Thursday, October 28, 2010

Microsoft FY11Q1 Results

How about some FY11Q1 Microsoft earnings!

My usual suspects for earnings discussion:

Once more, with feeling.

I expect that we'll have yet another break-out quarter, a better idea that Kinect is poised to be a great seller for the holidays (sell-out pre-orders and screaming Oprah audiences can't be too wrong), and some glow from reasonable WP7 reviews (oh, and yes, we all realize that it doesn't have copy and paste - and yet the apocalypse will not arrive).

So this seems like a do-over with more good news from the last quarter. Will Wall Street react with the same "Meh?"

An interesting pre-earnings release article: Sleepy in Seattle - Microsoft learns to mature.

Again, not much love for Mr. Ballmer. So, since the last quarterly earnings, Ms. Friar at Goldman Sachs dropped a bomb on Microsoft and there's been serious concern that Mr. Ballmer is clearing the executive bench at Microsoft. Or is it cleaning house? Since we're unable to criticize any mistakes our departed leaders have made, it remains a big unknown.

iPad, iPad, iPad!

Once it was "Google, Google, Google." Now it's Apple's iPad meant to be Microsoft's undoing. First of all, major props to Apple's continued success. It's been a long journey for Steve Jobs and Apple - especially for those of us who read The Journey is the Reward back when it was new. I like my iPad. It's fun. It's also no notebook replacement. I'm not even going to use it for writing tweets on Twitter, let alone writing emails. It's for screwing around, and I like screwing around... so I like my iPad. I'm blessed that I've got the spare cash for such a luxury device and the spare time to play with it.

It's a new, quick consume experience that our Tablet vision failed to realize because our Tablet vision (like all visions of that time) was so firmly shoved up the Enterprise's butt we didn't care for consumers who'd pay good money to have a fun device to facilitate their screwing around.

We continue an expensive lesson in enlightenment. And spanking: Microsoft's consumer brand is dying.

And goodness help us if Apple TV takes off. Our inability to string together a coherent TV strategy (despite having been in the TV realm for over a decade) is yet another dropped pants embarrassment waiting to happen and represents the anxiety that Wall Street has about our future despite having successes in the present.

Bloodletting

Cost cutting's slippery slope continues. I'm sure if we don't talk about continued overhead management (people, benefits, etc) that it will be an analyst question. I still believe we need to chuck about 15,000 positions (and half of our super-ballooned contingent staff) rather than continue the slow squeeze around the company that's making this an ordinary job with some extraordinary wonderful people who just haven't given up on the company. Yet. I hope that the analysts realize that continued, consistent bloodletting because a negative for hiring, and (allow me to be pro-hiring for a moment) if we can't bring in deep-talented new blood to replace the departed dead wood, our future is doomed to mediocrity.

And that doesn't get you a good dividend.

New Talent

And we're losing the battle for hiring new talent. If you review who we're losing to, it's a big surprise. You look at who is ahead of us in preference and you say, "Really? Graduating students think they are a better place to work than us?" It's a cold splash of reality that makes me - they guy who said we've turned things around and things are going great for our major initiatives - wonder if things are worse outside of the Microsoft bubble than I thought.

Frank, you're fighting an epic battle.


-- Comments

655 comments:

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Anonymous said...

If this turns out to be Steve's only sale for another seven years I guess I can look past it. But the timing is atrocious and the transaction should have been spaced out over weeks (at least) to minimize the impact on the stock. Wouldn’t want to be him explaining this (on top of everything else this year) to shareholders on the 16th.

Anonymous said...

Ironic that Steve didn't wait until the "Steve resigns" stock spike to sell.

Anonymous said...

I would require that the guy who is advising Ballmer on stock sales be fired summarily. I don't know of a single other insider in any major company that dumps 50M shares in 3 days and tells people that he is going to sell another 25M in the next few weeks.

Anonymous said...

What a sad commentary. Its been approximately one year since I have reviewed this site and its comments. It seems that nothing has changed.
I recently obtained an email from a journalist seeking an interview. The journalist wanted to know if I thought Ballmer should resign. This inquiry ultimately led me back to Mini.
In one year nothing has changed. Sadly, employees are still complaining, stock is still languishing, company brand and products still suck and fail to be innovative and Ballmer is still DICTATOR with the Board in his pocket.
It doesn't matter if some analyst downgrades Microsoft. It doesn't matter if shareholders complain. Lets be realistic. Mini has been demanding change for years. Reporters have been bashing Microsoft for years. Consumers have been complaining for years. Analysts have been downgrading for years.
Microsoft has for several years failed to create shareholder value. The shares have continued to languish. Yet, we see the same articles and complaints.
When it comes to Microsoft, its not hard to predict the future. Unless, someone actually shakes the complacent Board and forces there hand to remove Ballmer....three years from now, Mini will write a post about Microsoft losing more share to Apple or Google, employees will continue to make anonymous posts about how they hate MSFT, shareholders will still be complaining about stock price, reporters will still be talking about removing Ballmer and analysts will be downgrading the company.
The reality is that until the institutional investors complain and remove Ballmer, Ballmer will continue to make blunders (as he sells company shares, for even he recognizes its a sinking ship and he is getting his lifeboat).
So to all you at MSFT, I wish you the best of luck. To Mini I say "pack it in". Life is to short to waste your time fighting the MSFT mentality, Ballmer and the Board. Its not going to change. Like msftextrememakeover, eventually you will realize this truth.
To shareholders I say "either sell...or stop sitting on the sidelines and go to meetings and put Ballmer in the hot seat and force him to shape up or ship out.
Despite selling shares, Ballmer owns $15 billion worth of stock and isn't going to leave until HE IS READY.

Anonymous said...

I am in center that DBM, the outplacement service that Microsoft sets you up with when you get laid off, has on the Redmond Campus. The conference room is filled with a half dozen folks going through the inital client sessions. That smells of some kind of layoff here in the Redmond campus. No concrete "proof" but just some evidence that seem to point in that direction.

Anonymous said...

@GM guy... before you make a grandiose analogy, you might want to actually check some facts. GM has actually rebounded quite brilliantly. It is back to profitability. Since you shackled yourself to this analogy (which is a bad one actually, but you picked it) I suppose you must now post and admit that MSFT can surely turn things around (since they are just like GM)

@"ballmer making up for bonus" guy... Over $1B in stock for a guy that is already worth billions seems excessive for missing $500k in bonus, no?

No matter HOW you slice the SB decision, it demonstrates how truly clueless, or callous, or arrogant, he is at this point. Whatever the personal motivation may be, the damage to corporate image is undeniable. Ridiculously selfish and poorly timed.

Anonymous said...

Steve voluntarily adding this concern on top of all the others that have emerged this year is selfish and irresponsible. I have defended him in the past, but this one can't be excused.

Anonymous said...

Windows Mobile 7 phones go on sale today in the US. But why aren't there any news about people sleeping outside stores or long lines of people waiting to get their WM7 phones? Seattle Times has nothing. Seattle PI does not have any pictures or stories of people lining up for their phones. What's going on? Is there an anti-Microsoft news conspiracy?


Despite getting an analyst quoted as saying "It is something that's unique and different.", it is just a phone that offers services similar to what is already available.


Microsoft is suing Motorola over Google's Android.

Oracle is suing Google over Android.

Paul Allen is suing Google over patent #6,757,682 "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest" issued on Jun 29, 2004.


Steve Ballmer is trying the "or else" approach to marketing the phone.


Windows Phone 7 a ringing success — really, Microsoft says

The new mobile phone, which Microsoft hopes will mark its comeback into the mobile market, started selling in the U.S. on Monday.

AT&T spokeswoman Colleen Smith said the company is "encouraged by early demand."

"We did have lines in some of our markets across the nation," she said. "There definitely was anticipation for the phone." She declined to give sales figures.

T-Mobile USA, which is also selling the phones, released a statement saying it was seeing "strong interest."

Anonymous said...

"If this turns out to be Steve's only sale for another seven years I guess I can look past it. But the timing is atrocious and the transaction should have been spaced out over weeks (at least) to minimize the impact on the stock. Wouldn’t want to be him explaining this (on top of everything else this year) to shareholders on the 16th."

When do you think Steve ever cared what the shareholders thought of his actions?

Anonymous said...

"God knows I'm not going to defend Ballmer, but isn't this just a simple reaction to only getting half his bonus? "

Nobody makes a $2 billion decision with lots of potential negative visibility just as a simple reaction. Also, his bonus is nothing compared to his quarterly dividend income alone, not to mention returns from the $1.5 billion he salted away seven years ago.

Anonymous said...

Thoughts to consider regarding steve stock sale

1. any financial planner would have been pushing for diversification like this for years. this advise is common for anybody with a financial planner, even for modest holdings at level 63 and above.

2. question: why change his approach now?

3. he waited until after voting the shares. why wasn't this spread over a longer period earlier this year?

4. recent political events, change in control of house to GOP. 1-4 years of extended tax breaks are quite possible.

5. assuming tax rates are a consideration, a 5% tax increase for $2B profit is still $100M. if he plans to exit the rest of his position, at current prices, that's a difference of $500M+ in taxes at current rates.

6. will he exit the remaining shares over the next few years?

7. some wonder why he wouldn't wait until a possible stock rise event tied to his retirement. this could be years off (5?), or maybe he already knows who is next in line and doesn't think a rise will be in order ...

8. what will msft stock and future look like if the inflation scenario plays out? are prices of windows likely to inflate with commodities and other more "tangible" resources?

9. selling 75M shares, giving up $48M a year in dividends. if you add up all the dividends +$3/share special, billions $ so far. what does one spend this on, and why would selling now matter?

skc said...

>>Windows Mobile 7 phones go on sale today in the US. But why aren't there any news about people sleeping outside stores or long lines of people waiting to get their WM7 phones? <<

Yes, because there were tons of lines waiting at stores for Android phones right?

Moronic.

Anonymous said...

We can innovate, and we can inspire. It's just that we have to leave MS and strike out on our own to do it.

It's a scary step, but if you feel like you have a great idea, if you feel you're a visionary, just consider it. Maybe MS just doesn't know (or is too afraid to know) what to do with you.

Anonymous said...

With all the negative comments here about SB, I'm shocked that only one or two posters mentioned KT. After all, the real changes in MS, the lack of caring for employees, the layoffs, cost cutting everywhere, making sure that people have to work more but end up earning less, stopping rewarding people who are good at their jobs and want to keep on doing them, etc. Giving people bottom 10% ranking because they're been in the same role for too long even if they're really good at it and are happy. The stealth layoffs. Dropping benefits, etc., etc. That's all Walmart thinking folks. It's not typical MS thinking. KT is responsible for that. SB's biggest mistake by far is hiring and then keeping KT around. He's the reason why half of the technical leadership is leaving. He's the reason why the environment top down has become so poisonous that everyone is afraid to say anything that goes against any decision made by top management. Why does the board not insist on him leaving? What has he done for this company outside of making sales more formal, more scary and unpleasant, stopping progress, saying one thing while doing another?

In the field, when he comes for field visits, apparently the entire district cringes. If he leaves without screwing up a few deals, that's considered a huge win - forget helping to close deals.

I agree that SB has to go. He's been doing this for way too long without any increase in the stock price, and he hired KT, and backs him and people like Sinofsky to the hilt regardless of how many bad decisions they make. KT also never gets the bad news, because no one has the balls to tell him. By the time he gets any news, it's been watered down so much that it has become good news somehow.

Plus have you listened to KT? The guy just makes people want to throw up. He's so full of &*it. He says one thing, then does another. Deployment is everything - so important. Next week - STU's may not help with any deployment opps.

The board needs to wake up, fire KT, and fire SB. Then we'll have a fighting chance. There's a lot of good going on too. I think WM7 really does have ane excellent change of succeeding. Go out and play with a Samsung Focus for a while, and tell me it sucks. I'd be shocked. IT's a very, very slick device, with a UI that is seriously better than the iPhone 4.1 and a lot better than Droid's 2.1 (haven't tried Froyo yet), or Blackberry's Torch.

The iPad is brilliant, and Apple should be commended for coming up with it. But it is still very limited in many respects. I'm not sure how/why so many posters mentioned how the iPad could be a Windows killer in it's current format. You can't install any software on it other than software that is on the iTunes Store. Do you want to put your internal company app on the iTunes store? I didn't think so.

