Microsoft Layoff 2009 Completes Last Milestone and Ships!
With today's 800 Microsoft layoffs, Microsoft Layoff 2009 has reached its final milestone and shipped, exceeded expectations of 5,000 with 5,800 reduced positions.
Err... yay?
Last week during the Town Hall Mr. Ballmer confirmed there would be one more iteration on the layoffs. And after that? Who knows. More to come? Maybe. Booga booga!
You know, we have people working for Microsoft (or, at least did, I don't know, maybe no longer) responsible for driving executive leadership education and growth at Microsoft. This is their friggin' job. Develop Microsoft Leadership at the executive and L68+ levels. So, has anyone hemmed and hawed in-front of Mr. Ballmer and mentioned that this nickel and diming layoff approach is at the worst case end of the layoff management scale?
The looming threat of continuing RIFs and layoffs indicates that Microsoft is just too big for its leadership. It is beyond their capabilities to wrap their minds around everything Microsoft is doing. It has gotten away from them. What needs to go? Hell, I don't know even what all these people do, and you want to decide who stays and goes?
Yes.
Cut deep. Cut once. Get on with it and say, "We're done. We have aligned our company to be efficient and effective within this new global economic climate and are ready to focus on returning to profits and market share growth."
Done.
Coverage I've noticed today on the outside:
- Mr. Brier Dudley's blog Microsoft cuts 800 more jobs, including 200 in Puget Sound Seattle Times Newspaper
- Mr. Joe Wilcox: Is there any sense to Microsoft's 800 layoffs Betanews and Former Microsofties, Can I Tell Your Story « Oddly Together
- Mr. Nick Eaton Microsoft laying off 800 more
- Ms. Mary Jo Foley Are the Microsoft layoffs over now All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff Microsoft Cuts 800 More Positions paidContent
On Don Dodge:
- Mr. Michael Arrington: Microsoft Loses Don Dodge. This Is A Huge Mistake
- Nick Eaton Startup guru Don Dodge among Microsoft layoffs
- John Cook Startup guru Don Dodge among those let go in Microsoft cuts
And, bummers for me given that she interviewed me for Microspotting, Ms. Ariel Stallings tweet about being caught up in this layoff round.
Coverage from the inside? No email. Quiet. Quite dysfunctional. There was something linked off of the MSW site and it also had a FAQ document that had to be one of the worse FAQs I've ever read. There is an "A" portion to an FAQ and in this case some of the questions were great but the answers looked like they were generated from some sort of English obfuscation Perl script 3rd place prize winner.
So, I'm going through about sixty comments now on the older post. I think it was necessary for Microsoft to have layoffs due to the mismanaged growth and lack of focus and direction our Senior Leadership Team has given us. But it should have been twice as much, done all at once. Now we dither.
Were you affected by the layoff or know someone who was? I'd be interested in knowing which groups and organizations are affected.
911 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 911 Newer› Newest»totally off topic but something that drives me crazy. The company store - why does it have to suck so badly? Doesn't this kind of reflect a an overall low set of expectations?
ten years ago when we ha d a lot of software titles for consumers, it might have been ok to just have some crap fleece and polo shirts and lots of software boxes. Now, it is just kind of sad. I'd like to see the company store run by somebody who has passion for our brand. My top suggestions.
We have one of the top brands in the world - stop printing it on crappy merchandise and sell things that are high quality and look cool. partner with REI and make some very cool logo apparel.
Not selling Zune HD? why, because our market share is too high? don't want to make it an impulse buy?
Overall better experience with products. You mean you can't actually play an xbox in our store? was the person who decided that high?
Better store environment. Look at the apple store. Do something as nice/better.
Make the product managers spend a shift in the company store doing demos and selling our products to our own people.
I heard we opened up two retail stores. Sad that we didn't do our own store right first. Would have been good practice before we spend tons of money.
this is basic stuff.
"Again, are you new? This blog was started in July 2004. Go back and read the dozens of posts and the thousands of comments and you'll see that many people provided extremely useful suggestions. You'll also see that MSFT's current problems were 100% foreseeable".
Totally agree. For years employees have stated the obvious. For years there have been suggestions made on how to rectify the company.
Mini...valiant effort, but, after years of discussion, commentary, suggestions, viable solutions and thousands of comments its still a sinking ship.
It appears that the SLT is blind to reality. Perhaps its the egos that have blinded them or perhaps they are to busy counting the billions they own in stock.
My advice to all reading and posting comments on this blog is get out while you can. Head for the life boats because its a sinking ship.
To Mini I say "nice try but give up". I have enjoyed the posts over the years, but, you are wasting your time.
I am a Level 64 that got an Exceeded and top 20% in my last review. I've been in role for a year. When can I expect to get my next bump up? Is it typically 18 -24 months? I heard that the base comp for L65 isn't substantial but the bonus plan is.
Base: $140k
Stock: $65k
Bonus: $50k
Microsoft Shareholders - Don't forget to vote your proxy if you aren't attending the Nov 19 meeting. Check your mail for your proxy statement - it's pretty easy to vote online.
Will it make a difference? Probably not, but it feels better to at least exercise your voice as a shareholder.
Office Lab. Clumsy combination of PPTs and unusable prototypes.
Amen. Office Labs is all hat and no cattle.
I am a Level 64 that got an Exceeded and top 20% in my last review. I've been in role for a year. When can I expect to get my next bump up? Is it typically 18 -24 months?
If you are in Adcenter, then you will get promoted in the next three months. You have been in your level for far too long
When can I expect to get my next bump up? Is it typically 18 -24 months?
Are you really 64? At level 64, you shouldn't be coming to a blog and asking when you can expect a promotion.
"Do you expect the product to sell themselves? If so, that is a delusion. Why do you think Apple put hunters into territories? Why do you think Salesforce hire as many sales people as they can? And why do you think we are losing share to such companies as Salesforce and Apple?
"
I was at a meeting recently and steveb was asked this very question.. his answer is that Microsoft doesnt need to advertise. our name brand is known worldwide. the OEMs can advertise for us when they advertise their desktops and laptops... sigh
The SLT's view of employees at Windows 95 launch: "Our employees are our most valuable asset."
The SLT's view of employees at Windows 7 launch: "Our employees are our most disposable asset."
I am a Level 64 that got an Exceeded and top 20% in my last review. I've been in role for a year. When can I expect to get my next bump up? Is it typically 18 -24 months? I heard that the base comp for L65 isn't substantial but the bonus plan is.
Depends. If you're in Windows (probably applies to Office as well) expect to wait about 4-6 years before attaining L65, assuming you're still getting E/20 (even then a promo is still a bit of a long shot). If you're in a group that loses truckloads of cash and doesn't have a product that anyone wants to buy you'll probably be promoted to Partner next week.
to the L64 e/20 @ 7:23:00 PM
from what I know, it varies wildly between groups. Also understand that once you get to the 63-64 band, the velocity will slow down substantially, and it is not unheard of to sit at 64 (or 63) for years, maybe never making the jump up.
The best thing to do is have a conversation (usually at review time). I've been in a number of teams that are very open about expected time until next promotion and usually they are pretty accurate, except they are often hedged with "and budget allowing". this year the number of promotions went down, so i expect the 64=>65 path will be a pretty wide canyon for most to cross. As part of most calibrations, time to next promotion and expected level you can get to are usually inputs.
you really don't want to go from e20 in one band to a lower stacked a70 in the next one. You may make less overall comp, and that may be something tough to explain come transfer time. Also, once you get in the 65 group, you are going to be stacked against every non-partner under your VP, which means it may take a different set of skills to maintain that e20.
On OSD….. Bing has real momentum and the team is really executing well & MSN is actually showing some signs of improvement (after having talked for 10 years of a new home page under many different leaderships setups, they actually are doing it!!!). I am glad Satya cleaned house on adCenter. DonGa and Rajat are exactly what the doctor ordered for adCenter!!
The usefullness of this blog is plummetting lately. Can we have a seperate minimsft for employees who aren't underperforming, have decent managers, actually like some of our products, and don't feel entitled to a paycheck?
As opposed to what? It's initial purpose maybe? Which was what? Criticizing the SLT for creating a gigantic bloated org that needed to be deflated?
The whole POINT of this blog is calling out how the company has gone astray.
Turns out, the problem is a LOT bigger than just "too many people" The problem is that the SLT is completely out of sync with industry trajectory.
If you think this is all "BS", that the corporate image is just great, that the products are flying off the shelves, that Apple and Google and Oracle and IBM are just waiting in line to be SMACKED down by the awesomeness that is the Redmond Brain Trust, that KT is a WORLD CLASS sales leader, that Linux and OSS are just gnats buzzing about the mighty head of MSFT, and that "all is well in the Pacific Northwest"....
Then Ill ask...
What the heck are you doing on MiniMSFT?! The whole POINT of the blog was a "call to action" to fix the sinking ship! If you are enamored with your manager, the company, the products, the future... GOOD FOR YOU! I think you're in for a DAMN rude awakening since I'd suspect that "good managers" account for AT BEST 20% and that with a corrupt and broken down machine, even GOOD managers eventually get mired down and leave, but I could be wrong. Either way... THIS blog is THE PLACE for the folks who think there IS a problem.
Maybe you missed that. The alcohol content of Koolaid IS mighty high these days.
"I am a Level 64 that got an Exceeded and top 20% in my last review. I've been in role for a year. When can I expect to get my next bump up? Is it typically 18 -24 months? I heard that the base comp for L65 isn't substantial but the bonus plan is."
There is no typical time between 64 and 65 -- 64 is a "career level", meaning that many people plateau there. Making the step to Principal requires more people to get involved in vetting you.
It took me 4 years, 2 E20s and the right cosmic alignment to hit 65, while a friend of mine was only a 64 for a year. Each circumstance is unique.
"totally off topic but something that drives me crazy. The company store - why does it have to suck so badly? Doesn't this kind of reflect a an overall low set of expectations?"
Oh yeah!
And please explain why we can't keep Windows 7 in stock in our own damn store, and why the clerks can't even estimate when we'll get the next shipment in?
I was there last week and the person at the counter said it might be a *MONTH* before Windows 7 Ultimate is back in stock.
Our flagship product is unavailable for employee purchase... oh, but wait -- I can download an ISO image from the network.
Friggin retarded.
This post is turning into whiner central. Complaining about the company store??? Seriously?
For those of you worrying about when get your next level up..stop worrying about it and just focus on your passion. If you are good at what you do and make an impact, things happen. If you are more obsessed with getting to the next level than making great contributions to your team, it's going to be a long frusterating ride for you.
I'm level 65, never asked for a promotion, and honeslty, don't care about levels. I'd rather work for beans and love what I do than have the level and be chasing unrealistic goals.
>>On OSD….. Bing has real momentum and the team is really executing well & MSN is actually showing some signs of improvement
This seems overly optimistic.
We had the Live Search games and the Live/Bing cash back efforts which gave short lived bumps. Lots of cheering and back patting when those events occurred - fortunately near review time for all involved.
Now we have a new brand and a big $100MM TV advertising budget to get another 2% bump. The next few percent will cost exponentially more as the revenue guarantees with YHOO will prove. And as soon as the bing tv ads stop, bing's share will crater again. Setting us up for another reorg and another team to take on Google.
And please explain why we can't keep Windows 7 in stock in our own damn store, and why the clerks can't even estimate when we'll get the next shipment in?
I was there last week and the person at the counter said it might be a *MONTH* before Windows 7 Ultimate is back in stock.
Our flagship product is unavailable for employee purchase... oh, but wait -- I can download an ISO image from the network.
Friggin retarded.
Ah, I see a foreign concept is vexing you - that of the wildly popular Microsoft product. See, it use to be that we had trouble keeping our products in stock because everyone wanted to buy it and our production couldn't keep up with demand. You not being able to buy it at the company store is an unfortunate, but good, thing.
>>I'm level 65, never asked for a promotion, and honeslty, don't care about levels. I'd rather work for beans and love what I do than have the level and be chasing unrealistic goals.
OK, I have some beans - give me your level.
Word on the street is that native code application developers will be locked out of Windows Mobile 7, that all 3rd party development must be in managed code, and that the European mobile operators are in revolt over this.
