unwilling to take steps to produce either, money or acknowledgment of others.
Microsoft management knows EXACTLY what they are supposed to be doing, and they ARE doing some of what they are supposed to be doing, but unless they can half the "Why everyone hates Microsoft" feedback from 1500 to 750 or less, by whatever they are doing, they will remain in the realm of the "most imperfect company" or "most slightly imperfect company" around.
Microsoft USED to be a darling among geeks, like Google or Apple is now - and those are the people, as the above manager posted above, that made it who they were. So now those people are gone from Microsoft and all that's left is people wanting to look good and avoid looking bad. Well guess what - that ain't going to cut the negative feedback on slashdot.
It takes something else to get there, and they all know what it is, and only they know why they aren't doing it - and having said that, it DOESN'T make one bit of difference that they know that anyway.
Microsoft needs to REWRITE its future, make BOLD promises that will move, touch and inspire people (its customers), and deliver on them ASAP, if they want to steal back half of Google or Apple's MS defectors.
Those that left MS got resigned - for whatever reason, but their resignation was caused by something. I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out what gets people resigned and demotivated about their job....
The user interfaces in likes of Vista shell, Media Player, IE7 toolbar defies logic. I know we haven't hired lot of smart people in last decade but I hoped atleast we didn't hired mental patients.
I have a theory about this. I think the PMs at Microsoft saw a Mac and noticed that programs on a Mac do not have menu bars between the window frames and toolbars. And hey, those programs work great and people love Macs. So they proceeded to remove menu bars from all Microsoft software (unless you know the magic Alt incantation) and move all the commands to small, ambiguous toolbar icons.
Of course the fallacy there is all the friendly Mac programs that people love all have menu bars, they're just at the top of the screen.
So, give her some special attention. Call her into your office, and tell her exactly what you wrote above. If you just cave in and give her a good review because your chain of command wants to be politically correct, then you're not doing your job.
And while you do the above, make sure your resume is current and that you have other prospects lined-up for when things go South for you.
You cannot fight corrupt management and win, ever, and you don't want to work in that kind of environment anyway if you're not like them. The best thing to do is to both set your sights on finding a new job AND do what your conscience dictates is right. Lead by example, but be prepared to bail when the bad guys try to take you down.
All this bickering. The problem with Microsoft is very simple. They stopped treating the employees (the ones at the very bottom) as their number one assets. All the good ones left. Most of the ones that remain are tools. I should know, I left in September after 12 years, and I had been a tool for at LEAST three years.
I'll post this anonymously so I can always go back and milk some more.
All this bickering. The problem with Microsoft is very simple. They stopped treating the employees (the ones at the very bottom) as their number one assets. All the good ones left. Most of the ones that remain are tools. I should know, I left in September after 12 years, and I had been a tool for at LEAST three years.
I'll post this anonymously so I can always go back and milk some more.
Newsflash: You're obviously still a tool, and probably were from the start. Not only did you stay for 3 years at Microsoft doing a tool's job, but you want to keep your options open so you can go back and be a tool again if the mood strikes you.
Way to build up credibility, tool. Nicely done.
From my perspective, it sounds like we actually purged ourselves of a tool when we got rid of you! MOAR PURGING PLZ.
I'll post this anonymously so I can always go back and milk some more.
Mini, I think I'll dissapoint you, but I feel the same way. If I come back to MS, it is pretty much to do nothing. I know how hard it is to fire someone and how to play the game at MS.
So if I am an old fart, I'll just go back to MS and enjoy the life.
Funny thing is that the company where I am, the thinking is pretty much "I can always go back to Microsoft".
"Dabba-walas in MS India" : There was a time when the dabbawalas of mumbai became a topic for research for their operational excellence, the day has come to write a case on how the current set of box pushers are ruining the MS business in india. The present situation is pathetic, their undestanding of the business is nil and are screwing up the whole system with their politics. Whatever experience i have gained during my last six years of association with microsoft, i feel is becoming irrelevant as the current lot does not want to listen to the old timers and want to retain the microsoft culture. For me EPG in India stands fo "Emerging Political Group". Hope atleast now the bigbosses in redmond will wake up and do the necessary corrections as i firmly beleive they are incapable of leading Microsoft to future.
Hope atleast now the bigbosses in redmond will wake up and do the necessary corrections as i firmly beleive they are incapable of leading Microsoft to future.
Keep hoping.
...originally published on 4/26...
To "Charles"
Do you really think the quality of the inventory on Y! vs. M$FT is really that different? I think not.
Do you think a subscale network would have CPMs or CPCs in line with a significantly larger one? (Hint: No--not in the near-term at least).
One additional point (a key one that I'd left out, I'll admit) is that Y! is a NECESSARY CONDITION for MS to have a chance to remain relevant in a post-Windows world, but it isn't the silver bullet.
- agent mulder lives
I've worked in Microsoft India and Microsoft Redmond also. The biggest shock of my life was the E-mail send by HR last Diwali stating the MSFT will not celebrate Diwali as it hurts sentiments of other religions blah blah.
This was the I decided to move back to Redmond.
MSFT India is all about corrupt CVP who is not answerable for anything happening. Only thing he is interested is sorrounding himself with idiots so that he can have feeling of being smart. I feel like he is working for HP and paid by Microsoft for helping HP for cleaning all the shit from HP India.
With kind of leadership we have in EPG and DPE, day is not far when Java and other paltforms will be most commonly used Dev tools in India. Mr. Venkatesan and his top leadership team are very very good media managers. They manipulate media so well that everybody gets feeling all is well inside MS.
God save MS India.
I work in a company with a division that had ethno-centric hiring occurring.
Now that the economy is tanking though, and that without the division, we would have been making a healthy profit, they're being raked over coals by senior management, and there are mass firings in that division coming up in the next month.
I hate to be the bearer of schadenfreude, but sometimes karma works, and I'm loving being in a team that brings home the bacon and has merit-only hires.
Hope Microsoft starts doing the same.
Watch for MS China to also go downhill. Now they have two white guys running the operation (one is South American).
Tim Chen did a decent job before he left. The two clowns will be totally clueless.
The supporting teams are very weak. BMO sucks, Finance sucks big time.
Yea, when they said Kevin was leaving, I was sooooooooo hoping it was the Damn Hillbilly from Wal-Mart, Kevin Turner!
What were you thinking Steve? Wal-Mart and Microsoft DO NOT Jell together now nor ever. Kevin Turner is also an idiot. He sure measures a lot of stuff for a guy that doesn't understand math let alone what a KPI is. All that Wal-Mart hillbilly glory for what does he cost us, 42 Million was it. We should all sell our stock now while it is at 28 and go home.
Post a Comment