Instead, the Droid tabs that will be coming out like the Galaxy tab will probably be very powerful, and once a couple of Windows 7 based tabs with UI's running on top of them to hide the Win 7 UI, the sky's the limit. In the corporate world, those will be a ton more powerful than the iPad - assuming MS can get their things together and ship something already.

Hell, do a deal with HTC to get HTC to build a UI on top of a Windows 7 based tablet, but get something to consumers that is sexy, supports peripherals, can have custom apps installed on it, support Flash (at least for now), etc., and as long as there is an easy to use UI built on top of it, Microsoft will have a winner that could easily give the iPad a run for its money.

If we were faster to market with these things, we'd be winning this fight, not losing it right now.
Anyway, bottom line - KT definitely has to go. SB ideally also should go. Then lets bring in some solid outside talent that isn't so sold on Windows being at the root of everything, and we could become huge again in the consumer space.

Anonymous said...

As good as this blog is, the best part has always been the comments. Now every third "employee" (or more) is an obvious troll pretending to be an insider, and many of the rest are from the same haters, Apple fanboys and assorted other morons that target every other MS related news site on the web.

Just ignore the amateurish efforts that are obviously from non-employees, and appreciate the craftsmanship and guile in those comments that leave you wondering.

MS has a lot of problems. But the noise to signal ratio here is making intelligent conversation about how to address that difficult.

There are indeed serious problems at Microsoft, but most of these are actually symptomatic of a deeper ill. The real culprit is the dysfunctional corporate culture, and that may well be something that is beyond remedy, particularly at this late stage of the game. Most people who have worked at the coalface in I.T. and who are capable of intelligent conversation realise this.

(Out of interest, and for bonus points, can you discern which of the following I am: an employee, a troll, a hater, an Apple fanboy, or a moron?)

Anonymous said...

Brummel does not get this. She has too much pride to admit that her scheme has killed our company. That's why we're stuck with the 20/70/10 BS, while Apple happily reaps the rewards of believing in their workforce, becoming the industry leader in the process.

It is Steve Ballmer's performance management scheme which he copied from G.E..

Brummel just relabeled the buckets of the forced ranking curve that already existed.

The only thing she ended up changing was making it clear what direction you were headed in the rankings.

Hiring directly from college every year gives Microsoft a fresh crop of people who don't know about Microsoft's forced ranking system.

Unknown said...

Hey Mr. Mini... I'm just wondering if you know something about what will happen with the migration of E&D structure in a subsidiary level. I've heard about a bunch of people leaving E&D team or at least leaving Hardware team and going to Xbox team. Is there some big change to happen which was not announced yet? A lot of employees on the subs around the world are annoyed with what will happen, including me of course...

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

So you want Balmer to be marched to the door, but you don't want him selling his stock? LOL.

This sale is a shot over the bow of everyone here. Force him out, and he'll take his ball and go home. He can effectively hold MSFT hostage and the board knows it. Now they also know he's willing to do it.

Genius imho.

Anonymous said...

"I don't know of a single other insider in any major company that dumps 50M shares in 3 days and tells people that he is going to sell another 25M in the next few weeks."

Relax. It’s just a “personal financial matter”. Okay, so he’s the CEO and hasn’t sold in seven years. Now 12% of his holding have been liquidated in just three trading sessions and he plans to sell another 6% before year end. And sure, the stock and the company have been pummeled all year long due in large part to his failures. And he does have to face shareholders a week from now. So the timing looks a little odd. And I guess if you want to get anal, you’d recall that the last time he bailed was when Munich went open source and he got scared. But I wouldn’t read anything negative into this. It’s really on no consequence. Just a private matter. In fact it’s so unimportant that it was announced after the close of trading on Friday, and there’s a formal statement on the company’s web site telling you how unimportant it really is.

/sarcasm

Anonymous said...

Windows Mobile 7 phones go on sale today in the US. But why aren't there any news about people sleeping outside stores or long lines of people waiting to get their WM7 phones? Seattle Times has nothing. Seattle PI does not have any pictures or stories of people lining up for their phones. What's going on? Is there an anti-Microsoft news conspiracy?

There are many reports of the launch on the web. We are apparently not seeing stories about long WP7 lines because, as best as anyone can tell, there weren't any. There were some short lines. Many stores sold out quickly but it's hard to tell what that means because at least some stores only had a handful of units (3-5).

This was completely predictable since WP7 simply has no "gotta have it" angle. The best Microsoft has come up with is that it has tiles with numbers, which is deeply confusing to iPhone users since iPhone apps have had badges with numbers since day 1.

If you want long lines, sell something that will get people excited about lining up. Like, what if every WP7 phone had to have an HDMI out port and could use a TV as a second monitor to watch movies, give presentations, play games, do videoconferencing, etc.? Or what if WP7 had great support for Bluetooth keyboards so people could do real emailing and word processing while on the go? Seriously, it shouldn't have been hard to design ONE unique/exciting feature for the platform.

Jon H said...

Jordan wrote: "He was expecting his usual big bonus, and didn't get it. "

His bonus ought to be dwarfed by his annual dividends from his MSFT stock. Dwarfed.

Anonymous said...

From the HP post approx 20 entries above here, which touches on the loss of the vital enthusiam aspect

a pay cut ... is better than a layoff, but it is like a water torture. Drip by drip, dollar by dollar, we await the next slash with dread. Customers are starting to feel the difference, although they may not care, at least not yet. IT work still requires "brains," which I think requires some level of enthusiasm. When you cannot afford to care for your children or pay your mortgage, it is difficult to be enthusiastic. The value loss is immeasurable -- how can one determine what someone might have been able to do if his heart was in it? I see many employees trying, but only they know if is their "best work."

Anonymous said...

After the Kin, it looks like people are taking it slow with Windows 7 phones.


Microsoft Sells 40K Windows 7 Phones

Even with a glitzy media intro last month hosted by champion inside-seller and company chief Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, which spent a reported $100 million on the phone's advertising campaign, sold a mere 40,000 Windows 7 phones Monday, according to a market research source who tracks phone sales.

The anemic sales number does not include the 89,000 Microsoft employees that will be given free Windows 7 phones.

Microsoft reps declined to comment.

Anonymous said...

Happy Holidays from Google to its employees...

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bonus-and-raise-2010-11

Anonymous said...

I don't hate working at MS, but the review system needs to go. I fully realize at this point that the only thing that will get me a good review, and therefore a raise/promo, is to have "visibility" and throw my peers under the bus when given the chance.

Anonymous said...

Google Gives All Employees Surprise $1,000 Cash Bonus And 10% Raise

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bonus-and-raise-2010-11#ixzz14qpfXaDU

Anonymous said...

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/09/google-pay-hike/

Wonder if the board and the SLT will respond in any way to this here at Microsoft?

Anonymous said...

Looks like hiring is picking up in Silicon Valley.

Google to Give Staff 10% Raise

Moving to plug the defection of staff to competitors, Google Inc. is giving a 10% raise to all of its 23,000 employees, according to people familiar with the matter.

The raise, which will be given to executives and staff across the globe, is effective in January.

The pay hike comes as Google ramps up its battle with competitors, especially neighboring Facebook Inc., in a fight to secure talented staff. Roughly 10% of Facebook's employees are Google veterans and other Silicon Valley companies have aggressively poached employees from the Internet giant.

Anonymous said...

More reason to be jealous of Google -

Google to Give Staff 10% Raise

Anonymous said...

Everyone enjoying their 10% raise and holiday bonus? Or was that the new Microsoft?

Anonymous said...

Google giving all employees a 10% raise starting January 2011.

Meanwhile, I'm rather enjoying my pathetic 2.7% raise I got this year, after getting nothing last year, of course.

Anonymous said...

Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

Wait a minute, since when are Ask.com engineers such a hot piece of property?

Well, since the Silicon Valley engineering drought of 2010. GigaOm’s Om Malik brings up the shocking statistic that job postings in the IT industry have increased 69% since October of 2009. Plentiful availability of seed funding has made it easier to start a company and engendered a culture where doing your own thing is the only badass move. Read: “If I’m going to work for someone else, it better be a pretty damn good offer.”

Among the companies that are expected to hire more in 2010 are Facebook, Google, Zynga and Twitter. And the latter three plan on expanding their offices to accomodate their rapidly expanding staff. From one Google employee on their rumored New York digs, “Filling the entire block is still a lot of headcounts.” But a multitude of smaller startups like Square and Dropbox are also throwing their hats into the hiring ring.

Anonymous said...

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/18849-google-gives-employees-10pc/

Unlike MS, there is a company which is willing to share the profit with their employee.

Anonymous said...

Why Windows Phone 7’s first day sales numbers don’t matter

Microsoft likely isn’t aiming for the number one smartphone spot. Even if it managed to push out more devices than Apple, it could never keep up with Android’s sheer ubiquity. But placing second, or even third, is certainly better than not being in the game at all. And you can rest assured that Microsoft will do whatever it takes to regain its mobile relevance — no matter what the numbers say about Windows Phone 7’s launch day sales.

Anonymous said...

Google to give 10% salary hike to employees worldwide

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/Google-to-give-10-salary-hike-to-employees-worldwide/articleshow/6900218.cms#ixzz14ssEI150

Anonymous said...

http://mashable.com/2010/11/10/google-bonus-raise/

Google is increasing everybody's salary with %10 + Bonus, while
we are cutting benefits, doing re-orgs and living off powerpoint slides....

Anonymous said...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20022318-93.html?tag=cnetRiver

10% raises across the board, plus cash bonuses. Hmmm. I bet folks @ Google know that management is listening to them.

Anonymous said...

Ballmer is dumping our stock - did anyone else here him last month talking about *never* selling stock because it was to good deal? Google friend just said out of the blue got email saying 10% bonus on top of everything else he's gotten since moving over-second time he said. Why do I feel like the last person holding a bucket bailer?

Anonymous said...

"Know How the WP7 overseas sales going"

Just got out of strategy meeting in Thai Sub yesterday - WP7 is not on schedule for next year to release in Thai. How I sell to Thai company with no language support 12 months after launch. Hindi also scheduled late. Coproate need to understand sales outside Redmond better. people need to work outside Redmond more time before making that decision.

Anonymous said...

Google is giving all employees a 10 % raise, and a small bonus. Please refer to: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bonus-and-raise-2010-11?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed


I've been a hardworking, mostly E/4.0 employee for years. I love the product produced by my group. Now my manager is evaluating me based on "body language". As far as I know, she has no expertise in this area and furthermore, a certain body language is not a stated requirement for a technical position. I'm formulating my exit strategy. How very sad.

Anonymous said...

While we're cutting benefit, our competitor is giving their employee a merit increase.

Anonymous said...

Google: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/09/google-announces-big-raises-and-bonuses-for-all-employees/

MSFT:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/224089.asp

What dumb@ss(s) in upper management thinks people love this company enough to keep on staying anymore versus jumping ship if they are actually talented enough to do so? Be real folks, the heath changes are a pay cut to the rank and file, at 2500 a family that is 3% for my level 60 job. There is no loyalty to the company for me anymore

Anonymous said...

In regards to: Windows Mobile 7 phones go on sale today in the US. But why aren't there any news about people sleeping outside stores or long lines of people waiting to get their WM7 phones? Seattle Times has nothing. Seattle PI does not have any pictures or stories of people lining up for their phones. What's going on? Is there an anti-Microsoft news conspiracy?


The reason for this is because there are more than 1 phone available. Some of these Apple Gearheads need to get a clue. Android is leading the market in the U.S. and you didn't hear about folks sleeping outside of those stores either. Apple liked that part of the story which is why they caused the "supply" issue artificially.

Anonymous said...

Wow,
Google just announced a 10% raise to all employees.
Contrast that with Microsoft's stealth layoffs of the bottom 10% of all employees.

Anonymous said...

"I would require that the guy who is advising Ballmer on stock sales be fired summarily."

The guy who advised Ballmer, assuming it happened that way and not in reverse, is paid to do just that. OTOH, Ballmer is paid to understand that his actions have broader implications for the company and shareholders.

Ultimately it was his decision to act, regardless of the concerns it would raise and despite the reckless selling pace you correctly point out. He also decided to release the statement about it late on a Friday, knowing it wouldn’t be picked up in volume until the following Monday. And not just any Monday, but the US launch of WP7. So instead of the headlines being dominated by this strategically critical product, at least half the coverage revolved around Ballmer’s sale and speculations about the dire message it sent about MS’s future.