For those of us who are constantly a target of immature Microsoft manager, who somehow feel entitled to the position, maybe this website can be helpful, it has great reference material
http://www.badbossology.com/
L65 isn't substantial but the bonus plan is.
Base: $140k
Stock: $65k
Bonus: $50k
A quarter million ???
What for ?
How many L65+ are there in the company ?
Shouldn't the shareholders have a say on the comp. Pay for true performance .. not sucking up.
As a shareholder I find this very disturbing.
And please explain why we can't keep Windows 7 in stock in our own damn store, and why the clerks can't even estimate when we'll get the next shipment in?
I was there last week and the person at the counter said it might be a *MONTH* before Windows 7 Ultimate is back in stock.
Ooooh! An easy one!
Answer: Other boxes are destined for the channel, which is more important than it was for Vista and Office 2007 because there's a degree of actual consumer interest in Windows 7.
Even in middle America, in electronics departments, I've heard a couple of farmers discussing laptops. One said that he'd been waiting for "the next one after Vista" and the other said, "They say this one's good this time." The big challenge I see is getting customers to take the plunge to load it on existing hardware.
Yes, it's nice to thank the FTEs, but you said it yourself, the iso's and product keys are available to FTEs.
Meanwhile, those boxes are sitting visibly on retail shelves during Christmas shopping season, when even people who aren't normally in stores are browsing aisles. This helps remind people that we've moved past Vista. MS staff know this already (I hope), especially those of us who worked on the product or dogfooded it.
If you've ever done merchandising, you know that one of the things you compete for is shelfspace. It's generally the case that with a product or range of products of a reasonable quality level to sell, the more shelfspace the better, because it translates to more sales. More than one row of Windows Vista on a store shelf = more shelfspace = profit!
MS has got a product to be proud of in Win7. It needs to be as "out there" as it can be. If it weren't available to employees through other channels, I'd be annoyed too.
The one situation in which the "burned ISO" isn't a great alternative is for gifting, where you also need to buy a product key. And even then, Microsoft could help resolve that fairly easily by printing up a bunch of holiday-themed postcards with rego codes and selling them (INEXPENSIVELY) in the cafes, limited to maybe 10 per employee.
To anyone upset about lack of product in the comapany store (like I am sometimes), and needs something for personal use vs. gifting, look into the employee's discount for MSDN. If you subscribe to that you can download ISOs and get a product key for almost everything Microsoft has ever released besides games. I think it is around $300 for the huge box of CD/DVDs, and about $45 if you do your own downloads of ISOs. A very, very, very sweet deal.
I'm level 65, never asked for a promotion, and honeslty, don't care about levels. I'd rather work for beans and love what I do than have the level and be chasing unrealistic goals.
At your level, it's very easy to say that you don't care about levels.
And at your level, you SHOULD be chasing unrealistic goals! If you don't shoot for the stars, you end up with mediocre products that compare poorly to the competition (I'm talking about you, Windows Phone folks).
Word on the street is that native code application developers will be locked out of Windows Mobile 7, that all 3rd party development must be in managed code, and that the European mobile operators are in revolt over this.
Are we trying to kill Jobs by making him laugh too hard? Seriously, who makes a decision to copy the Android+Java epic fail that is happening RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES?
Regarding "formal" interviews and manager notification.
If the team you want to go to is serious, just do "informal" formal interviews. I've done that a couple times. Basically the team interviews you as if it were a formal interview and once they are comfortable with hiring you, they just recycle the emails for the formal loop.
Kind of like the old joke of unofficially official, yet officially unofficial.
Not really following policy, but hey, it's a tough world out there and if you got to escape... most managers at MS knows about the gulag groups and also knows that they can be a great source of talent (as long as you watch out for the people that have become irretrievably bitter).
blah, blah, shelf space.
blah, blah, retail channel.
The only thing worse than inability to stock MS own employee store, is the intentional effort to leave it empty.
Dumping on your own employees is never a good policy, and no amount of retail gobbledygook is going to justify it.
"Microsoft Shareholders - Don't forget to vote your proxy if you aren't attending the Nov 19 meeting. Check your mail for your proxy statement - it's pretty easy to vote online. "
I'm voting my remaining 1400 shares (down from 40,000 from the dawn of Windows) AGAINST all the board recommendations. I have not had confidence in MSFT leadership since 2000.
Note that 14 SHAREHOLDER PROPOSAL - Disclosure of Charitable Contributions, should be voted AGAINST. Read the proposal, and note what dog whistle words come up in the description, and you'll see what the proposal is really about. You can also look up what the author, Thomas Strobhar, writes about in his spare time.
Reference, 2009 Proxy Statement, page 40.
You not being able to buy it at the company store is an unfortunate, but good, thing.
I don't see how. It means the company either a) didn't plan ahead well enough or b) didn't think it was worth the trouble to set aside a few thousand copies of Win7 (out of the millions being produced) for employees who want to walk into the company store and buy a packaged copy instead of just downloading an ISO. Neither is a good thing.
the rant about the company store is just noise. the biggest success story this year is layoff. the thing which this blog dreamed to achieve.
the best thing for this blog is to propose which teams should be targetted the most. from the discussion so far, adcenter, research, and engineering excellance. all three are the excellant choices to end the year with a positive note.
"
I was there last week and the person at the counter said it might be a *MONTH* before Windows 7 Ultimate is back in stock."
Ooooh! An easy one!
Answer: Other boxes are destined for the channel, which is more important than it was for Vista and Office 2007 because there's a degree of actual consumer interest in Windows 7.
We are able to keep millions of shelves stocked with Windows copies in thousands of retail outlets around the world... we can damn well ensure that we have sufficient copies on-hand at our own company store to sell to our own employees -- it's a microscopic fraction of a percent of our channel obligations.
That we are unable to keep our own company store stocked with our flagship product -- one of the few things we can all be proud of as employees over the last few years -- speaks volumes about our incompetence around internal planning and communication.
Also -- not a single Microsoft employee I know who isn't technical has the slightest clue about how to make use of the ISO download... I've already fielded questions from clueless Marketers, Biz people, Designers and senior manager types who understand nothing but Powerpoint.
I would estimate that 90% of our company, and certainly all the nontechnical people -- will never make use of the ISO option.
"The company store - why does it have to suck so badly?"
Fail for not knowing that the company store is outsourced.
The real interesting question is: Why is boxed Win7 out of stock? Don't give me that nonsense about filling the channel. Practically nobody buys boxed copies of Windows; for 99.9% of people, it comes preloaded when they order a new computer from the OEM. I'd never even seen a boxed copy of Windows prior to joining Microsoft. It should be trivial to make enough copies to fulfill demand.
L64 - $50K bonus, I'm gonna call BS on this - max bonus 20% for C1 on 140K == 28K, normal upper limit is 15% or 21K
I am a Level 64 that got an Exceeded and top 20% in my last review. I've been in role for a year. When can I expect to get my next bump up? Is it typically 18 -24 months? I heard that the base comp for L65 isn't substantial but the bonus plan is.
Base: $140k
Stock: $65k
Bonus: $50k
And you have a job while I am unemployed after being laid off from Microsoft?
Despite the negativity here. I truly believe that Microsoft is still going to be the leader in the industry for the next 10-15 years.
Fail for not knowing that the company store is outsourced.
I'm glad somebody finally brought this up. The decision to outsource the company store was (and still is) boneheaded.
Every other company I've worked for has provided its products to employees basically at cost. IMO this is the right thing to do. I find it gauche that Microsoft and the outsourcing firm are trying to make a profit by selling *my work* back to me.
Office Labs is all hat and no cattle.
Bad leadership at show. The exchange to Juniper is not working as well as thought eh?
About the Company store, DO NOT BUY HARDWARE from there. You cannot return/replace it once you leave the store, even if it is defective. And the deal is not that good anywah. You'd be better off buying from RadioShack!
About the usefulness of this blog: many outsiders are reading it, including competitors, journalists, shareholders etc. Its pretty embarrasing actually so I can see some people's point that the blog is "outlived its purpose". Sureeeeh..... They wouldn't "know" if they didn't follow it.... Funny!
For the pal who said,
I'm level 65, never asked for a
promotion, and honestly, don't
care about levels. I'd rather
work for beans and love what I
do than have the level and be
chasing unrealistic goals.
Maybe at Level 65 in your org, the air is cleaner, and the pyramid is narrow, so you have less to compete against. And the incoming paycheck is more than good for a great lifestyle. But in the trenches, 3-4 levels below you, the org pyramid slab is much, much wider. If an IC goes about thinking "never asked for a promotion, and honestly, don't
care about levels. I'd rather work for beans and love what I do",
he needs to get ready for the next RIF, since his manager will "honestly not care about him during the stackrank meeting". This IC will definitely have peers who feel up to their managers
saying "What do I need to do to get to the next level?" And commitments and review-against-commitments, are all based on level-appropriate-and-above work as
"perceived" and "made-visible-and-presented-to" the manager. It is not about "doing what I love to do" - it is about "doing what your level needs, and what your manager loves presenting to his manager".
All this requires an IC to be very conscious of what his level is, what his peers at his level are doing (to match) and what his seniors at levels above him are
doing (to imitate and suck up for feedback).
do not worry about don dodge.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/15/microsofts-loss-googles-gain-don-dodge-gets-a-new-job/
All the talk about ex'ing Engineering Excellence hits a little too close to home, no?
I wish I know who was genius who sent high-profile employee to the competition:
Don Dodge joins Google: http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2009/11/thanks-microsoft-hello-google.html
Great work by some paper-pushing GM who made this great decision!
L64 - $50K bonus, I'm gonna call BS on this - max bonus 20% for C1 on 140K == 28K, ... Sunday, November 15, 2009 3:30:00 PM
I'd have to see orig post, but it could be very true, depending on what kind of comp plan the L64 poster is on, especially if it is (or crosses) a sales plan (S1, S17...), which typically has a lesser base package. The bonus amount is very real, and can even be much higher if E/20. It depends on how folks are representing the key parts of their comp plan, which are sometimes paid out as one larger "bonus" number.
L66
Salary $165k
Bonus 20-40%
Target stock $110k, max $300k
Hey Microsoft, Thanks For Pushing Me To Google
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Hey-Microsoft-Thanks-For-siliconalley-474870106.html?x=0&.v=2
"Also -- not a single Microsoft employee I know who isn't technical has the slightest clue about how to make use of the ISO download... I've already fielded questions from clueless Marketers, Biz people, Designers and senior manager types who understand nothing but Powerpoint.
I would estimate that 90% of our company, and certainly all the nontechnical people -- will never make use of the ISO option.
"
My gawd man!!!
there should't be a MS employee on the planet that isn't technical enough to download a freaking ISO and burn it!! My 7 year old can do it!!
Regarding formal interviews and manager notification.
Can someone explain the reasoning behind this? The official line that it is to prevent raiding a valuable employee in the middle of a big push doesn't hold water.
If I wanted to move to Google or IBM, I would submit a resume, take some time off from my job to interview, and do my best to get hired. If they made me an offer and I decided to accept it, I would then give my boss notice that I was leaving. There is a good chance that MS would have lost me at this point.
Assuming I am a valued employee, this isn't a good thing for the company.
On the other hand, if I want to change roles, my current boss is alerted as soon as I go into the formal interview loop. He or she is involved in making the ultimate decision about when (and whether) I am free to move. If he or she is not cooperative, my decision to change jobs within the company can be slowed down or prevented altogether.
So for internal moves, I am treated like a piece of corporate property. For external moves (assuming no visa issues), I am a free agent who can pack up and go to the competition at will.
Why do my corporate masters want to make it more difficult for me to stay than to leave?
Why cant they cut one and cut deep?
Pure speculation over here but me thinks they need to wait for product cycle to get over, right? So as soon as teams are done with releasing the product there will be layoffs in individual teams.
It was nice knowing you Windows Mobile. Best of luck to those slaving away on Windows Mobile 7.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39877964,00.htm?tag=mncol;txt
Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share
Mini! http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/15/microsofts-loss-googles-gain-don-dodge-gets-a-new-job/
"Also -- not a single Microsoft employee I know who isn't technical has the slightest clue about how to make use of the ISO download... I've already fielded questions from clueless Marketers, Biz people, Designers and senior manager types who understand nothing but Powerpoint."
In those few words you have articulated so much of what is wrong with Microsoft. For those of you who need it, check http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/Vista.htm to get a useful addition to Vista/Win 7 that we apparently are unable to include in the OS. Not sure how many of your laundry list of the clueless are capable of installing and then right clicking a file. But here's hoping.
L64 - $50K bonus, I'm gonna call BS on this - max bonus 20% for C1 on 140K == 28K, normal upper limit is 15% or 21K
Plausible I had $44K bonus when I was his/her level
Google scoops up ex-Microsoftie Don Dodge
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10399237-26.html
The App Revolution Will Be Mobilized
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2009/11/15/sunday/main5656643.shtml?
-Shows like this make me feel like Microsoft is increasingly irrelevant, especially in supporting and extending a mobile platform.
Despite the negativity here. I truly believe that Microsoft is still going to be the leader in the industry for the next 10-15 years.
I like the optimism in you though not sure how we will remain the leader.
Win7 does have built-in ISO burning capability.
In those few words you have articulated so much of what is wrong with Microsoft. For those of you who need it, check http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/Vista.htm to get a useful addition to Vista/Win 7 that we apparently are unable to include in the OS.
Dont get TOO smug... ISO burning is a native W7 feature. Guess you missed that.
About the usefulness of this blog: many outsiders are reading it, including competitors, journalists, shareholders etc. Its pretty embarrasing actually so I can see some people's point that the blog is "outlived its purpose". Sureeeeh..... They wouldn't "know" if they didn't follow it.... Funny!
Yeah... because customers and competitors dont realize what a cluster "F" MSFT has become under SB and KT. And of course its better to just pretend everything is great.
Look at it this way.. Many of them will realize that there are SOME folks who DO care about them and DO "get it" and maybe they'll have some sympathy.
How many L65+ are there in the company ?
Shouldn't the shareholders have a say on the comp. Pay for true performance .. not sucking up.
As a shareholder I find this very disturbing.
How about being honest? You find it "disturbing" because you're envious because you're not making that much. If you were, you'd pipe on about how much you "deserve it". Just you though. No one else. Just like the other envious idiot that posted.
You people have NO CLUE what they guy does. For all you know, he's UNDERPAID. But you made a snap judgement based PURELY on your perception of a number that, in your mind, is "too high"
That means you really arent mature enough to have ANY level of responsibility, so hopefully you are still somewhere down in the weeds.
Wow, that Don Dodge guy (whoever he is) sure is bitter.
When I was fired by another big company 10 years ago, I was very angry for years.
Then I learned manager was the most important thing for your career.
For those who got RIFed, you will move on. The earlier, the better.
I'm at level 63 now. I know I'm better than most of Principles I've met but it doesn't matter much. You wait for your turn.
The L65 said "focus on your beans". I can tell that it is a wrong attitude. You need to stand up and ask in most of cases. If you don't and you are taken care of, you're very very lucky.
I see bad managers in Microsoft. I think 30%-40% managers are bad. But I use a pretty high bar to call that.
I schedule my one-on-one with my VP when I see something is wrong.
If they RIF me because of this, so be it.
Here is my rating to Microsoft people.
Dev ICs -- 90% good. 10% should be RIFed.
Dev leads -- 90% good.
Dev managers -- 90% good.
PM ICs -50% good, 40% should be RIFed.
PM leads -- 20% good.
GPMs -- 40% good
Test ICs -- 60% good.
Test leads -- 10% good
Test managers -- 20% good
GFS Devs -- 30% good
GFS Tests -- 10% good
GFS supports -- 2% good
---
I wish I know who was genius who sent high-profile employee to the competition:
Don Dodge joins Google: http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2009/11/thanks-microsoft-hello-google.html
Great work by some paper-pushing GM who made this great decision!
----
Enough with this “loosing such an asset” BS. Good riddance Don Dodge. This move to Google only shows how two-faced he was from the beginning. I’ve seen him at a conference where he was propping up Linux, slamming MS left and right, and regretting for not joining Google in its infancy… People have asked me if he was actually working for MS. He was NOT a good representation of Microsoft in the field, in my opinion, so I’m glad that MS got rid of him. Now he got to accomplish his dream. Hope he’s happy there…
When someone goes to the competition, regardless how the employment ended and starts preaching something completely different then what he/she did 5 days ago, it means they didn’t believe it in the first place… I can’t/won’t go to Google and I don’t want to, because I don’t believe in their stuff and don’t like the culture. Hypocritical people like that make me mad… Have some integrity…
Does anybody know what the salary 'ranges' are for L63, L64? If this guy is L64 and in level for 1 year and salary @ $140k I think I would need 5 years of standard merit increases to get there.
Anonymous wrote to the terminal-levelled guy with the good incentive plan who talked about doing what you love and the rest would follow,
It is not about "doing what I love to do" - it is about "doing what your level needs, and what your manager loves presenting to his manager".
+1 to the post above. Sometimes you're lucky and the stars align so that they're one in the same. Often you're not, and "just move" as a solution has been beaten to death lately.
There are L61's fortunate to be doing what they love, but most L61's are just doing the job MS would hire them to do that they knew they could do well enough.
For many, they're just out of school, and it's sort of OK. They're still finding out what they have passion for, professionally. Industry hires can have it a bit tougher, because they're more likely to have specific areas of interest in the field of computing. Many of them come in at ridiculously low levels depending on whether the org they join values non-MS experience or not.
Despite the negativity here. I truly believe that Microsoft is still going to be the leader in the industry for the next 10-15 years.
What exactly do you mean by leader?
Will Microsoft be making a lot of money over the next 10 to 15 years? Sure.. even if they have to sacrifice a few of their own to make it so. But, does that make them a leader?
it's quite interesting that some managers are just fig fans of giving a fortune to their Indian partners like Infosys, to finish the work which should be taken by FTE with a relatively lower cost. in the name of overall cost control and resource optimization...
"I wish I know who was genius who sent high-profile employee to the competition:
Don Dodge joins Google:"
For a marketing guy he does not seem very savvy. Disses Microsoft in a very public way on exit ... and claims to love products he has been using for just a few days. That does not do anything except undermine his credibility.
I was at a meeting recently and steveb was asked this very question.. his answer is that Microsoft doesnt need to advertise. our name brand is known worldwide.
"MICROSOFT DOESN'T NEED TO ADVERTISE"
Hey SteveB, then why the heck do we have so many damn Marketers?
"The App Revolution Will Be Mobilized
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2009/11/15/sunday/main5656643.shtml?
-Shows like this make me feel like Microsoft is increasingly irrelevant, especially in supporting and extending a mobile platform."
Rest easy man, consider the source. (cbsnews). Don't believe everything you read or hear.
To: Regarding formal interviews and manager notification.
Can someone explain the reasoning behind this?
I'd answer... kind of....
At it's most base we at MS do not and will not cannibalize ourselves for anything.
We seldom shut down a big established project or product in favor of new technology or idea that appears to be more appropriate.
We will not risk our own existing sales and revenue to dive into a new niche or market no matter how promising - remember how we almost lost Netbooks? Next year think about that as we try to lose Internet Devices.
We will not replace failed leadership merely because of failure - because hey - the NEXT version is REALLY going to be good.
We will not replace or merge failed or not existent technology with newly purchased. I'd love to see an ROI calculated on all the companies we buy, then dispand their brain trust before knowledge is transfered. This item is kind of distinct, but perhaps a cousin to the above.
Finally we will not cannibalize employees. There are thousands of comments in this blog outlining the myriad ways that attempting to move can F you. In my tenure I've seen 75% of them in use.
Simply put - we are short sighted at the highest levels and those at the slighly lower can always craft a dark and scary scenario for opening the doors in consideration of risking the now for having more in the future.
Have a good manager relationship before you move or be sure to take into account the abundant advice in mini's comments.
Office Labs is filled with pompous egg heads. No wonder it is a failure.
I have posted a podcast interview with Christian Buckley, one of Microsoft's lay-off casualties. Chris talks about how patience, and keeping active, helping him land his new role.
http://bit.ly/29Zgoj
"there should't be a MS employee on the planet that isn't technical enough to download a freaking ISO and burn it!! My 7 year old can do it!!"
It's statements like this that make me hold at least *some* hope that Microsoft employees aren't the only ones who have no clue about how the real world of regular folk uses software.
Here's to hoping you work at Apple.
I have posted a podcast interview with Rob Mathewson, a Microsoft employee who was layed off, about his new initiative to provide training for entrepreneurs.
http://bit.ly/mWSNW
The L64 E20
Base: $140k
Stock: $65k
Bonus: $50k
Possible, but highly improbable. I won't mention why as this is likely a fishing trip.
Why does everyone here jump at troll bait when its compensation related? We should be smarter than that.
Win7 does have built-in ISO burning capability.
Awesome, that knowledge should be very helpful for people who want to burn an ISO so that they can install Win7. Thanks for the tip!
Don Dodge is a hero. He managed to land a job within a few days of being laid off. It is a complement to his abilities.
When someone goes to the competition, regardless how the employment ended and starts preaching something completely different then what he/she did 5 days ago, it means they didn’t believe it in the first place… I can’t/won’t go to Google and I don’t want to, because I don’t believe in their stuff and don’t like the culture. Hypocritical people like that make me mad… Have some integrity…
Integrity? It's not politics or religion, it's business. You're asking employees to think and behave like church parishioners or elected officials, for whom "switching sides" is a moral/ethical/philosophical transgression (rather than simple real-world expediency). Seriously, think about what you're saying. It's nearly delusional.
"Does anybody know what the salary 'ranges' are for L63, L64? If this guy is L64 and in level for 1 year and salary @ $140k I think I would need 5 years of standard merit increases to get there."
None of the 64s who report to me make 140k, and my E/20 superstar's bonus was less than 50% of what this guy's claimed bonus was.
Doesn't sound legit to me.
I'd love to see an ROI calculated on all the companies we buy, then dispand their brain trust before knowledge is transfered. This item is kind of distinct, but perhaps a cousin to the above.
Those numbers exist, probably buried in some regulatory filing somewhere. I remember reading an article 1 or 2 years ago that mentioned the ROI for all acquisitions performed under Ballmer and the number was negative (in the single digit range if my memory serves me well)
"I wish I know who was genius who sent high-profile employee to the competition:Don Dodge joins Google:"
I never knew about this guy's existence. But from reading his recent post and taking a shot at Microsoft products it reminds me of the typical reaction a teenager goes through when he was just dumped by his girlfriend. In this case, not exactly very professional. He was let go for a reason, which of course he will never mention.
In summary Don Fudge or whatever your name is: we can care less about you.
Enough with this “loosing such an asset” BS. Good riddance Don Dodge. This move to Google only shows how two-faced he was from the beginning.
Every good technologist should understand and say that Linux has some great features, Google has some good products, and that some of Microsoft's products are pretty crappy. Some Microsoft products are also fantastic! And some Linux features are a bit crappy, and Google practices a bit dodgy. Unless you want to be a total koolaid-intoxicated MS-fanboi spambot, then it is it reasonable and useful to admit all these things, even if you work for MSFT. Don Dodge was just describing the true shape of the world; instead of the bizarrely solipsistic fish-eyed view one gets, hanging around in Redmond sucking on that koolaid. As for him joining Google, geez - the guy was just LAID OFF by MSFT. What do you want him to do? Get a job selling Windows Home edition and XBoxes at Best Buy, just so he stay close the MSFT gods???
Don Dodge joins Google. This is good news. Microsoft loses a marketing guy without credibility, and it goes to a competitor! Great!
Meanwhile, could someone inspect what is happening in the SVC? All the garbage from Yahoo is coming to Microsoft over there, and at a minimum level of 65 (and they are not coming for the beans...). Some people joining at partner level there wouldn't make a level 63 in Office or Windows. And the fact that they had fancy titles at Yahoo doesn't mean anything. Do I need to remember everyone that Yahoo failed!. All that engineers, technical leads, technical managers and many directors and VPs of Engineering at Yahoo did for years was to spend resources playing around. Now that they misused all the resources at Yahoo, here they come misuse resources at Microsoft. No wonder that nobody with any Microsoft experience is being allowed to join that team. When will HR and the business conduct teams step in?