This was another example of Steve’s poor judgment and failure to understand market or media reaction. And I bet not one board member has raised the issue with him or dared to suggest it could have been handled better.

Anonymous said...

Initial news on Win Phone 7 not-so-good:

Windows Phone 7 went on sale on Monday of this week in the U.S. and the sales were not as strong as Microsoft may have hoped.

According to reports by Thestreet, Microsoft sold 40,000 handsets in the first day sales in the U.S. through AT&T and T-Mobile. The numbers are based on a market research source who tracks phone sales. Microsoft estimated that they would sell 3.5 million devices in the Q4 of this year, but the numbers appear to be falling far shorter than expected.

The sales appear to be weak in the United States for Microsoft, almost as weak as the Microsoft Kin, which sold a mere 10,000 units. These sales figures do not include the 87,000 units allocated to every Microsoft Employee, or the 25,000 units that Dell will be trading their BlackBerrys for.

...
Google said last month that they sell 200,000 Android handsets a day, while Apple claims they sell 260,000 iPhone's a day.


http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-phone-7-sales-underwhelm

Anonymous said...

As some one said earlier, we should really focus on doing a 8-hr job. Certain groups in Microsoft are becoming so political that these guys might as well create a new ruling party.

There is no professionalism left in my group. The manager abuses directs, treats them badly but no problemo. You know why - his manager supports him too! Thats just ridiculous. Directs under my manager have left the group - one after the other but the management things all problems are due to the directs but not because of the manager. Its just pathetic.

Anonymous said...

A lot of the techniques used by employers to convince employees they deserve what they are getting are also used by abusers in relationships.

+5.

Years prior to MS, I heard the old, "You all should consider your selves lucky you have jobs," when as a whole we were clamoring for more than a ~20% share of our billable rates at a consulting company. Not at all dissimilar to, "You should consider yourself lucky I put up with you," or the like. (Less than 6 months later, a competitor offered me a 50% raise, and I was internal staff so I didn't have to see my salary compared to a billing rate that I knew was going to buy my daddy-bankrolled CEO's McMansion castle with pool.)

And MS, they raised it to an art form and didn't care for it when I called them on the domestic abuser - corporate abuser similarities.

I don't think of myself as a "victim" type. Yuck. I'm a proactive engineer with a history of success in the industry. I don't look to blame others when I encounter issues. I seek to solve them. When the other side is completely unengaged in being part of the solution, though, and this goes on for years, it really does start to make one wonder if they want to solve the problem at all.

I still remember a meeting I had with my manager and HR over some issue. At some point, the HR dude said to him, "How about we try for the next 3 months, you do (yada) when Jack here does (yada), to let him know more promptly that he should course-correct?". The manager said no, it wouldn't be appropriate (to head off what he's identified as a significant business problem in advance, rather than to let what he claims is a calamity (but really isn't) unfurl). The HR guy looked back at him in a perplexed way then looked over at me with an "I feel for you" expression. I looked at the HR guy and chuckled: "See, this is what I was talking about. He's setting non-specific targets, won't answer my questions about specifics, and if he sees early warning signs that my results aren't going to be what he's after, won't give me any advice. I'm being set up to fail by someone with an agenda or blind lack of business sense. You can see from my review history that I've been very helpful for 8 years here and don't deserve that." Again, the parallel with the domestic abuser who won't ever let their spouse have the confidence of being seen as doing something right.

Anonymous said...

Google gives 10% raise to all employees

Anonymous said...

Hey, look how the number 1 competition is treating their employees:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A90LT20101110

by giving them a nice holiday bonus and raise! I'd like to see that from Micromart!

Anonymous said...

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/11/google-gives-every-employee-a-1000-bonus-and-10-raise/1

Google gives every employee 1K and at least a 10% raise.

Anonymous said...

So Google just announced a cross-the-board 10% pay hike: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703523604575605273596157634.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read


Chief Executive Eric Schmidt disclosed the raise in an email to employees, saying the company wants to lift morale. "We want to make sure that you feel rewarded for your hard work," Mr. Schmidt wrote. "We want to continue to attract the best people to Google."

Awww, but what does he know that SteveB doesn't?

Anonymous said...

Google to give 10 pct raises to entire work force!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Google-to-give-10-pct-raises-apf-1049638503.html?x=0&.v=4

Ballmer, please read and learn!

We know you are incompetent being a leader. But you are good at copying rivals.

Please copy this altogether!






not just busy selling stock!

Anonymous said...

So we have been told that Bing needs to be profitable in 3 years, which means more masturbation aka ideation. Fun times for the "strategy" morons. Great PPTX equals great code!

Anonymous said...

EPG continues to bleed. What little investment MS made in the financial services industry team at the corp level has evaporated with the best talent leaving for better Wall St jobs. Those still in position are the dead wood with 3rd rate managers who know nothing about selling or managing high performers. Its sad - I used to love the company and the people. Now, its proven to be the cemetery where careers go to die.

jon said...

Google just gave out 10% raises -- and fired the employee who leaked the memo.

Anonymous said...

Wow, Google in one day beat all of my raises for the last 4 years. I've been here a while and they use to be slightly better raises but now they are simply a joke at least to me. The environment isn't that great anymore and most people are pissed off or not very fun to work with.

Anonymous said...

The "battle for talent" is about to get a whole lot harder now that Google upped their base pay by 25%.

Anonymous said...

Microsoft could be great, but there are too many principals and partners collecting a pay check and letting the competition pass them by. I've been here for 5 years, and I am just disgusted by the level of complacency. I used to think that I could make a difference, but I realize that the people who are abusing this company, and sucking it's resources are the same ones preventing any sort of real change.

Anonymous said...

If I just look at the numbers, didn't Schmidt just make ALL of the Google employees 10%ers?

Anonymous said...

Where does Satya go now that Bing's growth has plateaued?

Anonymous said...

I've been a hardworking, mostly E/4.0 employee for years. I love the product produced by my group. Now my manager is evaluating me based on "body language". As far as I know, she has no expertise in this area and furthermore, a certain body language is not a stated requirement for a technical position. I'm formulating my exit strategy. How very sad.

Sad indeed, and thoroughly bizarre to boot. Where on earth does Microsoft hire these management loonies from?

Anonymous said...

Wow, Google in one day beat all of my raises for the last 4 years. I've been here a while and they use to be slightly better raises but now they are simply a joke at least to me.

Ditto. The sum of my pay raises over the past four years has been 6.5%.

Anonymous said...


Ballmer said he will sell more shares by the end of the year, in a move to diversify his investments.

I like to ask him - where will he diversify his investments with this $2B he dumps MS share, Apple? or Google?



Gold and silver.

Anonymous said...

Android is leading the market in the U.S. and you didn't hear about folks sleeping outside of those stores either.

How short your memory can be. From 2008 - Judging from the crowd of 150 or so people waiting in line, the G1 is a hit.. And that was for T-Mobile, a much smaller user base than AT&T.

Anonymous said...

AT&T’s Windows Phone 7 Sales: Store Feedback

• Store 1: “They are not flying off the shelves, people are being super cautious.”
• Store 2: “Sold more than a few!”
• Store 3: “Doing okay, third one was delayed due to manufacturing.”
• Store 4: “Store sold 10 since Monday.”
• Store 5: “Sold 4 yesterday in-store; the Samsung Focus is much more popular than the others.”
• Store 6: ”They sold really well”
• Store 7: ”Sold 2 since launch.”
• Store 8: “Sold 4 total.”
• Store 9: “Only have sold 1 since it came out; almost no interest.”
• Store 10: “We sold 2.”
• Store 11: “Sold one Samsung Focus.”
• Store 12: “Between 10-15; Samsung seems much more popular than the HTC model”
• Store 13: “Windows Phone is selling well. We’ve sold around 15 since launch.”
• Store 14: “Sold 10 total.”
• Store 15: “Sold a lot of them! The Samsung model is most popular because of the screen.”

Anonymous said...

Software Engineer Compensation Comparision

COMPANY AVG. BASE SALARY BONUSES
AOL 88,801 5,233
Apple 99,127 8,175
Cisco 105,720 8,529
eBay 88,916 6,773
Facebook 110,500 11,900
Google 98,814 21,364
Hewlett-Packard 85,568 5,550
Intel 87,450 8,048
Intuit 79,765 9,339
Oracle 92,479 6,000
Yahoo 101,638 6,197

Anonymous said...

"Anyway, bottom line - KT definitely has to go. SB ideally also should go."
There were previous posts on bKT, and after all of that discussion, things turned to SB more recently. That may be why you haven't seen comments on bKT recently.
I think most of us agree with your post. He tells a huge story to partners and the board to get his pay. For this past year he got one of the largest bonsues and largest percentages (I recall 140%) of target bonus, so the board must think he's making things peachy. What gets to me, if he kept everything flat in overall costs, some product group ended up paying his bonus of $10M. Thats more than the entire marketing budget for one of the billion dollar bonuses. The board must think you can take away all marketing budget, because all you need to do is bonus a top executive and voila, things are good.
SB is still the boss, and allows KT to stay and the board includes BillG. Remember that too, so bKT kisses up big time. Steve and Bill are ultimately responsible for that behavior. If they keep rewarding KT, he'll continue to do it.

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile, I'm rather enjoying my pathetic 2.7% raise I got this year, after getting nothing last year, of course.
I'm sure you were actually told that was a REALLY BIG raise here at MS.
Glad to see the annoucement from Google, just another reason to see how things are incredibly bad here.

Anonymous said...

"Be real folks, the heath changes are a pay cut to the rank and file, at 2500 a family that is 3% for my level 60 job."
Yeah, and be real careful in signing up for any HSA account incentive. If you think you're going to get axed or leave next year, the HSA is paid out over the course of the year, so you could incur some big healthcare costs early on, and never get reimbursed for them via the slow trickle in of the HSA incentive, let alone lien on the Premera plan to help pay the rest of the billing. We thought about the HSA, but after I read the part about the HSA funds trickling in over the course of the year, I decided on PPO. Things are just too unpredictable these days. I think they could have saved money and incentivized more people to go HSA if they would fund the accounts on the front end, like FSA.

Anonymous said...

I'm genuinely happy for our industry cronies at Google. I know a few as acquaintances and one as a friend. Bully for them. They're good folks.

What news of this increase has done for me, though, is clarify what I think is our situation within Microsoft. It's not a new revelation, but I finally feel it in my bones today.

I've been here long enough to realize and experience that we're the frogs in the slowly boiling pot. It gets hot gradually, and we barely notice, until it's too late to do anything about it and we're cooked. Merit freeze, paltry increases, more politics and @$$munch managers, increased hours, higher demands, @$$clown review system, steveb, BOD, stagnant stock, etc.

To use another analogy, we've been working hard to keep the MS boat from sinking. Extra hours and sacrifices to keep bailing out water to slow the rate at which our culture, if not the company itself, is going under, occasionally seeing someone beside us thrown overboard to lighten the load (and apparently they say Thank You to lisab as the hit the water?), meaning we have to bail even faster. "You're lucky to even BE in a boat in this economy," a captain tells us.

But then we look up and see what looks like a boat full of Google folk speed by us with a new 350hp outboard motor and the Swedish bikini team in tow, maybe slowing down enough to pick up a few of our sailors who start to swim out toward them, and we realize that just keeping a boat from sinking is not a noble, exciting, or fulfilling pursuit.

Yes, the Google 10% increase has been illuminating to me.

I'm updating my resume now, and the (external) search for the next step in my career is on. The only plus if that takes awhile: on the next MS Poll, I'll get to mark a "Strongly disagree" ticket across the board.

Bitter? Only a little. Re-energized to move my mojo elsewhere? Yes. Quite.

Thank you, Google. I feel like I owe you one.

Anonymous said...

Mini, could you maybe be a little more discerning as far as letting redundant comments through? I know there's always going to be a backlog of such comments when news happens during a period where you have moderation turned on, but when you do let the comments through, I don't think most of the original posters would mind if you screened 80% of the variations on "Hey, Google just gave their employees a RAISE" or whatever. I'm sure most of those people thought that no one else had posted about it and didn't realize moderation was turned on until they hit the "Publish" button.


Unless the link is accompanied by some substantive remark, it tends to turn the comment stream into an unreadable morass when you just unleash a flood of them like this. I'm sure there were some gems in there, but I had to stop reading after the tenth iteration.

Ihar Filipau said...

Re AAPL vs. MSFT. Disclaimer: not a softie.