A shout out to this poster:
I understand companies know about the risk of these problem managers, but their cost-benefit analysis tells them that many IC folks won’t make that trip to the EEOC to find out how their rights may have been violated, so little risk to them.
and
The EEOC is highly interested in Retaliation.
Thanks for this information.
To those who have been told by attorneys that you don't have a case or your case would be impossible to prove: file anyway, if you have grounds to believe one of the EEOC-regulated factors had a role in actions taken against you. You can do it on your own without an attorney. All it costs is time, and the return on the investment is the potential of learning from the EEOC that your claim is potentially winnable.
If your attorney doesn't know about a case similar to yours that set precedent a decade or more ago, that doesn't mean that such a case does not exist. It only means that not everyone knows about it.
This "not everyone" group potentially includes the employer, who might have engaged in certain conduct with the incorrect belief that they could get away with it because it had not been proven illegal.
"there should't be a MS employee on the planet that isn't technical enough to download a freaking ISO and burn it!! My 7 year old can do it!!"
"It's statements like this that make me hold at least *some* hope that Microsoft employees aren't the only ones who have no clue about how the real world of regular folk uses software.
Here's to hoping you work at Apple."
There is a "world" of difference between "real world of regular folk" and Microsoft Employees. If you worked here you would know this.
Here's hoping you Don't.
About usefulness of this blog: it has been known for a very long time (long before this blog started) that bigger is not better, especially if not well managed. Bigger teams create more confusion, especially if consensus and political alignment are so important to survive the review onslaught. The bottom 10% and bonus system are amplifying this issue, not improving. The stories around the development of NT were legendary around the world with team conflicts etc. In those days people were looking forward, not sideways and certainly not covering their backs all the time.(Outside) Game development teams disintegrate after completion under the insane pressure. When applying the buddy buddy review system during such a development phase people who dare to speak up get scuttled. The truth and view of the real situation gets scuttled with these people also.... and that will be reflected in the end product. Despite all the internal pooha the customer still votes with the wallet (unless there is no choice)and wants quality or a business benefit.
Speaking from experience (MS EPG field; team disbanded in 2008, all positions eliminated)I can identify three major product lines in MS Layogff:
- MS Reorg 200X. This is a short shelf life product that has a low cost annual renewal at the discretion of SLT.
- MS Layoff 2009 SP3. This product lived up to the traditional view that it takes Microsoft three versions to get the full product out to the market.
- MS Decimate. This is the final product in the MS Stack Rank product group. MS Stack Rank has been largely ineffective in meeting customer expectations. With the advent of MS Decimate, the lowest 10% of the employee ranks are eliminated without any fanfare.
I congratulate the current MS leadership on delivering such a complete product line. My only regret is that there seems to be an upper limit on the product coverage. All product lack a valid license for us above level 74.
Our team got impacted, i was on system center premise.
we got 3 people impacted by politics and a bloated x-team interdependency.
Here is some feedback from a potential consumer customer.
Before the fanboi brigade collects their whips, let me tell you that I do not hate MS, its employees or its products. In fact, I absolutely love my 360! At work, I use MS products all day long, no complaints.
That being said, this is what happened to me yesterday.
In Germany, there are little containers in front of many outlets of Media Markt, one of our biggest electronics retailers, dedicated to Windows 7. I went into one and described my use case for Windows 7 to the - quite knowledgeable - lady in there. Basically, I want to run Windows in a virtual environment (Virtualbox, for those who are interested) for about 80% of my Windows application needs, and boot it directly from the hard drive for the 20% of programs that don't work in Virtualbox (mainly games). So, I need two installations on the same laptop, but only one can ever run at the same time.
Trouble is, from time to time I have to reinstall the virtual Windows. With XP, which I have running on my laptop right now, I can call a MS hotline and get a code that will allow me to reinstall my XP copy if I run out of licences. Annoying, really, but feasible. According to the clerk, however, this is no longer feasible with Windows 7. Three installations, and that is it.
Which means that if I get a new laptop, I'll have to buy Win7 again. Reason enough for me not to buy Win7, which is a shame 'cause it looks really neat.
Feedback / hint: cut consumer customers some slack, please!
Here is what happened with my main OS. German retailers (well, actually, we have one really big one - Gravis -, and that is that) screwed up royally with their orders for Snow Leopard. The OS was just not available, and there were long waiting lists. So I got mine in France (I live near the border). Installed it on my laptop. No limitations, no activation keys, no nothing. I also installed it from my disk on my parents' Mac Mini. When I visited them the next time, there was a new Snow Leopard DVD lying next to the Mini. My parents' comment: "Well, it goes without saying really that we bought a copy when it was available again... Apple trusts us, therefore we do not rip them off."
What does MS have to lose? Most copies are sold with new PCs anyway, and those consumers who want to upgrade would be honest (in the vast majority of cases). Why does MS hassle consumers? It only stops folks like me from buying your products.
Can anyone explain the deal behind the eduConnect posters that have our SLT's high-school mugs on them? These are plastered near several elevators, and I don't see the point, or why this money was spent on internal advertising.
My team can barely produce the funds for a $20 computer cable, despite being in one of the few money-making divisions, meanwhile the company is paying for these posters because...? Putting the high-school mugs of our SLT on internal posters is beneficial because...? What the heck is the business case?
If the idea is to inspire, I personally don't think its advantageous to show pictures of graduates who might have received these honors:
--most likely to succeed at turning one the most successful companies in the world into a myopic also-ran
--most likely to turn a stimulating working atmosphere into an apprehensive, toxic sweatshop
--most likely to lead a division that loses an increasing number of millions year over year
Where's the inspiration and where's the ROI?
Apple trusts you even less than MS. Just try installing the MacOS on a non-Mac. Essentially the Mac is nicely designed hardware dongle for their OS.
From Apple's prespective, you've already contributed $1000 to their bottom line by buying an overpriced PC, so sure, install MacOS as many times as you want.
Different business models.
[[There is a "world" of difference between "real world of regular folk" and Microsoft Employees. If you worked here you would know this.]]
It's this kind of puffed up arrogance that explains why the products are so shitty. In the past several days we have had a sequence of server crashes (ISA, Exchange) which seriously impacted our business. The only "support" solution was to reboot. Thanks!
Buddy if all of you are so brilliant and walk on water with holes in your feet, why do you not rewrite this crap in a way that does not have so many interdependencies? Or DLLs? I ran an export of a server registry and the file was 800+ Mb!! For Christ's sake, can't you do better than this?
Re : Dan Dodge
This so funny, a guy gets fired and goes to work for Google and people say he didn't believe in MS.
Of course, he is going to say good things about Google products, its now his job.
What did you expect him to do? Say how great Windows 7 is?
MS took away his paycheck, his living, his dignity by laying him off.
The guy was good enough to quickly land a job in one of the best names in tech. Well done dude.
Is he going to compete hard against MS with passion. You bet.
Are there many more like him, ex-MS, laid-off and competing against MS. Absolutely!
"There is a "world" of difference between "real world of regular folk" and Microsoft Employees. If you worked here you would know this."
I do work here, and the attitude you're conveying is exactly why our company has always been an epic fail when it comes to understanding our customers.
Listen to what you just said --let me repeat it for you just so you can see how ridiculous it sounds: "There is a "world" of difference between "real world of regular folk" and Microsoft Employees."
Oh really. I'll be sure to tell our consumer product merchandising manager -- one of thousands of "regular folk" at the company who have jobs that do not rely on technical skill -- that she needs to suck it up and wade through the completely unreadable 4 page, single-spaced, 38-step "how-to" document from MS IT to get Win7 running on her home computer.
It's 2009 and we're telling a broad cross-section of people to burn ISOs if they want Win7. That's dumb.
He was let go for a reason, which of course he will never mention.
In summary Don Fudge or whatever your name is: we can care less about you.
---
a) you have no clue why Don (or other over 40, senior level people were let go).
b) Don did good work on the ISV spark program and ended up in the end, getting screwed out of credit
your lack of insight must be that you are new to MS or simply too high in the cloud to ignore the bad attrition going on as part of CYA-09
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/19/hp_strike_vote_unite/
time to unite
Don Dodge joins Google.
As a former DECie who knows Don, I can tell you that Google is fortunate to obtain his services. For those of you who feel he is unloyal -- are you kidding me -- MS kicked him to the curb in the midst of the worst recession in 30 years. Who's unloyal?
Time for a new post, Mini - the shareholders' meeting came and went, and surprise-surprise, no change in the officers, no mention of the layoffs, no mention of the poor stock performance, some half-hearted swipes about Apple and iPhones. More of the same. Yuck.
>>Integrity? It's not politics or religion, it's business. You're asking employees to think and behave like church parishioners or elected officials, for whom "switching sides" is a moral/ethical/philosophical transgression (rather than simple real-world expediency). Seriously, think about what you're saying. It's nearly delusional.
Well said. Remember that companies will cut your position in an instant regardless of your performance, if there's a promise of short-term gain. Loyalty, integrity and so on are expected (of course) but not reciprocated.
Do good work from the love of technology, from professionalism, for the common success of colleagues and friends on your team, and of course, for the customer.
You can do that anywhere.
What does MS have to lose? Most copies are sold with new PCs anyway, and those consumers who want to upgrade would be honest (in the vast majority of cases). Why does MS hassle consumers? It only stops folks like me from buying your products.
The limit was 5 in Vista and Im not sure if it was reduced to 3. But even so, at the limit, it requires no more than a call to get activated. I believe the call is fully automated also.
Worst case you can try this if you feel you really need to:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/09/24/how-to-backup-and-restore-windows-7-and-server-2008-r2-activation-status-activate-offline-on-reinstall/
Honestly, given that people who run two copies of the OS, one in a VM on Linux, and then one installed physically, and change things around with the VM often enough to hit activation limits are serious outliers, I dont think this is a policy that is so glaringly bad.
Every good technologist should understand and say that Linux has some great features, Google has some good products, and that some of Microsoft's products are pretty crappy
Are you a MSFT employee? If so, you give me hope brother. We are a beaten down minority, but we KNOW we are strong! :)
When the clouds clear (some level of economic recovery) perhaps it will be time to make "the move" to where logic and reason still have value (which is pretty much anywhere else, these days)
The Koolaid has become TOXIC my friends. This is what happens when the ignorant chart the course.
"Integrity? It's not politics or religion, it's business. You're asking employees to think and behave like church parishioners or elected officials, for whom "switching sides" is a moral/ethical/philosophical transgression (rather than simple real-world expediency). Seriously, think about what you're saying. It's nearly delusional.
Well said. Remember that companies will cut your position in an instant regardless of your performance, if there's a promise of short-term gain. Loyalty, integrity and so on are expected (of course) but not reciprocated."
Its not just business, Mr.Scrooge. It is our culture and the sewage it emits seeps out into the other "contained" parts of your life. Yours is the fantasy that you can be an immoral bastard w/o conscience in one part of your life, and an angel in the other. In fact, it doesn't happen. And it hasn't. The business culture is part of hte reason for the decadence that we see around us, the greed and the destruction of our environment and the looming collapse of our dollar and our way of life.
Re : Dan Dodge
This so funny, a guy gets fired and goes to work for Google and people say he didn't believe in MS.
Of course, he is going to say good things about Google products, its now his job.
What did you expect him to do? Say how great Windows 7 is?
MS took away his paycheck, his living, his dignity by laying him off.
The guy was good enough to quickly land a job in one of the best names in tech. Well done dude.
Is he going to compete hard against MS with passion. You bet.
Are there many more like him, ex-MS, laid-off and competing against MS. Absolutely!
Who cares. This guy pulled no punches:
http://bit.ly/3ROoTY
Evangelism as a discipline is a fundamentally foolish investment for Microsoft. Our customers know we're paying such individuals to say what they say and this alone diminishes credibility. We certainly need effective marketing, but beyond that, build products so good that our user base will evangelize them on their own.
Why does MS hassle consumers?
At Microsoft, there is a semi-official policy of the "90-95% case." If you're a typical user doing a typical thing, your user experience is supposed to be good. Otherwise, it's perfectly acceptable if your experience is mediocre or bad.
Of course, whether or not your experience is "typical" is determined by a gut reaction from the PM or manager of the feature in question, usually with little to no evidence or debate.
Microsoft employees consider this policy a strategic advantage, and anybody who disagrees with it "doesn't know how to ship software to millions of people."
Reminds me of American car companies during the 70s and 80s which were happy to sell cars with known safety and reliability issues, vs. more successful Japanese companies with much higher quality standards.
Did anyone else notice the new policies on kitchen bulletin board postings and other hallway coverings?
(btw, is it just me or are there more security cameras now?)
From Apple's prespective, you've already contributed $1000 to their bottom line by buying an overpriced PC, so sure, install MacOS as many times as you want.
I keep hearing that Apple's hardware is overpriced, but frankly I've never seen proof. When I do the comparisons myself, Apple's hardware seems competitive, and their reliability and customer service rankings are always very, very good.
I think this picture sums it up... this is a Microsoft sponsored event... everything is paid for by Microsoft... do you see something wrong with this picture?
http://windowsphonethoughts.com/news/show/95970/mobius-2009-fascinating-but-little-that-can-be-shared.html
"there should't be a MS employee on the planet that isn't technical enough to download a freaking ISO and burn it!! "
Most software at Microsoft is installed over the network through Control Panel > Add programs (and other various names). There are some groups where ISO's are common place (OS, Win32 products).
For anyone that would like some information on downloading ISO's and what to do next, check out this link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/aa948864.aspx
Reminds me of American car companies during the 70s and 80s which were happy to sell cars with known safety and reliability issues, vs. more successful Japanese companies with much higher quality standards.
It is a common fact of life within many Microsoft product groups that products are shipped as soon as a minimal level of "acceptable" quality, as deemed by management, has been attained.
Anybody from outside of Microsoft coming from a background where high (not perfect - but high) quality was expected would probably drop dead of a heart attack if they saw the kind of lurking bugs that we consistently and knowingly ship in our products.
For some strange reason though there seem to be more than enough customers willing to pay year after year for such mediocre quality.
I think this picture sums it up... this is a Microsoft sponsored event... everything is paid for by Microsoft... do you see something wrong with this picture?
What's your argument? That tech writers should scrounge up a Windows laptop before attending a Microsoft-sponsored event, lest someone's feelings get hurt?
SteveB over hired, under estimated, I agree. He did many bad things and stupid things. He even said to a herd of reporters on Wall Street. "yes, MS stocks are over valued" etc
But if BillG let SteveB run the show for 10+ years. What does this say about BillG? I am not trying to be sarcastic. I am asking a valid question.
Anonymous #1 spake:
Every good technologist should understand and say that Linux has some great features, Google has some good products, and that some of Microsoft's products are pretty crappy
Anonymous #2 replied:
Are you a MSFT employee? If so, you give me hope brother. We are a beaten down minority, but we KNOW we are strong! :)
Not the OP, but one of the people who thinks like him. Laid off in 2009 while my single-platform colleagues are all collecting their paychecks.
There are companies that see business value in understanding and recognizing what their competitors do well. It's not a common philosophy inside MS, though.
I know of two groups that do practice it, either of which I'd possibly consider joining in a few years after some startup work. Both are respected inside the company for turning out great work. Coincidence? I think not.
Have anybody tried Dev10? I installed Beta2 on my VM recently.
After hours of installing, It is practically unusable (extremely slow and memory usage is high even for a simple WPF project).
VSTS is so bloated; didn't they learn anything from Vista?
I hope they have another Beta before Release.
My suggestion is to have all Dev in DevDiv to dogfood Dev10. Nobody could use Notepad anymore ;)
http://windowsphonethoughts.com/news/show/95970/mobius-2009-fascinating-but-little-that-can-be-shared.html
hilarious, the sponsors are MS but they have ZUNE, XBOX, WInMO .. == they are all MS
basically this is a PR stunt for the "viral" influencers to get good reviews ... come on guys ... lame steve.
Macs have the same basic hardware (Intel CPU, etc) as a normal PC. Slightly higher end with some additional styling, but nowhere near the price they are charging. Apple charges approximately 2x the real cost of the hardware. Nice juicy margins.
The main difference is that MacOS is locked in such a way that it refuses to install on anything other than Mac hardware, even if the hardware is perfectly capable.
You can see from the recent court cases that Apple is scared of anyone who might figure out how to run MacOS on a PC.
>>Evangelism as a discipline is a fundamentally foolish investment for Microsoft.
True. Because Microsoft's customer base is not going to _grow_. Or atleast not at steep gradients.
Google on the other hand is only just starting out in a bunch of things. Therefore evangelism plays an important role there. (Folks should take a look at http://www.youtube.com/user/gtugs once in a while). It makes sense that Google is investing on that front. Esp. in the small business space which is really where the future growth of the economy is going to be. When these small businesses grow (ie the ones that survive and thrive), guess which technology they are going to continue to use? And continue to buy from?
BTW, for those of you who have been around long enough, you can clearly see the energy levels in the employees at Google (again, check out http://www.youtube.com/user/gtugs) and such, and hark back to a more glorious time in MS. And THAT is the key difference in my opinion.
So what's up with all the lockdown stuff from Windows and Office teams??
You can't get jack squat without jumping through hugely complex Sharepoint systems for permissions. Even to get just a simple stupid spec.
Talk about silos... So whatever happened to that group collaboration values thing?
Come to think of it, anyone heard management harping about values lately?
"For anyone that would like some information on downloading ISO's and what to do next, check out this link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/aa948864.aspx"
Sit your Mother down in front of her computer and ask her to read this -- I'll give you a dollar if she doesn't smack you.
This article is absolutely unintelligible for anyone who isn't a PC power user. Not only that, but it's riddled with "we haven't tested this, but many users have found success in..." It's pure user experience garbage.
Look -- when you tell a company of 90,000+ people from many different backgrounds that in order to get their free, home-use copy of our flagship product they need to somehow make it through the above series of unintelligible-by-regular-human steps, YOU FAIL.
Send a goddamn Win7 Ultimate DVD in an sleeve through I/O mail to everyone in the company -- dead simple.
Since SMSG leadership is goaled on Gross Contribution we're seeing the phenomenon of brutal cost cutting across the board in MS India to meet the H1 targets. thats the short term part we're also seeing offices being closed down or scaled down, cab options being taken away and as yet no signs of where it will end. Are we so fixated upon ensuring the bonuses of a few people in SLT that we don't care about the foot soldiers' morale or even work environment hygine.
Curiouly enough all the cost cuts and spend restrictions somehow seem to apply only to ICs & people managers. The Directors (read managers of managers) and GMs seem to be free to spend as much as they like on their own T&E. We have people air dashing across the country or even international for Internal Meetings. And the same rule applies to certain "well connected" ICs.
It seems while Microsoft may call itself an equal opportunity employer BUT in SMSG India some are more equal than others.
Another news from WinMo. Brian Arbogast, the CVP in the mobile service group willt take a 6 months personal time off.
All his current report/group will report to Terry.
It is so surprise that he chose now as a good time for such a long break. Isn't WinMo7 is around the corner. I figured that he was kicked out. But I don't have any internal source. Anyone can sense sth?
Taken from the earlier link -- look how easy it is to burn ISO files! Wow!
"Writing ISO files to CD-R or DVD-R
Most CD-R/DVD-R writing software includes a feature to create a disc from an image file. Note: you must use the special "copy image to CD" or "burn image" functionality. See your software’s Help for detailed information.
Writing ISO images to CD-Rs and DVD-Rs
The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit includes the DVDBURN.EXE command line tool. Though it has not been tested by Microsoft, many customers also report success using ISO Recorder.
Testing CD-Rs and DVD-Rs
After a CD/DVD-R has been written, you can use the CRC tool to verify that the process was successful.
1.The CRC305.exe tool can be downloaded from MSDN Subscriber Downloads in the Tools and Resources folder.
2.From a command prompt, run CRC305 filename (where filename is the image file name.)
3.Run CRC305 x: (where x is the drive letter of the drive containing the CD/DVD-R). The CRC values should match.
Alternatively, there are many freeware programs available for calculating an SHA-1 hash value that is provided on each download page on MSDN Subscriber Downloads. Use your favorite Internet search engine to look for sha1 hash to find them.
Accessing ISO images via Virtual Drives
Certain tools exist which create a virtual disc drive on your PC and mount an ISO image on that drive. These tools typically assign a new drive letter to this drive, and the contents of the image can be accessed by opening “My Computer” and double clicking on the new drive.
Though they have not been tested nor are supported by the Subscriptions team, customers report that Daemon Tools offers such capability as well as Microsoft Virtual CD Control Tool.
Other products like IsoBuster and WinRar can access the contents of ISO images directly and verify ISO files, but also have not been tested nor are supported by the Subscriptions team."
I dare anyone to try and tell me the above isn't a pile of crap. Would love to hear my fellow Microsofties justify why this is an acceptable solution for any regular person who wants to install Windows 7.
Note: the content in this link is actually *better* than the one sent out internally. The mind boggles.
But if BillG let SteveB run the show for 10+ years. What does this say about BillG? I am not trying to be sarcastic. I am asking a valid question.
It appears BillG's heart isn't in Microsoft anymore. BillG continues to spend some time reviewing and advising the Search and Ads business. He has been doing that for years. Yet, he tolerates shoddy technical work, ineffective management, and incompetent marketing. Online Services division spends billions of dollars and don't do an efficient job. In the service business, efficiency is critical. Instead, the goal is to throw money at problems and market share and the result is inefficiency. Over time OSD will figure out how to scale up to Google's current scale, but Google would have advanced even further. As long as no one cares about efficiencies -- in using hardware and in getting the job done with a core group of people -- OSD will continue to throw increasing amounts of money in an attempt to keep up with Google.
Why isn't BillG asking fundamental questions about the way OSD operates and about the (in)efficiencies in the systems? Wasn't BillG supposed to be the guy who asked tough technical questions and demanded solid work? Either he doesn't know what to demand or he just doesn't care anymore. And the results are obvious.
Macs have the same basic hardware (Intel CPU, etc) as a normal PC. Slightly higher end with some additional styling, but nowhere near the price they are charging.
The "problem" is that Apple has holes in its product lineup. You can get a cheap, thick PC laptop with a low-end processor, integrated graphics and a regular Li-ion battery for $500 or less. But if you want a PC laptop that's thin and light, with a fast Core 2 Duo, dedicated graphics, and a Li-poly battery then all of a sudden Apple's prices become quite competitive with the nicer Sony VAIOs etc.
Same thing with the Mac Mini. While you can buy a completely workable desktop PC for under $250 these days, try to find an (extremely) small-form-factor PC that's almost silent with a Core 2 Duo, integrated WiFi, DVD burner, and digital audio/video out that can be used as a great HTPC--you're going to end up paying $300+ more than the $599 Mac Mini, easy.
So, if you're primarily concerned with processor speed and amount of memory then you can save yourself a ton of money by buying a PC, and it will probably be fairly high quality and serve you well. But if you're in the market for something more comparable to what Apple sells, I think you'll find Apple's prices are quite competitive and sometimes actually kind of a bargain.
I think the Cult culture in Microsoft runs deep. Having worked at E&D division (Xbox) I was shocked to see how incompetent and corrupt are some of the directors and senior level engineers. I won't be surprised if the Xbox program will go through another major hickup given the poor management skills of the people at the helm of Reliability.
"Have anybody tried Dev10? I installed Beta2 on my VM recently.
After hours of installing, It is practically unusable (extremely slow and memory usage is high even for a simple WPF project)."
+1
In my team we had people literally screaming and swearing all the time when using it. Productivity dropped to really bad levels before they decided to let us use Dev9 by providing some kind of inter-compatibility.
What sucks is that once you switch to Dev10 there is no easy going back. You are pretty much committed to the devil. I had to work through bad performance and innumerable crashes. Their Beta2 is *much* better than their Beta1 which kind of gives you an idea how bad Beta1 was!
They are nowhere near Beta quality IMO. And considering that they are planning to RC this by Jan, MS can be assured of a lot of egg on its face when Dev10 comes out.
Thankfully people will be able to work with .Net 4.0 with Dev9.(what I've heard and hope its true(!))
Carots and sticks don't work to stimulate innovation, brilliant speech about intrinsic motivation versus punishments and rewards (ie performance review) http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
If the company is ran by a choking bureaucratic system innovation will not bubble up. Guess what companies are applying the wisdom from this video clip....