It saddens me that people *again* compare Apple to Microsoft the way commenters here (and journalists too) compare the two.

The main thing MSFT need to learn from Apple is not how to make hot products everybody wants to buy. That is part of it - but that is not what makes me buy Apple gear.

Persistence. That is what Apple has and Microsoft lacks.

Microsoft likes shuffle technologies and products like a juggler, constantly trying to reinvent the wheel after burning the old blueprint.

Apple, on the other side, releases the product and tries to make it work at best of their capabilities, with the company as a whole standing behind *every* product they release. They try to integrate and connect (in a sensible working fashion) the products they do release. They do not try to fragment their own customer base like Microsoft constantly does.

That kind of longevity is what I personally feel many many many Microsoft products like. That kind of unity is what's missing.

Anonymous said...

Thai sub? That team and GM probably can't even sell ice cream.

And this is a country is always hot all the time.

Anonymous said...

Steveb's response to Google's 10% pay raise: more layoff for low levels and promoting more partners.

Does any senior leaders have a clue?

Anonymous said...

EPG continues to bleed. What little investment MS made in the financial services industry team at the corp level has evaporated with the best talent leaving for better Wall St jobs. Those still in position are the dead wood with 3rd rate managers who know nothing about selling or managing high performers. Its sad - I used to love the company and the people. Now, its proven to be the cemetery where careers go to die.

I got out of EPG and left Microsoft. No regrets, best thing that could have ever happened to me. EPG is a great example of a KT run organization and where he wants to take the rest of Microsoft. The friends of SH got well taken care of. Anyone with a shred of motivation has left, is leaving, or came back as a vendor.

AndyB said...

@anon: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 1:47:00 PM

"Like, what if every WP7 phone had to have an HDMI out port and could use a TV as a second monitor to watch movies, give presentations, play games, do videoconferencing, etc.? Or what if WP7 had great support for Bluetooth keyboards so people could do real emailing and word processing while on the go?"

Oh dear. You need to go see what Nokia is doing. The E7 will let you craete PPT docs on the phone, HDMI out on most of their smartphones (esp. the N90 that had a demo of 2 guys playing quake against each other on 2 big TVs), BT keyboards and much more loveliness already - let alone when they come out with Meego. WP7? Sorry, not much to shout about in comparison. The trouble is, WP7 is designed as a competitor to the iPhone and is playing catch-up to that, not innovating in any way.

Anonymous said...

"The "battle for talent" is about to get a whole lot harder now that Google upped their base pay by 25%."

I believe you mean 10%.

And it's not that big of a deal -- the problem is that Google is losing cool cache after being the dominant player in its space for a decade, and it's no longer the new hot thing... they've been losing talent to Facebook and other hot properties.

Anonymous said...

"I still remember a meeting I had with my manager and HR over some issue. At some point, the HR dude said to him, "How about we try for the next 3 months, you do (yada) when Jack here does (yada), to let him know more promptly that he should course-correct?". The manager said no, it wouldn't be appropriate (to head off what he's identified as a significant business problem in advance, rather than to let what he claims is a calamity (but really isn't) unfurl). The HR guy looked back at him in a perplexed way then looked over at me with an "I feel for you" expression."

This story is a fantasy -- I guarantee it never happened.

Managers DO NOT EVER disagree with HR in front of an employee in a formal performance meeting. In ever case, the manager and the HR person huddle beforehand and the message is formalized... this is how The Man colludes against you and why you can't win.

HR is a manager's best friend, and they don't ever "feel for you". They want to solve the problem -- which is always you -- as efficiently as possible. They certainly never sympathize with your side of the story, regardless of it being true or not.

Anonymous said...

"So you want Balmer to be marched to the door, but you don't want him selling his stock? LOL"

No. Him selling his stock would be a small price to pay for finally getting rid of him. It's selling his stock and *staying* that's the problem.

Anonymous said...

"This sale is a shot over the bow of everyone here. Force him out, and he'll take his ball and go home. He can effectively hold MSFT hostage and the board knows it. Now they also know he's willing to do it.

Genius imho."

Steve's leverage is Bill's support and the fact that he knows the company and its business better than probably anyone. Dumping his shares isn't a threat to the company or the board. The market can easily absorb the volume, and the impact on the stock is minor and hardly worrying to a board that has already allowed 50% of shareholder value to be destroyed. The investor concern it causes actually makes him more of a liability and easier to fire if the board were so inclined, which they're not.

Anonymous said...

>>The "battle for talent" is about to get a whole lot harder now that Google upped their base pay by 25%.

Of course, this has *nothing* to do with the DOJ's threatened investigation of a secret "no poaching" collaboration between Google, APple and others:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/206197/google_others_settle_with_doj_over_nopoaching_deals.html

Anonymous said...

Why do we have such a huge org under Craig Mundie? The ROI is so low.

Ray Ozzie left and it is back to Mundie to continue pretending to be useful.

All the while, product groups that are producing the $$ for our paychecks get hammered.

Anonymous said...

Of course, this has *nothing* to do with the DOJ's threatened investigation of a secret "no poaching" collaboration between Google, APple and others:

Coz not. Google has been loosing tons of great experienced people to Facebook and they're desperately trying to stem the flow.

Anonymous said...

>>Where does Satya go now that Bing's growth has plateaued?

Cost savings.

Merge Bing infrastructure with MSN editorial acumen, then fire the subsequently unnecessary MSN engineering teams.

Presumably this kind of drive for efficiency is new MSN VP Ted Cahall's area of expertise. Doubtless, there have been briefings about the "exciting collaboration" already over at MSN.

Anonymous said...

I'm more worried about the health care cuts more than anything. For awhile the poor performance in top level strategy by Steve and his directs manefested itself in our flat stock. By concentrating on cost cutting by taking out the best benefit we had, Balmer has acknowledged that we are no longer a growth stock and are just a dividend stock for old ladies.

IMHO he has touched the third rail with his employees and broken the bond. The deal was the best come to MSFT and work like dogs and MSFT treat's you better than the others. Now because Steve can't do his job I have to pony up thousands. It was bad enough that my stock didn't move because of his performance, but to add insult to injury he's going after my and my childrens health to pay the piper.

And does anyone buy this LisaB "listening tour"? I mean what's the point. We tell her not to do it, she nods her head and says "I hear you" and nothing changes. And does telling us 2 years in advance look like a trick to make it seem like we shouldn't notice it sneaking up on us? When the repurcussions of this hit home in 2 years HR will pop up and say why are you complaining, Lisa listened, we told u 2 yrs ago?

This is $5k out of each employees pocket plain and simple. MSFT is saying "We can't afford it but the employee can".

Frankly I'm really surprised the whole union thing hasn't popped up again.

Anonymous said...

Android is leading the market in the U.S. and you didn't hear about folks sleeping outside of those stores either.
Besides the G1, how about this?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179214/Customers_line_up_early_to_buy_the_Droid_X_

Anonymous said...

This story is a fantasy -- I guarantee it never happened.


Now, now, now. OP here. Calendar year. 2000mumble. Campus area. East of 520. No more details, per legal advice.

Managers DO NOT EVER disagree with HR in front of an employee in a formal performance meeting.

A typical reader familiar with MS culture would logically hold that intelligent and mentally sound managers would not. True. Surprise may be why this particular HR staff member temporarily lost his poker face. I'm as sure as my detractor appears to be that MS Corporate would view that as a mis-play by that HR staff member.

You've never been so stunned by something that you lost your poker face at work? And regretted it later as much as you regretted your first drunken binge in college?

In ever case, the manager and the HR person huddle beforehand and the message is formalized... this is how The Man colludes against you and why you can't win.

Out of 10 HR people, 1 or 2 may occasionally show glimpses of humanity. Even if only by occasional accident, it does happen.

In my experience, more show the collude then invite employee in then discuss then wave off employee then collude some more pattern than the pattern I experienced that time. However, what I experienced that time went down exactly as described.

HR is a manager's best friend, and they don't ever "feel for you".

Simply false. I was as surprised as you were. All one needs to disprove a "never" is one instance.

If you work for MS, it appears you did not get the interview question about whether you'd bet $100,000 in gold at 1000:1 odds that it would not ever snow in the volcanic lava fields of Hawaii before you left Microsoft. Maybe they don't use it any more. It was to test whether you recognize and acknowledge the fallacy people tend to introduce when making all or nothing statements, as you discuss how you'd evaluate whether to take the bet. That wasn't the exact question, as it was years ago that I last saw it or used it, with the change to behavioral interviewing. People got extra points for considering unlikely but physically possible ways to discount "never" with questions like "Would a high school student bringing a science project out there that created a few frozen flakes count as snow?" or "Would it count if a movie filmed there used fake snow?".

They want to solve the problem -- which is always you -- as efficiently as possible. They certainly never sympathize with your side of the story, regardless of it being true or not.

That is in general their modus operandi and how a prepared employee should expect it to work. Occasionally someone gets different results.

Maybe it was my record of tithing to my team's most powerful god online. Regardless, it did happen. I am carefully not stating with precision the cardinality of similar events with that specific HR rep. It was not zero.

Anonymous said...

Steveb's response to Google's 10% pay raise: more layoff for low levels and promoting more partners.

Does any senior leaders have a clue


SteveB and LisaB are right. If you are a hippo, you get promoted fast. As a partner, you are immune from layoff and get paid around a million a year. Google and Apple dont have these deals.

Anonymous said...

I worked for four years.
And the sum total of raises in 4 years = 12%
And then I decided to quit to MSFT and got a 40% base pay hike and roughly 25% bonus pay hike.

Anonymous said...

"Ballmer is dumping our stock - did anyone else here him last month talking about *never* selling stock because it was to good deal?"

No. And that's "hear" and "too", plus a missing "a".

Anonymous said...

Some idle thoughts...

1) Evidence is piling up that the WP7 launch was a flop. The phones apparently sold out, but there were also apparently only 40,000 of them on hand. Couldn't Microsoft use some of its supposed business acumen and cash hoard to get some more phones made? Also, stores apparently weren't promoting the phones. Same question. Who's responsible for this disaster?

2) Microsoft TV spots are getting more and more painful to watch. The Bing commercials where people shout out random "search results" are unbearable. Half the WP7 commercials encourage people to NOT use smartphones (whaa?), and the other half emphasize "tiles"--which any smartphone user knows is NOT a unique or useful or interesting feature. The Kinect commercials are not gut-wrenching but inexplicably only show the XBox/Kinect/TV for a second or two. Couldn't they find a camera angle that shows people moving around AND the product at the same time??

3) If you read more about Google's 10% raise, it's simply shifting the bonus budget to the salary budget. I don't think anybody's actually getting more money (other than the unrelated Christmas bonus). But it does make for good news/gossip.

4) It seems like Microsoft has turned a corner in the sense that almost all WP7 and Kinect reviews are more or less positive. The public doesn't seem extremely excited about either, but at least they are not universally despised like Vista or WinMo. It will be interesting to see what this means for employee morale and the public's perception of Microsoft.

Anonymous said...

Anybody wish to share experience with dealing with Microsoft on the "Right of First Refusal" clause in employment agreement for attempting to patent inventions qualifed as not belonging to Microsoft (done outside of Microsoft employment on non-Microsoft equipment and not competitive with existing or planned products)?

Anonymous said...

"No matter HOW you slice the SB decision, it demonstrates how truly clueless, or callous, or arrogant, he is at this point. Whatever the personal motivation may be, the damage to corporate image is undeniable. Ridiculously selfish and poorly timed."

+1

And neither the diversification or tax planning excuses are very believable. Either he’s out in less than a year, plans another really stupid acquisition bid, or sees major trouble for MS ahead.

Anonymous said...

"And it's not that big of a deal"

May be not a big deal to you but for most people, raises in the last fours years sum up to less than 10%.

It is a big deal!

Anonymous said...

The internet pundits are musing if Ballmer's stock sale could mean he will buy the Sacramento Kings and bring them to Seattle.

Well, if it does come true, don't you think it will work out great?

After all, Ballmer does have years of managing prima donna subordinates, making millions of dollars, and are borderline criminals.

Anonymous said...

“ Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer confirmed Friday that he is selling some of his holdings of Microsoft stock to gain financial diversification and to assist in tax planning before the end of the calendar year.”

(Steve now realizes how badly he has damaged the company and what that means for the stock.)

"Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion," Ballmer said. "I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology to change people's lives, and I remain fully committed to Microsoft and its success."