>http://windowsphonethoughts.com/news/show/95970/mobius-2009-fascinating-but-little-that-can-be-shared.html
I wonder how many people are giving up their iPhones and iPods to use their "free" Zunes & HTC Touch phones?
The picture is also worth a look. The number of open Apple MacBook Pros among the most loyal external MSFT supporters should scare the sh*t out of SteveB.
>>It is a common fact of life within many Microsoft product groups that products are shipped as soon as a minimal level of "acceptable" quality, as deemed by management, has been attained.
This is true for nearly all software. Microsoft's problem is the take forever to ship fixes found using their "telemetry" (ie. Windows Error Reporting). After fed-up customers defect, they finally ship Service Pack 1. And there's another round of defections before Service Pack 2 ships. Apple's software starts out no better, but they seem to iterate on bug fixes much faster than Microsoft.
> Have anybody tried Dev10? I installed Beta2 on my VM recently. After hours of installing, It is practically unusable (extremely slow and memory usage is high even for a simple WPF project).
It's got huge chunks rewritten from scratch in managed and WPF, when old code was C++/ATL and, for the most-part, UI hand-coded against Win32 API - what exactly did you expect out of that? Of course memory usage shot through the roof right away, and not to make it any faster.
Macs have the same basic hardware (Intel CPU, etc) as a normal PC. Slightly higher end with some additional styling, but nowhere near the price they are charging. Apple charges approximately 2x the real cost of the hardware. Nice juicy margins.
Until I see direct comparisons proving your point, I'm not convinced. Again, I have done the comparisons, and Apple is always competitive, sometimes slightly better, sometimes slightly worse.
The main difference is that MacOS is locked in such a way that it refuses to install on anything other than Mac hardware, even if the hardware is perfectly capable.
This is trivial to circumvent. Those who would actually want to run Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware are in no real way prevented from doing so. Those same people know better than to run to Apple asking for help if they have trouble.
You can see from the recent court cases that Apple is scared of anyone who might figure out how to run MacOS on a PC.
I don't think Apple is "scared" of Mac OS X running on non-Apple hardware. I'm sure, however, that they don't want to deal with casual customers who bought a Psystar hackintosh and then think they can call Apple and expect help when something doesn't work.
It's abundantly clear that both Apple and their customers benefit from the tight integration between the hardware and Mac OS X.
Apple is running on all cylinders right now. It's obvious that their business model is, for the most part, quite successful. I see everyone from hard-core alpha geeks to casual home users choosing Apple hardware running Mac OS X.
Again, the thrust of your argument is that Apple is successful because their customers are stupid.
Did you ever stop to think that Apple might be successful because there really is a solid value proposition to the products they offer?
Look -- when you tell a company of 90,000+ people from many different backgrounds that in order to get their free, home-use copy of our flagship product they need to somehow make it through the above series of unintelligible-by-regular-human steps, YOU FAIL.
Did you miss the part where you work at a technology company? I don't care what your background is, I don't care what your role is, if you're not tech-savvy enough to follow directions and work with a computer, you shouldn't be working at a software company in the first place.
Name me 3 categories of full-time employees - people who are part of the yearly review process - who can't follow directions to copy or burn a file in a certain format to media and then use that to install the OS.
So what's up with all the lockdown stuff from Windows and Office teams??
You can't get jack squat without jumping through hugely complex Sharepoint systems for permissions. Even to get just a simple stupid spec.
This is the heart of Sinofsky's "translucency" policy. It's the end of the world if a date or detail about something leaks.
We have to control the message because when we miss our dates we look like schmucks, and when people know about our next release's details 18 months in advance, people are bored with it (or finding something better) by the time we finally release.
Headtrax says # of people is down only ~450 since Nov 3rd. What gives?
Beating a dead horse, but I can't believe I found more expensive internal marketing crap in my mailslot today. "Are you Project 2010 ready!" Oh yah, I'm going to put THAT sticker on my laptop... This benefits the company how, exactly?
Got something like this at your group?
read on ..
http : // msn. careerbuilder. com/Article/MSN-625-Workplace-Issues-Six-Ways-to-Thwart-a-Backstabber-at-Work / ?sc_extcmp=JS_625_advice&SiteId= cbmsn4625&ArticleID=625>1=23000&cbRecursionCnt= 1&cbsid=be39de3ebbcf42e3b1ff28e3383bc700-312312858-VK-4
Kind of funny to hear of so many "great" people at Microsoft that nobody knows about, until they leave or get fired. Meanwhile, a lot of really good workers sweat anonymously...
Luckily, a lot of these people are just like the grasshoppers of "A Bug's Life": They come, they eat, they leave. Hope the good engineers keep focus while Microsoft goes through this small storm. And hope that all grasshoppers leave...
It's got huge chunks rewritten from scratch in managed and WPF, when old code was C++/ATL and, for the most-part, UI hand-coded against Win32 API - what exactly did you expect out of that? Of course memory usage shot through the roof right away, and not to make it any faster.
Monday, November 23, 2009 12:04:00 AM
What the user is supposed to do with it then? Just to look how shinny it is? Can MSFT release a dependable development tool; not something that would crash consistently.
>Another news from WinMo. Brian Arbogast, the CVP in the mobile service group willt take a 6 months personal time off.
All his current report/group will report to Terry.
It is so surprise that he chose now as a good time for such a long break. Isn't WinMo7 is around the corner. I figured that he was kicked out. But I don't have any internal source. Anyone can sense sth?
----------------
Yes, you bet Brian was "forced" out. Inside E&D, the doubt about his "mobile servie" group has been sky high.
Ironically, the biggest group under Brian named sky* team. Brian spend over $1B to build that group from scratch. They are proud that they could hire 120+ without deliver anything. Most ridiculous is that they spend millions US$ to buy a crap European startup for a crap service now named "MyPhone".
It is so funny that MS start their marketing by "Do you love your phone, I love MyPhone".
WTF, I love my iphone. MyPhone is just another MS crap build by a group of portugue dump.
Check out the customer forum
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/MyPhone/threads/
It is nothing but crap. No wonder Terry decided to let every winmo feature team to build their own sync store.
I dare anyone to try and tell me the above isn't a pile of crap. Would love to hear my fellow Microsofties justify why this is an acceptable solution for any regular person who wants to install Windows 7.
Note: the content in this link is actually *better* than the one sent out internally. The mind boggles.
And well it should. Welcome to the world of every single piece of Microsoft documentation available. I have been using Microsoft products for nearly twenty years and I can't even begin to describe the infuriating, insulting hell I must endure every single time I try to use Microsoft documentation, either through built-in help systems or (far worse) through the website.
I have become convinced that some rogue coder at microsoft.com has introduced a hidden back-end script designed to ensure that the most obscure, least relevant hits come up first whenever I search for anything there. It's not (nearly) as hard to find cogent, succent answers to questions through Google, which leads directly to forums where users are tearing their hair out and gnashing their teeth trying to make sense of the garbled, convoluted language Microsoft provides (which the quoted sample is a perfect example of).
There has never been any improvement in this area, despite many, many website overhauls (and an intrusive user-feedback system constantly asking if the page in question was "helpful"). As with the ISO burning example, I think Microsoft's writers are so far inside the big nested venn diagram that they can't even begin to generate simple, intelligible language explaining how the systems work.
Look, I'm not saying that Apple customers aren't stupid, it's just good old fashioned market segmentation. Some people care more about price, some people care more about exact feature combinations, brands, etc.
Look at any of the premium car brands... are you really getting the best horsepower/$? Same for clothing, $/square inch for Gucci isn't that great, but that's not what their customers care about. Are they getting ripped off? Not really. If you told them that the same factory that made their Gucci jeans also made Old Navy, they'd have a bit of cognitive dissonanse, but they'd get over it.
The fact that Apple charges signficantly more than anyone else is obvious if you look at the margins in their financial statements, and that's why investor love 'em.
It's also one of the question that many people have about Apple's continued ability to expand their market share. Can everyone be a premium customer? Or does it dilute their brand to the point where it puts too much pressure on their margins?
For all of you claiming that we cannot expect everyone to understand how to burn an ISO image onto DVD, how do you expect someone unable to complete this simple task to install an operating system on a computer?
Microsoft's problem is the take forever to ship fixes found using their "telemetry" (ie. Windows Error Reporting). ... Apple's software starts out no better, but they seem to iterate on bug fixes much faster than Microsoft.
Stability is a concern but there are also issues with functionality and usability. How many times have you been in meetings with management or PMs and brought up a scenario only to get waved off with "only a power user would want to do that" or "that would only happen in rare situations" or "regular users shouldn't be doing that" or "if a user gets to this point, he'll know what's wrong already."
No PM or manager will ever admit it but the clear implication is that Microsoft does not design software for "power users" or anybody who wants to do anything slightly atypical. And if you, as a user, DO find yourself in an unusual situation, good luck.
Apple, on the other hand, makes software (OS X) for regular users AND power users, and puts in the effort to make sure their user interfaces support all scenarios effectively.
As a perfect example, consider this whole Win7 ISO-burning thread. Burning an ISO with Disk Utility in OS X is pretty easy. No problem if the media is RW and needs to be erased, and the burn gets verified automatically. A beginner might not be able to find the feature on his own, but I would have no qualms guiding my mother through the process. This kind of "power user" stuff doesn't HAVE to be difficult or complicated.
The problem with Microsoft are not fixable without something dramatic and ballsy. The virus has already spread. The amount of incompetency that has entered the system cannot be undone. The averagers that like politiking win over the above averagers that just want to do the right things the right way.
The truth is that Microsoft has brilliant engineers - it doesn't have people to steer them to do great things. A huge waste of human potential to the point it's criminal. Someone please help them succeed.
If the company is ran by a choking bureaucratic system innovation will not bubble up
>
Office Labs comes to the rescue. Led by a great visionary who is a combination of Sinofsky and Ballmer. He knows how to talk and how to think. Office Labs has the best talent in Office. He shows Microsoft how to innovate.
I worked at msIndia till few months back before I moved to the capital city, but I care because I am a shareholder.
I saw that cuts in msIndia focused on lower levels. There are so many 68 & above in msIndia who shouldn't be there, that it is not funny. Most of them can not show any real achievements in any year. All they do is spend time in Redmond and hide their real work. Sad culture. Senior execs need to take notice, but do they have time?
Name me 3 categories of full-time employees - people who are part of the yearly review process - who can't follow directions to copy or burn a file in a certain format to media and then use that to install the OS.
==================================
I can't give you three general categories, but I know of at least one GM in Marketing who had no idea how to order an external harddrive from MSMarket, and then set up automatic backups from Vista.
In general, most people in that group went over to the Tech Help concierge desk to get their work machines upgraded to Windows 7 during Beta and RC.
I am not confident that they can burn an image and upgrade their home PC.
Headtrax says # of people is down only ~450 since Nov 3rd. What gives?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I can't speak to Headtrax, but in Washington state, you are not considered "laid off" until you are off the payroll. And also, by law, if you are laid off, you are on the payroll for 60 days. So "officially," you are not laid off until early January, even if you got the bad news on November 3.
So the numbers in Headtrax may only reflect those heads in other states or countries which does not have those protections. Check again in January.
"But if you're in the market for something more comparable to what Apple sells, I think you'll find Apple's prices are quite competitive and sometimes actually kind of a bargain."
That is the key. The reason people love their Apple machines is Apple only lets their OS be run on a decent machine (theirs). MS on the other hand, still allows any crappy computer manufacturer to crank out a piece of sh*!. Its cheap, people take it home and then bitch about how crappy their MS Windows machine is.
I had heard at one time that MS was actually going to work with top three manufacturers for a special-classified machine they can market - but I haven't heard. (Not the ill-designed "Vista Approved").
Basically, MS seems content to be the Walmart of OS providers - selling to the lowest common denominator. Apple sets their bar higher, selling fewer OS's, but I think resulting in better customer satisfaction and brand loyality.
@I think the Cult culture in Microsoft runs deep. Having worked at E&D division (Xbox) I was shocked to see how incompetent and corrupt are some of the directors and senior level engineers.
To console you, EXD-LPO,MSIT, India is also one of most corrupt group..... so don't worry Microsoft is going to suffer more in near future due to these stupid managers and principal dev manager.
"Why isn't BillG asking fundamental questions about the way OSD operates and about the (in)efficiencies in the systems?"
Bill won't even be shareholder in six years, assuming he keeps selling as he has. He checked out long before he made it official.
Sorry to see Liddell go. He was the only person on SLT that seemed to actually care about accountability and fiscal discipline.
I think in a recent comment somebody here mentioned that Chris Liddel had put his house on the market, signaling a possible departure. Well, it's official.
In his statement he claims he is "delighted to be leaving the company in such great shape".
Those people have no shame.
Okay Mini. That must be the answer to everyone's question as to which executive received the glaring 10%? About 2 months ago I left a comment that included a question about Chris Liddel's home appearing to be for sale which begged the question "Where is he going?" Chris had only been at MS 3years before it appeared he listed the property, and I noted its list price being under purchase price, so he was either planning to leave or he was already making plans to upgrade - which didn't quite make sense? Then when executive bonuses were handed out, I noted CL received a very small amount when compared to RB or bKT. So one might wonder "Why?". For about the last year it appears Chris has been looking to move on, literally, and today it was confirmed.
But, not to worry about any investment loss for Microsoft's CFO. We'll probably see the house sale loss being made up in severance pay.
"Did you miss the part where you work at a technology company? I don't care what your background is, I don't care what your role is, if you're not tech-savvy enough to follow directions and work with a computer, you shouldn't be working at a software company in the first place."
Amen Brother/Sister!!!
I think this was exactly what the OP was attempting to say! Agree 100 percent!
"I dare anyone to try and tell me the above isn't a pile of crap. Would love to hear my fellow Microsofties justify why this is an acceptable solution for any regular person who wants to install Windows 7.
Note: the content in this link is actually *better* than the one sent out internally. The mind boggles."
And your point is... what?
It's like what someone said earlier, you really shouldn't be working for a tech company.
why do we keep losing top talents?
Jawad, DebraC, Bill veigh, Ben Fathi, Alexgo, Rebecca, now Chris? heard mez is also leaving, sigh!
To the folks bagging on Don Dodge:
This was just a high profile "defection", and no doubt he will have an impact. But have you considered that there are many more invisible "Don Dodge's" who did not have such a high profile? But in our own small little way we are having some decent impact too.
I wasn't laid off, but the toxicity turned me off the vision. Bitter? You bet. And now I stick it to you every single day.
I've already cost MSFT much more than the last manager screwed me out of bonus to keep her stack ranked minions happy when she knew I was planning on leaving her team. And more importantly, I am helping the next generation adopt a different platform. Revenge is best served cold, and mine is icy.
That is the key. The reason people love their Apple machines is Apple only lets their OS be run on a decent machine (theirs). MS on the other hand, still allows any crappy computer manufacturer to crank out a piece of sh*!. Its cheap, people take it home and then bitch about how crappy their MS Windows machine is.
OP here. I agree that Apple customers in general are probably very happy with their computers since they're unique and in many ways better than typical PCs. On the other hand, I disagree that typical PCs are pieces of s***. Just because a laptop is thick and plasticy doesn't mean it's necessarily slow, unreliable, or bad.
Most of the crappy user experience with a new PC is not due to the hardware (no matter how cheap it is) but due to the crapware manufacturers install. Even if you take crapware as a given, Microsoft doesn't do users any favors to enable easy removal. How many average-Joe users know about Add/Remove Programs and how many of them have the courage to go in and start removing stuff? That whole user experience hasn't really seen any substantial improvement since Windows 95.
why do we keep losing top talents?
Jawad, DebraC, Bill veigh, Ben Fathi, Alexgo, Rebecca, now Chris? heard mez is also leaving, sigh!
I love fresh sarcasm in the morning. :)
Office Labs has the best talent in Office.
When is this group getting cut?
"I worked at msIndia till few months back "
Do you mean IDC? Then I agree. Very low impact from these high level people.
Did you miss the part where you work at a technology company? I don't care what your background is, I don't care what your role is, if you're not tech-savvy enough to follow directions and work with a computer, you shouldn't be working at a software company in the first place.
Amen Brother/Sister!!!
I think this was exactly what the OP was attempting to say! Agree 100 percent!
And this is why you fail - people should be hired for their expertise, and all successful businesses need some non-technical individuals to perform activities that are business related: Sales, Marketing and HR are just a few, and how silly would it be to have a developer run HR. These people will be denied Win7, and your comments appear to indicate that you do not care about them.
That being said, in my opinion the biggest reason for Microsoft's failures are the MBA's running around product development groups. There is a time a place for business managers, but core technology development is not one of them: 'one moment please while I run this spec by the bean counter...'. I noticed this trend back in 2000 when job descriptions started with 'MBA preferred' and led to 'MBA required', along with a whole separate career web site for MBA (not sure if this still exists).
People should be hired and allowed to do the jobs they are great at. Unfortunately all too often our review systems requires us to work on crap that detracts from what we are hired to do and work on activities that may or may not apply to our group's core objectives (this depends on what your manager's priorities are, another pitfall in the overall structure).
> Office Labs has the best talent in Office
You got it right. Steal our ideas. Repackage them. Sell them back to us. Claim victory. Way to go.
WPF, formerly known as Avalon, was removed as a functional part of the operating systems and given to DevDiv because its performance was insufficient to drive desktop UI requirements of the OS.
Now, DevDiv is using WPF as the basic UI engine for VS2010. WPF's performance hasn't gotten much better, so it is certainly reasonable to expect that the UI performance of VS2010 will also suck, since it is based on WPF.
You Microsoft people will never learn. Basing your core offerings on managed code means poor performance, whether it is based on .Net or Java. This is true on the desktop and it is true in mobile.
"Managed" code is great for the web. It sucks for everything else.
The best option for code development on the Microsoft stack will now either be VS2008, or just the command line compilers of VS2010 backed by a decent code editor like Source Insight.
PMs, Powerpoint presentations, and marketing statements don't produce fast and functional code.
The interface of VS2008 was fine. I want better debugging, better documentation, better Intellisense support, faster code generation, and a much better .Net Interop story, but you people are wasting your time building WPF fairy castle interfaces that work like crap.
Get a clue.
Monday, November 23, 2009 12:04:00 AM
What the user is supposed to do with it then? Just to look how shinny it is? Can MSFT release a dependable development tool; not something that would crash consistently.
==
Have you even tried playing with eclipse :) go for it.
>> mez is also leaving
That's as official as it can be at this point. I wouldn't call him "top talent" though. He's a likable dude, fairly smart, just not a "top" guy in any sense of the word. He sure would like to play one on TV, though. Same applies to Veghte. Don't know about others you've listed.
Chris Liddell resigning is a bad news for this blog's stated goals. He asked for the removal of another 4K head heading into next year as a condition of staying with us.
Don't get me started on the MBA preferred trend of late. We're stuck with an ex-military 'my way or the highway' MBA slave driver in a support organization. She has no idea what the dynamics of a support org should be or a 'passion for technology' that we're all required to have. Of course, none of us (in this org) are ever going to rise through the ranks to this position by working our butts off (or even to a regular manager).
@EXD-LPO,MSIT, India is also one of most corrupt group.....
Microsoft is not realizing the fact that few idiots making the Org as Third class. The Principal Dev Manager in EXD-LPO from HCL will make this place complete HCL.
A BIG Q mark on LPO Hiring...??? How these many people came from One org only and also to the same group.
Office Labs comes to the rescue. Led by a great visionary who is a combination of Sinofsky and Ballmer. He knows how to talk and how to think. Office Labs has the best talent in Office. He shows Microsoft how to innovate.
Only if your idea of innovation consists of putting together nonsensical unpolished prototypes that seek to radically change - rather than enhance - our customer's existing work habits.
"For about the last year it appears Chris has been looking to move on, literally, and today it was confirmed."
Do you blame him? For four years he has been the buffer between concerned investors and a CEO who doesn't give a shit about them. Over this last year, he worked his ass off taking billions out of the company's bloated cost structure. A thankless task given that it also required layoffs, but something that made the company stronger (thereby preserving future jobs) and saved shareholders tens of billions in additional share declines. His reward? $3.5 million. Bach spent another year accomplishing little and made over $6 million. How motivated would you be by a reward system that screwed up?
> Office Labs has the best talent in Office
If that is true I am more depressed than I was previously. I looked at the internal Office Labs page...there isn't anything on there that is even remotely interesting, though they have managed to 'get my social group' involved in everything!! Because, you know...that social networking thing is SUPER useful!! Let's put it in everything!! Innovation!!
I wasn't laid off, but the toxicity turned me off the vision. Bitter? You bet. And now I stick it to you every single day...And more importantly, I am helping the next generation adopt a different platform. Revenge is best served cold, and mine is icy.
Oh man, you're an angry dude. Eat some guacamole, your liver will thank you, seriously. And please don't drive while being that angry !
>Revenge is best served cold, and mine is icy.
LOL, a Star Trek quote, no less! Priceless.
I doubt your former coworkers even know about your "revenge" and would probably just shake their heads in amusement if you went out of your way to tell them.
Office Labs comes to the rescue. Led by a great visionary who is a combination of Sinofsky and Ballmer. He knows how to talk and how to think. Office Labs has the best talent in Office. He shows Microsoft how to innovate.
He .. He ..
All we see so far is Plex Glass in Videos.. Great vision.
Where are the products ?
And this is why you fail - people should be hired for their expertise, and all successful businesses need some non-technical individuals to perform activities that are business related: Sales, Marketing and HR are just a few, and how silly would it be to have a developer run HR.
=======
It is obvious that the whole point of this thread has gone way over your head. I would expect and demand a Sales, HR or an Admin. to be able to follow step by step instructions. If anyone can't do that, it kinda shoots a hole in their Credibility don't ya think?!
It's not about being technical... It's about how well one thinks.
I am thankful I don't work for Microsoft anymore.
-That being said, in my opinion the biggest reason for Microsoft's failures are the MBA's running around -
The USA as a whole is totally overmanaged.... More layers, more communication, more confusion... less results! It's gotten out of control.
Only companies with market share inertia can afford this amount of distraction.
I am a "non-technical" employee and I burned my copy of Win 7 last week. I just followed the directions. It was very easy.
I also upgraded my OS on my own.
Just sayin...
> Office Labs has the best talent in Office
You got it right. Steal our ideas. Repackage them. Sell them back to us. Claim victory. Way to go.
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Welcome to MS ..
then a) try to treat x-team like external companies to protect and execute ...
then b) get penalized by someone crying up the food chain or to your food chain for non-support
WHat you have is a bunch of cry-asses due to the poor matrixed model we are sadly asked to take on. Look at MSD or groups like SE for some good examples of this
Go on SteveSi .. isolate windows from the rest of things to protect it .. this is a good thing.
>>I saw that cuts in msIndia focused on lower levels. There are so many 68 & above in msIndia who shouldn't be there, that it is not funny. Most of them can not show any real achievements in any year.
No doubt. IDC leadership continues to be a useless bunch that has completely forgotten how to lead. Activity is often mistaken for innovation. Hopefully Srini will be shown the door soon.
It is sad to see so many people leaving or good people fired... joined MSIT India feeling proud to be part of MS family... but it turned out to be just another TCS or Wipro in disguise... MSIT is bunch of political guys running the show with self appreciation society... SLT needs to objectively look at these people and remove the garbage... the comments about BICOE or BGCOE or E&D are revealing... all these group managers do is try to use their favorite quote "should make your manager successful.." to explan nepotism and favortism and building their small empires. I know bunch of people who were fired or made uncomfortable to leave since they had the courage to speak against this self-proclaimed "know-it-all" corporate suckers... will join MS again when these guys are out and MS is lean and mean machine.
Wow... so the idiocy with the ISO thing (an INTERNAL ISSUE) *still* hasnt abated?
Dear god.
Apple has it right, right?
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060619181010389
Well thats interesting.
Fact is, there will ALWAYS be people who find something "hard". Period.
Im a bigger MSFT basher than many people I know OUTSIDE MSFT, but some of the stuff here really just descends into idiocy.