(Sales now become public record in days. So Steve can’t try and hide it for weeks like he did last time. It’s obviously not just a personal financial matter, but that’s the standard excuse used to explain SLT sellers, which thanks to this decision is now all of them. He’s 100% committed to continuing to destroy the company and Bill has assured him he still can. He's just going to need something else to retire on when MS = $0 and this should provide it).

Anonymous said...

Yes the November 3rd layoffs were correct. Not sure how broad they were, but apparently they impacted the ERP/CRM division (Dynamics) Apparently main hit was outside of Redmond but there was some Redmond layoffs as well. Stealth as always to avoid PERM issues going forward......Can someone share which groups were affected?

Anonymous said...

Will Microsoft really value you this much?

Mike Arrington "confirmed" this evening that one Google engineer "being heavily romanced by Facebook" was offered $3.5 million worth of stock to stick around.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear. You need to go see what Nokia is doing. The E7 will let you craete [sic] PPT docs on the phone, HDMI out on most of their smartphones (esp. the N90 that had a demo of 2 guys playing quake against each other on 2 big TVs), BT keyboards and much more loveliness already [...]

So the problem that was looming has now arrived. It was never going to take people long to figure out that the next logical step was to turn the smartphone into a "PC in your pocket" by facilitating the use of full-size keyboard and monitor (predicated, of course, on the combination of a sufficiently powerful phone and an efficient OS).

This particular facet of the form factor evolution could prove a disaster for Microsoft, since it clearly has the potential to destroy the lucrative and heretofore unassailable Windows OS monopoly. Perhaps someone in the senior ranks at Redmond has figured this out, hence the desperation to succeed with Windows Phone 7. Interesting times.

Unknown said...

Shades of the iPhone antenna saga:

http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2010/11/10/142667.aspx

Seems that killing current Micro-SD expansion cards to be a general problem with WP7.

Anonymous said...

Sad to say but looks like WP7 is a flop. Now let me be clear: That is not SteveB's fault! No, no,no. He can't control consumer behavior, the weather or the stock price. So how can he as CEO be held responsible for mobile products? That is Pieter Knook ... no wait Robbie Bach, or J Allard. Gosh darn it, they're gone. Never mind, obviously Andy Lees is the culprit. Reminds me a bit of how Steve had nothing to do with Vista either, that was Will Poole, Jim Alchin, Kevin Johnson etc.

Funny all these scoundrels are gone, but the chief scoundrel remains. For his weepy 30th at MGX should have got him a violin so he could really live out the Nero character.

Anonymous said...

Further on Ballmer bullet-dodging:

Bailing on his court appearance in the class-action lawsuit over the fact that "Vista Capable" computers were utter pieces of crap packed with sucky chips that were "capable" of running Vista in only the thinnest, most literal interpretation of term, Steve Ballmer delivered a written deposition that excused himself of all responsibility.

"I was not involved in any of the operational decisions about the Windows Vista Capable program. I was not involved in establishing the requirements computers must satisfy to qualify for the Windows Vista Capable program."

And on and on.

So who was responsible?

"Jim Allchin, Microsoft's then co-president of Platform Products and Services, and Will Poole, Microsoft's then Senior Vice President, Windows Client Business....I did not direct Mr. Allchin or Mr. Poole to reach any particular business decision. Mr. Allchin and Mr. Poole remained responsible for maintaining and excecuting those decisions."


http://gizmodo.com/5059958/steve-ballmer-says-that-vista-capable-debacle-totally-not-his-fault

I swear I would buy the stock of ANY company where the CEO would just say 'no matter what happens I am ultimately responsible'. And admit when she/he made a mistake, acknowledge learning from it etc.

Anonymous said...

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.
Steve Ballmer


http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/steveballm368861.html

Anonymous said...

Some more Ballmer quotes to bring you holiday cheer:

And then you take a look at Spaces, there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that's there.

I have lots of sources of information about what's going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking.

I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team.

Certainly, we continue to bring in new people. We'll hire, net new, over 4,000 people this year, and attract great people into the company. I'm very bullish about the employee base and what it can accomplish.

And on it goes.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/steve_ballmer.html

Anonymous said...

Noting the Google 10+% pay hike. I'm not a fan of MSFT reacting to it unless we start losing more top tier talent. It would look weak and not please Wall St.

That being said, we've lost one to a competitor recently and have two more who making noise. I'm seeing revival of an old trend where the squeaky wheel gets rewarded. Those who telegraph their disconent become "superstars". The quiet, strong performers get the blah rewards and leave. This is that season.

Let's do a few things right:

1. Reward and calibrate teams as well as individuals. (Mini is with me here.) We have some superstar A-teams out there. In a smaller or more agile company they would be rewarded for what they are.

2. Make sure that promotion velocity and rewards correlate over time.

3. Punish mgrs who reward squeaky wheels disproportionately.

4. Reward mgrs for developing talent that moves on to successful roles elsewhere.

5. Place more emphasis on casting. When an A-10 moves and becomes an E-20 or get a promo that's on us.

6. Not every role and team belongs in the same performance and calibration model. Let's do away with one-size-fits-all.

Anonymous said...

Interseting comment about Windows Phone 7

It seems that Microsoft didn't do much to help matters either, scoring another one of its now expected own goals by choosing to launch the WP7 phones on a Monday. Michael Cote, an industry strategist with Cote Collaborative said, "Mondays aren't great launch days. They poured all that cash into it but they lost track of the fact that Fridays or Saturdays are the best launch days."
That pretty much sums up what seems to be Microsoft's view about how to win at anything - ignore established industry wisdom and instead just throw money at it.


So true. Microsofts solution to every problem is to throw money at it

Anonymous said...

Quote by Anonymous:

If you think you're going to get axed or leave next year, the HSA is paid out over the course of the year, so you could incur some big healthcare costs early on, and never get reimbursed for them via the slow trickle in of the HSA incentive, let alone lien on the Premera plan to help pay the rest of the billing.

False. That was true in 2010 but not in 2011. Per the msbenefits rep on the "online discussion forum":

Q. When will Microsoft fund my Health Savings Account? Will the money be paid in all at once or prorated by pay period?

A. For those who are enrolled in the Health Savings Plan as of January 1st 2011, 2012 and/or 2013, Microsoft will ‘front load’ the company HSA contribution that plan year. That means when you enroll during Open Enrollment in November, Microsoft will deposit the full year’s contribution in your HSA the following January (around the time of the first pay check). For those who enroll in the Health Savings Plan (or change their coverage tier) later than January 1st, the Microsoft contribution will be pro-rated and paid on a per pay check basis though the end of the plan year.

Anonymous said...

There was a recent post on Litebulb where an employee was talking of the bug in the calculator. His thought process was that if he was passionate about fixing the bug, he should have an opportunity to see the code, make changes and route it appropiately. Defintely a fair suggestion.

Guess what.. there were these crazy people who replied and said how can anyone outside do code changes, how would we test, what are the benefits etc. Though their counter arguements didnt have lot of merit, the way they responded shows how messed up their atitude is. They were all about protecting their turf. Needless to say some of these were Principals.

Come on guys, we work for MSFT. Look at the bigger picture, not just saving your rear and getting your level increases. You all must be embarassed about your atitude.

Anonymous said...

Typical Microsofty.

> Mini, could you maybe be a little more discerning as far as letting redundant comments through?

Unless the link is accompanied by some substantive remark, it tends to turn the comment stream into an unreadable morass when you just unleash a flood of them like this. I'm sure there were some gems in there, but I had to stop reading after the tenth iteration.

Anonymous said...

Lots of discouragement in the comments :)
Ex-ninemsn here, have tasted politics in companies as small as 4 to thousand strong. For the record, am happily
working on LAMP and OpenJDK-based projects.
Found that this is quite true of managers. Well, we all have families to feed. So I found this resource to be tremendously helpful in managing the politicians :) Happy ordering from your fav online retailer and identifying the type of monsters you courageously face every work day.

Rick Yushenko said...

The 2010 Microsoft Annual Investor meeting is happening this Tuesday, 8 AM at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.

The doors open at 7 AM, and you might want to arrive early to get a seat.

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Events/default.aspx

Anonymous said...

Working since last four years with Microsoft.
got total of raises in 4 years = 11%
one promo = 5%

resign soon.

Anonymous said...

Seems that killing current Micro-SD expansion cards to be a general problem with WP7.

Interesting (not necessarily good) idea to merge the SD memory with main flash memory. Certainly one of the complaints about iPhones/iPods/etc. is that you are stuck with the amount of memory you choose at initial purchase. OTOH, it seems like suspect engineering if a slow card can cause the phone to crash. Have you ever heard of a PC crashing because the hard drive was too slow? Personally I would prefer it if WP7 had a file manager app and allowed me to manage files on SD cards, but I guess this is the kind of stuff that gets cut when you're in 100% iPhone-copying-mode.

Anonymous said...

Been a 15 yr veteran at microsoft. These are the things that I find are becoming extinct at microsoft
1. Celebrating anniversaries with M&Ms. Still happens but not like old times

2. Milestone celebration parties

3. Giving away small gifts like T-shirts, gift certificates etc

4. Giving campaign loosing intensity

5. Executives using the word "super" in every sentence

6. Execs an leads staying back late and on week ends with the ICs. Now campus is empty by 6 PM



Anthing else ...

Anonymous said...

Any moonlighters writing apps for Windows Phone through a third-party company? How did you deal with employee agreement item 4c (MS Employee Agreement posted by Washington University)? in regard to exclusive ownership of such software by Microsoft due to relationship to MS business even if done on own time and equipment? I would imagine the third-party company would expect to have ownership. Do you have to do it through a MS partner?

Anonymous said...

Using Headtrax for fun and profit

Folks, now that midyear review is upon us, here is a technique to find out who got promoted without having to painfully search in outlook.

First, start headtrax. Navigate to your favorite VP and get a listing of all employees underneath him. Export this list to CSV. Make sure that standard titles are in the data.

After the review period is over, do the same exercise. Then, import both files in Excel and sort by employee name. Now, start windiff and see who got promoted.

Note: This only works in organization where there are standard titles. Also, it does not show promotions inside a CSP level band.

Next, it would be great to have someone do this exercise for major VPs and list how many they promoted as a percentage of their headcount...

Anonymous said...

"Frankly I'm really surprised the whole union thing hasn't popped up again."

Enough with the union suggestions. We don't want one.

No matter how bad conditions at MS get, a union would be the last thing I would ever want to be a part of.

Anonymous said...

As to the fantasy or fact debate on thes story where the HR mgr may have sympathized with the narrator in a three way mtg with the manager.

When I read it, I took it to be told as truth. But it also reminds me of the Japanese story of Rashoman where each narrator has a very different view of events.

skc said...

Heh, as I predicted, alot of commenters would only be interested in discussing the negatives.

For example, alot of people here were praying that Kinect would be a flop. Oops, getting rave reviews and is flying off the shelves...therefore, no mention of it here.

Now, out comes WP7 and...hmm, rumors of a slow launch day...cue a barrage of gleeful posts about that.

Here's my prediction, sales will continue to trend upwards and the dissenters will quietly move onto the next product to poopoo. I suspect that'll be Bing for a while.

Pathetic really.

Anonymous said...

Anyone care to comment on how much Microsoft is spending to open the Bellevue Store? Smells of desperation to not see a flop at its signature store in its neighborhood.

Apolo Ohno, the local speed-skating star, will be at the new Microsoft Store at Bellevue Square next Friday to play Kinect and sign autographs.

Microsoft has enlisted him along with pop star Miley Cyrus for the grand opening...

Anonymous said...

"And then I decided to quit to MSFT and got a 40% base pay hike and roughly 25% bonus pay hike."

It will only work if you are good. And it should work for most companies around the world.

Anonymous said...

My manager just told me that more than my good results he values what other people think about me.

Could you share your experience of dealing with such monsters?

Anonymous said...

"Make sure that promotion velocity and rewards correlate over time"

Promo velocity is a terrible mistake. I've seen what it does to teams - "We have decided to balance the area you designed and drove to our HIPO because it is so important it needs someone senior on it, you take on the failed mess he worked on" - promo for him because he needed to keep up his promo velocity, shitload of work for me, no accountability for his bad decisions. Result - using promo velocity as an input to promotions leads to results that do not reflect the quality of work.

Anonymous said...

3) If you read more about Google's 10% raise, it's simply shifting the bonus budget to the salary budget. I don't think anybody's actually getting more money (other than the unrelated Christmas bonus). But it does make for good news/gossip.

I don't want to confirm or deny anything that might have been reported in the press (perhaps in a somewhat confused fashion). US antitrust law however does allow me to speak about my own compensation; in fact, a company may not prohibit an employee from speaking about his or her own compensation, or participating in salary surveys.

So... as a service to engineers at Microsoft so they can see if they are being compensated competitively, I am going to speak only about my own compensation, and not about what anyone else at Google might or might not be receiving.

I will be receiving a 10% raise, plus a shift of the part of my bonus (for CY2011 and future years) that was based on company performance to my base pay, such that my total base pay will be going up by 25% as of the beginning of CY2011. There will still be part of my CY2011 bonus based on my individual performance during 2011, which will be paid out in early 2012. As a result of the company performance portion of my bonus going away, I expect that the amount I will receive in Q1 2012 for my CY2011 bonus will be smaller than my CY2010 bonus, but that's OK, since I will have received that as part of an 25% increase in my base pay throughout 2011.

There will also be my CY2010 bonus based on company performance as well as individual performance, to be paid out first quarter 2011; I don't know what that is yet, but given GOOG's earnings reports for the first three quarters of this year, I'm cautiously optimistic. :-)

My base pay in 2011 could potentially go up by more than 25%, depending on whether my individual performance in 2010 was good enough to merit my receiving a merit increase in my base pay. I should find out about that in a month or so. My individual performance, if it is good enough, could also allow me to receive a refresh in the equity component of my compensation sometime during 2011. I imagine that will depend on how some of my projects pan out, and whether I can demonstrate they have added substantial value to the company.

I have worked at a number of major computer companies in the industry, both in the Silicon Valley as well as other places, and at least in my experience the compensation program at Google is quite generous.

I also have found that I'm working harder at Google than I have anywhere else. But quite frankly, I don't think it's because of the compensation. It's nice, but at the end of the day, it's about finding something that I could be passionate about working on. I initially took a salary hit when I came to Google, because I knew I could work on something full time that I could be passionate about, and I wouldn't be able to do that at my previous employer.

If you can find something you can be passionate working on at your current employer, whether that be Facebook, or Yahoo, or Google, or Microsoft, or IBM, or HP --- stay there, and be happy and productive! If you haven't found the opportunity to work on something you're passionate about, all I can do is encourage you to keep looking --- and trust that the money will follow.

Anonymous said...

There's some confusion in the threads above about raises and industry compensation, so I thought I'd share my comp history. :

My base pay at MS in Jan '09: 100
Annual review in Sep '09: E/20, 0% raise. 17% bonus.

My base pay at MS in Jan '10: 100
Annual review in Sep '10: A/20, 2% raise, 8% promo, 12% bonus.

My base pay at MS in Sep '10: 110

Decided to quit and join a competitor. New base pay: 125

New company announces pay raises (10% new + 15% bonus shift) for everyone.
My base pay at competitor in Jan '11: 156

Projected bonus at competitor in March '11: ~40%

Projected bonus at competitor in March '12: ~20-25% (after the bonus shift) based on performance.

This is, of course, in addition to stock that's actually moving upward, free food, unlimited budgets for nearly anything I need, no political BS, great work environment, infrastructure and tools that were actually built this century, positive non-backstabbing colleagues, a general sense of excitement and optimism, accessible and useful senior execs and so on...

I do miss Microsoft, though... The 1 hour lunches, the window office, the 10-5 working hours, weeks of not doing any real work except sitting in triage, adds/cuts, review meetings, partner sync-ups, creating pretty ppt slides for exec reviews and spending days reviewing them with everyone in the org between me and the exec, frequent reorgs, not having any kind of accountability for ship dates or (gasp) revenue/profit numbers... and on and on. But I wouldn't give all that up for the 45% pay hike and the fact that I wake up everyday excited to come in to work.

Anonymous said...

in fact, a company may not prohibit an employee from speaking about his or her own compensation, or participating in salary surveys.

Yet another example of how my manager is incompetent. I was written up in my mid-year review for mentioning it in passing when everyone was griping about year-over-year dramatic decreases in bonuses.

Anonymous said...

Been a 15 yr veteran at microsoft. These are the things that I find are becoming extinct at microsoft
1. Celebrating anniversaries with M&Ms. Still happens but not like old times


+ I've noticed a decided drop in interest of anything outside your immediate group. It's hard to find people who can speak intelligently about Microsoft products other than their own team's. Take internal dogfooding as an example - there's no zeal to play with it and see the new stuff. It's a call to support to find out why it's not working and be done with it.

Anonymous said...

Been a 15 yr veteran at microsoft. These are the things that I find are becoming extinct at microsoft
. . .
Anthing else ...


15-year veterans? :)

Anonymous said...

it seems like suspect engineering if a slow card can cause the phone to crash.

I don't know what problem you're referring to. But my experience with SD cards is that SD cards do generate error bits and the file OS on WinCE does not notice it. We have ended up adding check sums to all the files we distribute on SD cards.

Anonymous said...

Been a 15 yr veteran at microsoft. These are the things that I find are becoming extinct at microsoft...

Anthing else ...


Things I miss
7. animals at work
8. Micronews incl. Classifieds and Microsnooze
9. VP dares/wagers
10. Unified Christmas party
11. Old school tenure awards..incl stock certs
12. Seeing which 'softies were shopping at the Superyacht show...LOL

Anonymous said...

>Using Headtrax for fun and profit

Interesting idea, not all promotions cause title changes though as titles don't map 1:1 with ladder level. Still I may well do this.

Anonymous said...

>My manager just told me that more than my good results he values what other people think about me.

Could you share your experience of dealing with such monsters?

Good results are expected, not being a complete and utter douche *is* important. People think if they get 'results' they can be a complete asshole and everyone will let them get away with it, which is not true, everyone will hate you and no one will want to work with you; which is the opposite of what Microsoft needs (i.e. more prima-donnas). So just your boss saying that (even if those were his exact words) doesn't make him a 'monster'.

Anonymous said...

Paul Graham on what happened to Yahoo! We have Sinofsky doing the same thing at Microsoft in a nastier way.

http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html

Anonymous said...

It's sad that some people are conditioned to hate unions. With a union, you would not see the arbitrary firing of people over 40 that you see now.

Remember the unions, they bought you the weekend and vacation. At least on paper even if you don't really have free time at Microsoft.

Anonymous said...

"Frankly I'm really surprised the whole union thing hasn't popped up again."

Paying an organization to negotiate for a few more cents per hour is not appealing to someone who has other options (like working somewhere else).

I can see how the idea would occur to someone working in a large company where they only get assigned tasks that use a very small set of their skills every day.

It can start to feel like working in an assembly line.

If you have a job with long hours where you don't get to practice what you know or learn something new because you're doing the same thing over and over again every day, it would be better to quit and work for a smaller company where you get to use more skills.

Anonymous said...

My manager just told me that more than my good results he values what other people think about me.

Could you share your experience of dealing with such monsters?


A few links to books on recognizing and dealing with such people have been posted.

They are very dangerous.

If they can get away with it, they will do it.

It would be better to find another job.

Anonymous said...

Someone here posted about the EE group. Seriously, what is that group all about? It totally seems to be the parking lot for senior folks who are not good enough for product groups. Some of the folks who are running these EE programs are either coming from a bad rep at one of the product groups or hired externally, but one thing is constant - they are all senior and principal folks.

Further, they also travel all over the world giving their canned presentations - any question on a real world situation or an issue is just answered by cliches with no evident insight. What is the value these people are adding, why are there so many folks in this group and at such senior levels?

Anonymous said...

"The 2010 Microsoft Annual Investor meeting is happening this Tuesday, 8 AM at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.

The doors open at 7 AM, and you might want to arrive early to get a seat."

If you're expecting any apologies from Ballmer, shareholders to grill him, or a surprise “no” on his reelection, you’re going to be disappointed. Vote electronically. It still won’t matter, but at least you’ll save yourself the drive, parking hassle, and wasted time.

Anonymous said...

SteveB and LisaB are right. If you are a hippo, you get promoted fast.

Is it the case that Microsoft is now bringing in H1Bs from Africa?

Anonymous said...

Microsoft likely isn’t aiming for the number one smartphone spot.

So the good news from early indications is that they will probably hit their target. If you aim low you'll rarely miss.

Anonymous said...

Been a 15 yr veteran at microsoft. These are the things that I find are becoming extinct at microsoft...

Anthing else ...


- BillG
- Climbing stock & stock splits
- a company that *truly* cares about its employees
- manageable email inbox. WTF happened ... 200 email a day! And back in the day we still had DLs, now I wouldn't dare subscribe to anything outside of work. Anyone old enough to remember ipgjunk ?
- mansion parties on capitol hill
- Talking Rain (the 'old' one)
- +1 on the company-wide x-mas parties, they were awesome
- company picnic
-

Things I don't miss:

- Those monstrous wooden desks; looked nice, but what we have now is so much more functional.
- Traditional desk phones
- E-forms
- BSOD

Anonymous said...

Good results are expected, not being a complete and utter douche *is* important. People think if they get 'results' they can be a complete asshole and everyone will let them get away with it, which is not true, everyone will hate you and no one will want to work with you; which is the opposite of what Microsoft needs (i.e. more prima-donnas). So just your boss saying that (even if those were his exact words) doesn't make him a 'monster'.

This is one possible explanation of the problem.

Another possibility is that one of your manager's peers knifed you in the stack rank because you threaten his position. If your manager is weak, he will blame you for this.

If the latter is your situation, you have two choices:
1. Befriend other managers on team who can come to your defense, since clearly your boss is incapable of doing so
2. Get a new job

Action #1 is just a stop gap, since your boss is now a demonstrated pansy your time with him should be limited.
2. Get

Anonymous said...

Exclusive: Microsoft Altered Windows Sales Numbers

Microsoft's most recent Windows sales totals got a boost from the fact the company quietly added revenues previously assigned to other groups to its operating systems unit, a bit of accounting legerdemain that, along with other bookkeeping moves, helped the Windows group post big gains in the past quarter, according to an InformationWeek analysis of the software maker's SEC filings.

Microsoft's latest quarterly report shows the company bolstered revenues in its Windows, Server & Tools, and Office units in part by shifting money from other internal organizations--mostly the Entertainment and Devices Division, which sells the Xbox.

A Microsoft spokesperson denied any financial shenanigans, but would provide few other details.
Windows group sales alone may have benefited by as much as $259 million or more, just from the bookkeeping changes. Indeed, the Windows group, which includes the flagship Windows 7 OS, was the main beneficiary of the revisions, while the EDD unit was the biggest loser.

Anonymous said...

RE: Ballmer's stock sale; there seems to be a rumor floating around that it's related to his desire to bring an NBA basketball team back to Seattle.

Anonymous said...

Paying an organization to negotiate for a few more cents per hour is not appealing to someone who has other options (like working somewhere else).

I'm not especially a union fan, but this is reductionism to the extreme. In the Microsoft environment, it would provide a real check on arbitrary management actions against employees. We know all about those don't we?

Anonymous said...

Enough with the union suggestions. We don't want one.

No matter how bad conditions at MS get, a union would be the last thing I would ever want to be a part of.


Newsflash, Sherlock: MS employees in many countries are members of unions .. like France and Germany, 2 of the biggest markets in the EU. And somehow MS has survived, despite the hideous reality of being unable to fire people without cause, reasonable work hours and labor laws that actually protect workers from the vary managerial excesses that people complain about on this blog daily.

Anonymous said...

"It's sad that some people are conditioned to hate unions. With a union, you would not see the arbitrary firing of people over 40 that you see now.

Remember the unions, they bought you the weekend and vacation. At least on paper even if you don't really have free time at Microsoft."


Unions can also be agents of evil, and for white-collar jobs where other options are widely available they can be hugely destructive.

Unions destroy any kind of culture of excellence and replace it with a set of rules and guidelines ensuring everyone will only do the absolute minimum required to keep their jobs.

If you're unhappy with Microsoft's culture or your salary, there are seriously thousands of other places you can go in search of something you prefer. There is exactly zero need for a union in the tech industry.

Zero.

Anonymous said...

"+ I've noticed a decided drop in interest of anything outside your immediate group. It's hard to find people who can speak intelligently about Microsoft products other than their own team's. Take internal dogfooding as an example - there's no zeal to play with it and see the new stuff. It's a call to support to find out why it's not working and be done with it."