Any NORMAL person *outside of an employee* is going to buy a DVD and put it in. Or they're going to buy a PC with the OS.
I'd like someone to explain how we descend into the ridiculous scenario of a "mom and pop" user who somehow needs to burn an ISO to install an OS.
This isnt an "epic fail". Its an "epic fail" at looking for yet ANOTHER Thing to bitch about.
There are PLENTY of legit things. This thing is moronic.
In Win 7, its EASIER than OSX.
In Vista, it was a LEFT OUT feature but was available as a 3rd party (FREE) tool or as a power toy.
Either way... a MICROSOFT EMPLOYEE who SOMEHOW avoided the INTERNAL WINDOWS 7 IMAGE... and also NEVER INSTALLED THE POWER TOY ON VISTA. And yet STILL needs to burn the ISO so they can get their free home use copy can CALL THE HELP DESK.
The Help Desk will then tell you "click on the ISO and click burn". At which point you will have to explain just HOW IT IS YOU AVOIDED THE WIN7 DEPLOYMENT which was ALSO BRAINLESS since you could get the Help Desk or IT to help you.
If you have a good explanation, they're probably point you to the Power Toy which is NOT HARD.
Do ANY of you people USE a friggin Mac?
I use TWO regularly and have used them since the Mac 512.
You people here make it seem like the Mac is the friggin Star Trek ENterprise computer where even a drooling retard can solve complex physics problems by just gently talking to his machine.
I've had PLENTY of "WTF?" moments on the Mac over the years. Try visiting a damn Mac forum when there is NO MAC VS WINDOWS PISSING CONTEST HAPPENING and have a freakin look.
The Apple hardware argument is idiotic and tired already.
I buy/build PCs and (obviously) buy Macs.
Yes, if you insisted you had to buy or build a XEON system with its extremely expensive FBDIMMs, then sure, it would cost probably nearly what a Mac costs. Of course you'd still have your choice of case, but you might have to settle for a slightly different CPU since Apple tends to get away with "exclusives" from Intel for a period of time.
Either way, if you do a true direct comparo, Apple hardware isnt *too* bad.
The problem is that 90% of the population doesnt *want* that hardware (hence the market share)
They want normal RAM in a Core i7 (not FB in a Xeon) and they want to divert the funds to an insane video card (something Apple CONTINUES to not offer)
Mac people spend 90% of their time justifying why none of this matters and getting upset when people point it out.
I know many hardcore PC folks who went the Mac route either b/c they're deranged, love that case (design going on nearly a decade with no change at this point) or just need to be different.
They ended up spending a lot of money to get the power supply and video subsystem up to what they need. A LOT more than a built system and a good bit more than a bought system from a boutique builder.
And thats the other problem. A the high end, Apple isnt competing with the "crap PCs". They're competing with the workstations, build it yourselfers, or with the boutique guys. They dont do so well there.
The Mac Pro has negligible share.
Their share all comes from their notebooks. I'd argue that this is more fashion than anything else. And also the sheep like behavior of people.
I've always owned Vaios or Asian notebooks that didnt make it to the US. As a result, I havent carried a notebook over 4 lbs since 2000. And Ive never carried one WITHOUT an optical drive or without at least 5 hrs + battery life.
If you compare Apple Powerbooks against the cheapest POS Dell or HP, sure, they look cool. Compare them against the best/coolest from Japan or the high end Vaios. Less cool.
The bloat is certainly an issue, but a clean build is enough to take care of that and the bloat IS subsidizing the cost of the PC and keeping it lower than the Mac. I feel manufacturers should just offer a "no bloat" option that is $50 more. Some are starting to do this.
End of the day, MANY people buy the Macbook for the same reason they buy the iPhone - because thats what "the cool people use"
I think the iPhone has a FAR better differentiation story than their PCs. I think thats why the iPhone growth (like the iPod) is EXPLOSIVE while their PC growth *is not*
If you are an Apple fan (I am) just f-ing deal with it and drop the BS already.
I have a G5 Mac Pro dual, a G4 dual (AGP/GigE) and a PowerBook 180 relic sitting right here. I had an Air and unloaded it b/c it was a POS and gigantic next to my Vaio Z (which fits in a very small carry on and is a HELL of a lot more functional) So I am no "PC bigot".
And lets not even get into the fact that the entire Linux community falls into the "PC camp" as well.
Hardware for hardware, Apple is giving you less choice and charging a tax. There is a hack to put ANYTHING on ANYTHING. Its amusing that on a page where people are complaing about HOW HARD IT IS FOR MSFT EMPLOYEES TO BURN AN ISO... And how much of a FAIL THAT IS... And how AMAZING Apple is for making it SO easy (even though it actually isnt THAT easy)... People are now saying that installing OSX on a PC should be counted as a VALID OPTION because some insanely arcane hack exists (the whole process of which requires you understanding the difference between legacy BIOS and EFI *just to start*)
How deep can the idiocy go really?
>> "Managed" code is great for the web. It sucks for everything else.
You're talking out of your ass. The failings of WPF have nothing to do with it having been written in managed code. They have to do with massive overengineering and building a huge pile of crap that nobody wanted and that's impossible to learn or predict performance characteristics of.
I could agree with you that it's stupid when a core UI framework of an OS can not be programmed with native code. Whoever has made that decision needs to be taken outside and shot in the head. But a properly engineered .NET app can run no slower (on average) than anything unmanaged.
I have completed 20 months in my current role and have started doing "informationals". Before I had completed my 18 months, I had broached the topic of exploring other options at Microsoft with my boss. With a half-grin and a wicked accent, he said, "I aint' letting you go anywhere, we need you here". His love (sic) has always been suffocating and I want to leave his org. Now that I am past the official HR "18 month" rule, can he stop me? I understand I need to inform him about my plans to interview. If I get the offer, can he still block me?
AdCenter is not fixed yet.
The biggest mistake Alexgo made, was to rely on the same of middle layer managers principals and parnters of adcenter, Sachind, Nitinc plus their inner circle, those who got the battlefield promotion from L60 to L68+ year after year, to execute.
We are still seeing the same group in charge. This group will make any initiatives work for themselves only, regardless of what the initiative is about.
We have seen feature team, convergence, NSAT, Test team or not..., all these ended up doing was to be used as tools by these group of managers to find themes to get themsevles promoted every 6 months or 12 months, meanwhile creating more chaos and confusions all over the place.
Most of the principal level guys promoted in AdCenter are ridiculously clueless. To name a few, Gopal Madhavan, Karl Reese, Nitinc, Sachind, the list goes on.
As long as these people are there, adcenter will remain chaotic.
"Chris Liddell resigning is a bad news for this blog's stated goals. He asked for the removal of another 4K head heading into next year as a condition of staying with us."
LOL
And your source is...?
Ridiculous.
Chris Liddell resigning is a bad news for this blog's stated goals. He asked for the removal of another 4K head heading into next year as a condition of staying with us.
If it was another round of layoffs where experienced ICs who know how to get stuff done get the boot while moronic managers of managers keep playing their useless games, it's probably a good thing that the plan didn't get the go-ahead.
As for Liddel, good riddance. The guy never did anything that led me to believe he has any special talents. There are probably hundreds out there able to do his job at least as well as he did. And that goes for most upper managers at Microsoft.
"And this is why you fail - people should be hired for their expertise, and all successful businesses need some non-technical individuals to perform activities that are business related: Sales, Marketing and HR are just a few, and how silly would it be to have a developer run HR."
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It is obvious that the whole point of this thread has gone way over your head. I would expect and demand a Sales, HR or an Admin. to be able to follow step by step instructions. If anyone can't do that, it kinda shoots a hole in their Credibility don't ya think?!
No my friend, it's obvious that *you* missed the whole point of this thread.
It's not about burning an ISO, it's about a link that went out to a "here's how you can get your Win 7 for home use" that was absolutely unintelligible -- it's 6 pages long, filled with unreadable directions that make no sense, and nobody who isn't fairly technical will be able to make sense of it.
We need to look at how this kind of rollout is handled internally to understand our failings when it comes to everything from marketing our products to creating elegant interfaces that people love to creating help content that makes sense... the internal rollout of Win7 was a clusterfuck when it could have been elegant and simple.
We need to learn lessons about "elegant and simple" -- year after year, we just keep proving that we don't get it... mainly because we have arrogant geeks who say "any smart person like me can do it, so that's good enough for the likes of the rest of you."
The PhDs of Google (who are likely more technical than you) do not think like this, nor do the design minds of Apple. Ponder this as we continue to lose market share, but do please continue to feel righteous about calling people stupid who will not burn ISOs in 2009.
>Now that I am past the official
>HR "18 month" rule, can he stop
>me? I understand I need to inform
>him about my plans to interview.
>If I get the offer, can he still
> block me?
Yes, he can delay your transfer for several month if there is a business need (usually requires your VP approval).
It was NOT wise to let your manager know I am thinking about moving without going through unofficial interview loop and getting unofficial offer from another group.
You may just painted yourself into 10% corner. Unless your manager is a very decent person :-)
Think from your manager's prospective - why invest any budgeted resources (stock, promo budget) and his political capital fighting for you (who are leaving) instead of another guy who is happy and would stay? Especially now when promo budget is 1/2 of what it used to be...
Stop looking at HR policies - think and be wise!
Right on! I worked in windows for 10+ years before coming to chaoscenter (adcenter). This post sums it up very well.
We have seen feature team, convergence, NSAT, Test team or not..., all these ended up doing was to be used as tools by these group of managers to find themes to get themsevles promoted every 6 months or 12 months, meanwhile creating more chaos and confusions all over the place.
Most of the principal level guys promoted in AdCenter are ridiculously clueless. To name a few, Gopal Madhavan, Karl Reese, Nitinc, Sachind, the list goes on.
As long as these people are there, adcenter will remain chaotic.
Now that I am past the official HR "18 month" rule, can he stop me? I understand I need to inform him about my plans to interview. If I get the offer, can he still block me?
--
technically if they play the a) core to business / delivery yes ... but i assume b) they are starting to market you down so find an exit while you can or your doomed if he can prove you to be on PIP .
mich did this to a few people.
@EXD-LPO,MSIT, India is also one of most corrupt g...
26 November 2009, 23:26:36 | noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous)
@EXD-LPO,MSIT, India is also one of most corrupt group.....
Microsoft is not realizing the fact that few idiots making the Org as Third class. The Principal Dev Manager in EXD-LPO from HCL will make this place complete HCL.
A BIG Q mark on LPO Hiring...??? How these many people came from One org only and also to the same group
Hi Mini,
Can you kick off a new section on the secret Yahoo takeover of Microsoft? As we bet the house on Azure and create our Global CDN model to tie into our massive data centers why the hell are we hiring external Executives from Yahoo? Think of it this way, they failed to keep that business in growth while at Yahoo so what do they bring to the table at Microsoft? Should we prepare for our business to follow the Yahoo model?
On the same note, as the Yahoo executives come into Microsoft on their massive 5 Year "stock for nothing" deals, we see the departure of the Chapraty and Manos mindset. Neither is a loss to the company, one played on their minority aspects a little too much and was technically stupid, good luck to Cisco on that one. The other was only interested in making a name in the press, getting a wad of easy money and trying to climb the ladder in Microsoft. Several billion dollars later and we are no better off, they wasted billions on data centers and Microsoft is still trying to get over that one.
At least we can sit back and know that Azure is in the capable hands on someone who allowed the previous 2 honorable mentions to develop a data center solution for Microsoft that will take a long time to fit into the overall internet plan.
The following Apple Store electronic watercooler thread was an interesting read:
Store discord may result in employee walk-out
The thread above talks about Alderwood Mall (it's in Lynnwood, which is near Redmond, for the non-local readers) Apple store workers' discontent over some management issue.
So whatever sweetness and light there may be at Apple, it's not entirely a workers paradise. Some of what they describe happening in Apple retail environments is not that different from what posters have reported happening in engineering and customer-facing departments at MS.
Bad management can happen anywhere.
> Thankfully people will be able to work with .Net 4.0 with Dev9.(what I've heard and hope its true(!))
It's not. You can't even debug .NET 4 with Dev9 anymore.
"For about the last year it appears Chris has been looking to move on, literally, and today it was confirmed." -- "Do you blame him?"
Not at all.
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