That's because we're now forced to dogfood so much buggy crap by MSIT that people simply avoid any optional dogfood products.

Anonymous said...

What kind of manager calls an employee at home on the day of her mother's funeral?

Ihar Filipau said...

Mini, have you heard anything about that: Did Microsoft Alter Windows Sales Figures?

KeithX said...

The primary reason I'm commenting today, Mini, is to spank you for your iPad comments. I'm far from the first in this thread to say so, but really I was shocked. What we have in the iPad is the first glimmer of something that Isaac Asimov wrote about 50 years ago in "Second Foundation". The heroine had a tablet computer with speech to text voice-recognition that was connected to the global computer (Asimov didn't forsee distributed computing). If you don't like the touch interface for doing serious work, just wait for the voice interface, and I'm only partly kidding.

The iPad is increasingly being seen as a solid front-end for the cloud in the corporate world. A car salesman could use it to go over options with a customer, and then access production and distribution data to get them exactly the car they want. Touch, Touch, Touch and a sale is made. BMW is already on the ball with this one.

Back to the cloud for a sec. If my data is in the cloud, and the meat of my apps are in the cloud, why would I (the average business / consumer user) need a full-featured computer? This is a HUGE oops for MS, becuase the casual user won't need Win7 or Win8 or any other Win in a cloud-based computing world.

Lastly, I find it shocking, Mini, that you're shocked that new grads would rather work almost anywhere but MS. Do you really think people want to work in that toxic of a corporate environment, just because MS invented some cool stuff a couple decades back? No way, and really, how could you be surprised about that?

Anonymous said...

Some of the folks who are running these EE programs are either coming from a bad rep at one of the product groups or hired externally, but one thing is constant - they are all senior and principal folks.

There's more - many are partner level folks as well. But your observations are correct - EE is a place for bad "engineers" to still get paid. It didn't used to be that way (or maybe I just didn't notice it before).

What a waste.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what problem you're referring to. But my experience with SD cards is that SD cards do generate error bits and the file OS on WinCE does not notice it. We have ended up adding check sums to all the files we distribute on SD cards.

It is being widely reported that SD cards that are too slow will cause instability with WP7:

http://www.everythingwm.com/the-great-windows-phone-7-microsd-kerfuffle/2010/11/09/

Not just slowdowns and stuttering but apps not starting, tiles disappearing, etc.

This means to me that many things in WP7 are being programmed with timers, i.e., assume that operation X finishes in 0.1 seconds so set a timer for that long and assume X is done by then. This is an extremely hacky, lazy, fragile way of programming things and does not inspire confidence in the OS.

I wonder what's going on with the Windows Phone team that they thought fusing an SD card with main memory in some unholy, proprietary way was a good idea. Why not just use standard drivers and file systems and use the cards to store pictures, songs, videos, etc. and not data that's critical to the OS and apps?

Anonymous said...

Paying an organization to negotiate for a few more cents per hour is not appealing to someone who has other options (like working somewhere else).

Unions are more than just for pay increase. With collective bargaining there can be safeguards against age discrimination, against managers giving arbitary A-10 or even the performance evaluation itself.


With a union, you would not seeing older guys being layoff like what you are seeing now.


Look at the NBA Player Association - they traded away higher pay in exchange for guaranteed contracts for everyone.

Anonymous said...

9:30 PST Monday. The online web site to vote our proxies is closed. The original email said: "Proxies submitted by the internet must be received by midnight Eastern Time, on November 16, 2010". The web site now says: "If you are a shareholder of Combined card for : MICROSOFT CORPORATION, please advise that voting has ended at 0000 on 11/16/2010".

I always thought midnight meant the end of the day, not the beginning. Sigh. Typical.

Anonymous said...

Has Microsoft issued any sort of policy that states that employees aren't supposed to post on this blog since there is a lot of negative stuff? I haven't seen anything, but don't want to be doing something that I'm not supposed to be doing (which maybe I am doing already by posting the question?)

Anonymous said...

Random thoughts based on various posts...

First, HR exists fundamentally to protect the company, in this case Microsoft. It isnt here to protect the manager or the employee. Dont ever forget that in your dealings with HR... as a manager or as an employee they may be your friend but they are not paid to be on your side.

Second, technical role or not how you behave is one of the core principles to being successful. The best coder in the world will languish in mediocrity if they cannot work well with others. Happens everyday at Microsoft... keep that in mind. The manager of the OP is technically right... you are evaluated as much on how you relate to others as you are on your techncial skills (or should be). It is subjective at times but very obvious when someone is poor at it.

Third, avoiding PERM is a good thing and regularly trimming our low performers is also good. Yes, pruning happended in Oct and into early Nov... yes, it was done in a way that avoided PERM and yes, it is normal... every large company does exactly the same thing every 6-12 months. Microsoft is not unique nor special in handling job cuts in this manner. The large scale layoffs a year or two ago were the result of mismanaging this for the last 5 years, my guess is Lisa took a beating for this and learned her lesson.

Forth, every major company in the next 5 years will move to HSP's or some flavor of HSP's as their primary health plan... it is the only way the insurance industry can combat the rampent profit abuse of the medical and pharma industry. This is largely out of the control of employers, Microsoft is just moving in this direction a year or two earlier than almost every competitor will move by 2015. This is not about MS cost cutting although it helps but fundamentally about Premera adjusting its offerings over time to build a more sustainable insurance business.

Anonymous said...

Microsoft shifts 1 million Kinects in 10 days

Microsoft Corp. today announced it has sold 1 million Kinect for Xbox 360 units worldwide in 10 days and is on pace to hit 5 million by the end of the year. The announcement comes a week before the biggest selling day of the year, Black Friday, and in the wake of increasing momentum for Xbox 360, which led U.S. video game console sales for the past four months.

Anonymous said...

So Ballmer says that Microsoft break-up not in cards. Which means it is.

I hope the break-up happens soon, That's the only way for the stock to go up.

Anonymous said...

Ironic that Steve didn't wait until the "Steve resigns" stock spike to sell.

Mr Ballmer is no doubt under the delusion that the stock price will take a dive when he finally leaves Microsoft.

Anonymous said...

Shareholders' meeting:

"I do understand the frustration," Mr. Ballmer told the audience after another investor complained about the stock price and dividend. But Ballmer defended the company's actions saying Microsoft's dividend as a percentage of earnings or stock price meant "we're absolutely at the top of the rank for all tech companies."

Messrs. Gates and Ballmer remain among the largest Microsoft shareholders, with stakes of 7% and 4%, respectively. Mr. Ballmer has raised eyebrows with plans to sell up to 75 million shares by year end for "financial diversification." On Monday, Mr. Ballmer sold some 3 million Microsoft shares.

In response to a question about the impact of insider stock ownership on Microsoft's share price, Mr. Ballmer said he and Mr. Gates both "retain very substantial interests in the company and certainly if you look at the amount of shares sold by insiders, it's really a very small percentage of all of the shares that sell. It's not a material factor in the stock price."


Steve "understands the frustration". And I do understand his understanding, I think.

Steve: Please. Quit now. Leave the premises, if you really do love the company. You will be fondly remembered as the sales guy who really, really tried to be CEO. If you don't leave, you will be not-so-fondly remembered, mostly in management textbooks, by young people who can only type with their thumbs.

Anonymous said...

“Economy Reset” theory was introduced by Ballmer in Feb 2009. It has been laughed out loud by Apple and Google folks since. Microsoft indeed was reset by his incompetency. Not only had no vision for products but also no care for employees which leads to nothing but failures.

Microsoft didn’t give employee stock option like Google or Apple. Most of employee are only given some hundreds shares a year plus ESPP shares bought by their own money.

When Ballmer screamed “Economy Reset”, Google actually “reset” its employee stock option to the lower price to benefit employees. Their stock value has been doubled since then. Hundreds if not thousands new millionaires were generated since Ballmer’s “Economy Reset”.

Now Ballmer started to dump shares right after MS stock price started picking up. At the same time Google increases 10% pay plus bonus for each employee. What a contrast!

Ballmer’s defending stock sale in the shareholder meeting was totally disgusting and shameless. He betrayed hard working employees completely. I like to ask him where is employee reward? Where is our return of ESPP in the past 10 years? He said “Thank you” many times in every company meetings. I don’t believe he meant it. He put his interest above company’s interest and above employees’. What an immoral rascal!

Anonymous said...

steveb sez:

"We're all shareholders, all of us are shareholders, so I do understand the frustration," Ballmer said. "So let's talk about what we can do and what we can't do. I mean, ultimately, the stock market gets it right as long as we get it right. So we optimize every day on getting it right."


Douche. Bag. The man is obviously just making stuff up as he goes at this point.

News flash: Everything from small pockets to entire divisions of the company are getting it right, Steve. There is some amazing stuff down in the trenches. We have some products, in fact, that had they been the creation of some Stanford kids in a garage, would have been hailed as revolutionary.

So let's make it clear that by "we" you mean "you", you and the executive team and BoD. YOU are the ones not getting it right.

I can't helping feeling that you're a pretender to the throne, and if I didn't know better, I would think that *my* Microsoft was somehow the victim of a hostile takeover about a decade ago. The end result has come out nearly the same. Or worse.

Anonymous said...

Raise, shmaize

You all don't care about a raise. You all care about the stock rise which is missing for past 10 years. Even a CD with 0.5% interest would have yielded more. Don't you think?

Anonymous said...

Man, the writeup in the Seattle Times makes it sound like the annual shareholders meeting was a real downer. No joy in Ballmerville. Depressing.

Anonymous said...

Any concern that Ballmer just sold 50 million shares? He hasn't sold stock since 2003 and now he sells 12% of his total.

With all the new products and initiatives he's been pumping which are supposed to be so exciting, why sell such a huge amount now?

Of course, MSFT has underperformed in the recent rally and has now fallen more sharply during this correction. Painful.

Anonymous said...

I was reading how Ballmer again rejected the idea of breaking up the company to become more agile, stating that our competitors are all in the PC, mobile, and television spaces, and Microsoft needs to stay intact in order to leverage synergies between the different business groups.

In paper, or in a sound bite, that sound like good logic. What he failed to mention is that there is ZERO synergy between the BG's. Every BG's unstated goal is to slip a knife into the back of the other BG. So much for synergy...

Anonymous said...

Today's Microsoft is a toxic place to work.

Back in 2003 when I joined the company, things were still exciting and quite dynamic.

Over the years microsoft culture has changed: a lot of non sense processes, status tracking methodologies, and "influence and impact" skillset crap.

The heart and core of this company should be the core technial skills of its employees and these employees should be paid with high compensation. Instead these folks are paid with just okay salaries, and they will have to put up with all the ever prevalent politics at each level, 10% layoff at each year's review, and cut in healthcare benefits, with no stock increases at all.

A lot of Engineers from India, some of them are good, most of them are just talkers. This is worrisome. Indians are generally good at politics, so today's ms suffers from that.


We need to refocus and reform the company culture: put engineers back to its heart and reward them.

Anonymous said...

MS employees in many countries are members of unions .. like France and Germany, 2 of the biggest markets in the EU.

In Germany, every company with more than N employees must have a worker's council, which negotiates with management about work conditions.

Recently, I have learned that worker's council of Microsoft GmbH (German subsidiary) forced MS to allow people to interview for other positions in company without even notifying current manager.

Also, they get 30 work days (6 weeks) as a starting vacation, and Microsoft must give them continuous four weeks off during summer months.

Everybody in customer-facing role and everybody over L61 (including SDEs, SDETs, etc) gets choice: either you take company car or get reimbursed for usage of your own car.

Only thing MS screwed is that L59 in Germany is L61 in US (requirements-wise). Salary is probably similar [a bit higher taxes in Germany, but there are some benefits for parents not available in the States], but if you are planning on moving to Europe, they will take you down at least one level. When returning to US, they typically do not up-level you :(

This is a thing which you'll not see in 1010 happen anytime soon.

Anonymous said...

Been a 15 yr veteran at microsoft. These are the things that I find are becoming extinct at microsoft...

Anthing else ...


13. Great ship gifts - custom jackets
14. Great ship parties - cases of champagne
15. Charity pledges based on the stock hitting a really high price(which it always did 8 months later)
16. In-the-money stock options
17. Shrimp, not weenies
18. Buildings within walking distance of each other
19. The chicken wandering around Building 4
20. Company meetings where important decisions were made - what type of V-8 to stock in the kitchens
21. One office per person.
22. Software at the Company Store at COGS ($5 max)
23. Fewer titles: SDE, STE, and PM (and sometimes prefaced by Lead)
24. Exchange folders for Social Discussions rather than emailing everyone who each then have to create custom rules for filing
25. Efficient reviews: One page written in Word, semi-annual with Bonus and Raises each time
26. My health and sanity :)

+1 on mansion parties. those were great.

Anonymous said...

The primary reason I'm commenting today, Mini, is to spank you for your iPad comments.

It's an interesting thought. What would you use, an "iPaddle"?

skc said...

>>Microsoft shifts 1 million Kinects in 10 days
<<

Heh, wow...thats gotta sting. Real, real bad in here :-)

Anonymous said...

> Raise, shmaize

>You all don't care about a raise. You all care about the stock rise which is missing for past 10 years. Even a CD with 0.5% interest would have yielded more. Don't you think?

Steve, aren't you supposed to be running a company instead of trolling mini's blog?

Anonymous said...

(1) With a union, you would not seeing older guys being layoff like what you are seeing now.

(2) I'm not especially a union fan, but this is reductionism to the extreme. In the Microsoft environment, it would provide a real check on arbitrary management actions against employees. We know all about those don't we?


I was talking to someone who worked for Boeing who says they do the same thing to older workers over there.

Given there are fewer positions the higher you go in an org chart, David Vaskevitch inadvertently admits it while trying to say Microsoft doesn't discriminate.

Getting rid of older workers is guaranteed to happen with an "up or out" policy given the structure of an organization.

Microsoft hires workers lower in the org chart directly from college.

As they age, they move higher in the org chart where there are fewer positions.

The people who don't get a promotion are out. They happen to be older because it took a few years to reach that position in the org chart.


Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age

Companies such as Microsoft say that they try to maintain a balance but that it isn’t easy. An old friend, David Vaskevitch, who was Senior Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer at Microsoft, told me in 2008 that he believes that younger workers have more energy and are sometimes more creative. But there is a lot they don’t know and can’t know until they gain experience. So Microsoft aggressively recruits for fresh talent on university campuses and for highly experienced engineers from within the industry, one not at the expense of the other. David acknowledged that the vast majority of new Microsoft employees are young, but said that this is so because older workers tend to go into more senior jobs and there are fewer of those positions to begin with. It was all about hiring the best and brightest, he said; age and nationality are not important.


However, even with a union, you would still see older workers being laid off because it would still be difficult to prove that their age is the reason they are being laid off.

The "up or out" policy guarantees they don't have to do anything illegal to get rid of you.

You would have to convince a judge and/or jury that "up or out" discriminates against older workers.

Anonymous said...

>Has Microsoft issued any sort of policy that states that employees aren't supposed to post on this blog since there is a lot of negative stuff?

hahahaha I hope you are kidding. If you let Microsoft decide for you what you do in your free time, specifically around voicing your opinion or reading those of others, then you are a loser. You are the exact kind of droid employee we DON'T need more of.

Anonymous said...

Windows Phone 7: Samsung Focus Back In Stock At Amazon, On Sale At $49 ... that is 75% off list. A week after its debut. Something is not right.

Anonymous said...

Has Microsoft issued any sort of policy that states that employees aren't supposed to post on this blog since there is a lot of negative stuff?

I certainly wouldn't post anything negative or potentially confidential/proprietary from the corporate network. The wisest person probably wouldn't post anything at all from the corp. net.

Anonymous said...

When things are not good, it's human nature to find someone to blame, and exclude you. I don’t know your nationality nor do I care to know but I am Indian MS Employee. I don’t know how big is your sample of MS Indian employee to come to conclusion “most of them are just talkers”. Each individual may have similar or better conclusion regarding other nationalities but they are their personal opinion.
Ex. My personal conclusion, Chinese works really hard to make kids expert in Math. But this is based on my personal opinion based on sample of my 4 Chinese friends. But is it true in general? Sorry for giving example of Chinese

Don’t blame people on nationality and try to generalize. I work my ass off, trying to improve products and do my best to make thing better. There are issues, we are all Microsofties. Don’t play the politic by dividing employee based on their nationality please.

Anonymous said...

"If you're unhappy with Microsoft's culture or your salary, there are seriously thousands of other places you can go in search of something you prefer. There is exactly zero need for a union in the tech industry."

This is 1920s thinking

Hell this is 1820s thinking

Suggested reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolpuddle_Martyrs

Anonymous said...

Second, technical role or not how you behave is one of the core principles to being successful. The best coder in the world will languish in mediocrity if they cannot work well with others.

This is a sad commentary on Microsoft more than anything. Projects at Microsoft are organized such that you can't go for more than two hours without attending a meeting or a review or coordinating something with somebody. One principle of good engineering is modularity and Microsoft fails in spectacular fashion. It SHOULD be possible for the best coder in the world to contribute successfully without relying on people skills.

Of course this will be a foreign concept to anybody who works at Microsoft now, since they think all the "work" they do all day (attending meetings, putting out fires via e-mail, etc.) is actually work and a necessary evil of this sort of job. Untrue, though. Look at the open source community, with thousands of individuals working separately on their own little libraries and command line tools, and it works. Of course some projects require more coordination than others and not all development can be done this way, but at least some of it can.

Anonymous said...

"I mean, ultimately, the stock market gets it right as long as we get it right. So we optimize every day on getting it right."

So Steve, "utilimately" -- when is that? I think 10 years from now the stock will still be at $25.

The only way is to break up the companies!!

There is no other options .

Anonymous said...

how about those layoffs this week? Anyone heard anything more. The field got hit sporadically, I heard MCB Mobility Business has been hit hard...Don't know the details but anyone else hearn anything more??

Anonymous said...

Why he silence on WP7 sales numbers? Kinect is doing well, which is great. But how are the phones doing?

Anonymous said...

Bellevue WA Microsoft store opens this morning. Hundreds line up, some camp overnight. Why? A chance to shake hands with SteveB? To see the awesome video wall? Kinect? Windows Phone 7?

Sadly NO on all counts. Just a bunch of miscreants wanting free Miley Cyrus tickets. For those of you who care, one of the Kardashians (not sure which one) will be at Nordstrom's tomorrow. And Apolo the Skater will be at the MS Store to play Kinect. Woo hoo.

Now if only SteveB would get into character and play CEO, we'd be in business.

Anonymous said...

Oh great - another google benefit we'll never see at MS. http://siliconslacker.blogspot.com/2010/11/google-ups-ante-on-massage-benefit-free.html

Anonymous said...

Mini, you're 100% right about iPad. It's a cute toy, but that's about it. These folks claiming iPad is the future are the same people who swore by Crocs. A big iPod is a fad. Get over it.

When a tablet supported by an OS that doesn't actively discourage 3rd party innovations is released (hint: Google or MS) THEN we can talk about the true value of the form factor.

Apple will be obsolete in 4 years. The facade of cute, overpriced hardware won't be able to compete with truly capable devices.

Anonymous said...

"Exclusive: Microsoft Altered Windows Sales Numbers"

What a stupid article. This reporting change was announced well in advance and serves to more accurately report revenue by segment in Windows, Office, S&T AND EDD. Similarly, the deferment's positive impact last quarter on Windows revenue, and negative impact the previous one, was also announced months in advance. The author is even too ignorant to understand the bulk of the source, and ridiculously speculates that it comes from Surface of all things. Epic fail.

Anonymous said...

"People think if they get 'results' they can be a complete asshole and everyone will let them get away with it, which is not true, everyone will hate you and no one will want to work with you; which is the opposite of what Microsoft needs (i.e. more prima-donnas). "

Some high performers think that way. But not many in my experience. Most are just more driven and talented. Unfortunately our culture rewards popularity above all else, and delivering superior results is often one of the surest ways of becoming a threat and unpopular. So while I don't condone prima donnas, I'm often skeptical when I hear "x is an asshole". Nine times out of ten it means x is just more productive and others see that as making them look bad.

Anonymous said...

You can't install any software on it other than software that is on the iTunes Store. Do you want to put your internal company app on the iTunes store? I didn't think so.

That's not true. Apple's own Enterprise Deployment tool can be used to distributed internally-built applications to corporate iOS devices.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Enterprise_Deployment_Guide.pdf

iOS devices are far more enterprise-friendly than many people think, as Apple focuses their marketing on the consumer aspects.

Anonymous said...

Today's Microsoft is a toxic place to work.

True - they need to get rid of ten of thousands of directors and GM's.

Engineers are just an after thought now.

BTW, why is finance so bloated?

Anonymous said...

http://www.stockbriefings.com/microsoft-corporation-nasdaqmsft-facebook-partnerships/3176335

is this true?

Anonymous said...

I'm leaving Microsoft after almost 10 years. A company with a great consumer reputation & a stock price that has actually increased approached me & hired me. Larger role in terms of scope & team size, equal guaranteed pay + upside due to the chance that the stock will actually appreciate.

The posters who assert that we are left with a devolved version of BillG's approach are correct. We reward people who talk better than they ship, and we also reward people who ship random s**t with poor quality (but they ship quickly, so they're "agile"). Lots of engineers doing great work, undermined by the environment in which they're doing it (and the people who buy into that culture).

We get what we reward. While I have hope that the saner forces in the culture will keep working to turn things around, I have no realistic expectation that they will. Meanwhile looking forward to my new gig, based on what I hear about the culture it should be refreshing.

Also surprised I haven't seen more discussion of this article:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/28/microsoft-online-business/

Wonder how much longer the board is going to sign off on $2BN losses, can't be forever.

Anonymous said...

"A lot of Engineers from India, some of them are good, most of them are just talkers. This is worrisome. Indians are generally good at politics, so today's ms suffers from that."

There are bad apples everywhere. Assholes transcend all color, creed and race. Stop by OABG where the management layers are lily white and you will see most of them are just talkers here.

Anonymous said...

Why is it that some groups hire non-technical management new hires into a technical group? Apparently, they are not expected to do anything/learn anything that is technical. WTF??? For Windows Server, I would expect any manager/employee to know something about the product. If this is who management wants to "manage" upcoming product releases, then I am seriously worried about this product's future.

Anonymous said...

"If you're unhappy with Microsoft's culture or your salary, there are seriously thousands of other places you can go in search of something you prefer. There is exactly zero need for a union in the tech industry."

This is 1920s thinking
Hell this is 1820s thinking


Where is your self-esteem, man? You are not a meat packer or a textile worker. The job market for developers is booming. You are in a position to dictate your own terms and conditions.

Of course, if you are a tester or a PM, that's another story. You probably need a union in that case.

skc said...

>>Windows Phone 7: Samsung Focus Back In Stock At Amazon, On Sale At $49 ... that is 75% off list. A week after its debut. Something is not right.
<<

I wonder why you conveniently fail to point out that Amazon has the same deal on certain Android phones.

Worthless troll.

Anonymous said...

What kind of manager calls an employee at home on the day of her mother's funeral?

What kind? The same kind of manager who calls an employee at home the day after he has a complete and total breakdown in said manager's office (because the stress of being given impossibilities to do, without any guidance or even functional specs, and then being blamed when they "failed" to perform, all while under the guillotine of 2 previous and probably false U/10 reviews based on the same situation, finally got to be too much)...and says "When are you coming back?"

Not even "How are you?" or "Geez man, are you okay?" or anything.

Anonymous said...

Newsflash, Sherlock: MS employees in many countries are members of unions .. like France and Germany, 2 of the biggest markets in the EU

Newsflash, Einstein: EU unions are not like American unions. The American unions are far more toxic.

against managers giving arbitary A-10 or even the performance evaluation itself

Yeah, and it also protects against managers giving well justified A/10s as well. Examples in other unions are well documented in the news.

Want to keep working alongside incompetents and slackers or maybe you are one yourself? Vote for a union today!

Anonymous said...

"Apple will be obsolete in 4 years. The facade of cute, overpriced hardware won't be able to compete with truly capable devices."

GUFFAW.

Right, because Apple has proven itself to never upgrade it's hardware offerings.

Oh wait -- they do that every few months. Which is why they're cleaning our clock and will continue to do so into the future.

The iPad is a round one, gen one offering. Only someone truly out of touch would believe that four yeras from now Apple won't be several versions and a whlole lot of functionality ahead of this gen.

Jeez. Some people will say anything to maintain their desperate belief that Apple is a passing fad.

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