tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post117364726791597702..comments2024-03-18T12:52:48.117-07:00Comments on Mini-Microsoft: Stirring the Microsoft Comment Pot on a Rainy WeekendWho da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.comBlogger234125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-64485588494503949802007-05-22T23:35:00.000-07:002007-05-22T23:35:00.000-07:00Quote:What I hear is good: MSN (the site, not the ...Quote:<BR/><BR/><I>What I hear is good: MSN (the site, not the org), Xbox, Mobile, Zune, STB <BR/><BR/>Which of those groups is generating profit? MSN, Xbox and Zune all stick out like sore thumbs (money losers), I don't know about Mobile and STB.<BR/></I><BR/><BR/>I know that at least SQL & Exchange in STB are doing very very well in revenue (in the billions) and profit (especially if you believe the $$ per employee ratio is meaningful) and have a minimal amount of crap to deal with compared to windows and office. Overall I'd say it's a pretty healthy group.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-67923403019192447582007-04-17T14:06:00.000-07:002007-04-17T14:06:00.000-07:00I understand It's a good article the people more u...I understand It's a good article the people more uses to this article the marketing strategy is more useful to people. If you are interesting visit the site <A HERF: HTTP://WWW.IDEACENTER.COM/>marketing strategy</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-77609512879422429862007-04-11T19:34:00.000-07:002007-04-11T19:34:00.000-07:00I know of at least 2 managers in Microsoft that ha...I know of at least 2 managers in Microsoft that had their VP/GM quash their promotion and/or transfer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-86593023035818672702007-03-31T01:27:00.000-07:002007-03-31T01:27:00.000-07:00So, I'm upgrading an XP box to Vista, and good gri...<I>So, I'm upgrading an XP box to Vista, and good grief, what a train wreck of an experience. I put the disc in, and the first thing it asks is to do an online compatibility check. Okay, fine. <BR/>...<BR/>Someone is responsible for this disaster, and I don't mean some L62 dev lead and his L61 ICs.</I><BR/><BR/>Credit where credit is due. The "online compatability check" was developed by the fine Windows Fundamentals Team and integrated into Vista Setup before it was done. Updates on the web were made post RTM. They have job openings if you want to help fix it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-58520482574228711372007-03-26T23:37:00.000-07:002007-03-26T23:37:00.000-07:00Any thoughts on how InfoPath and Outlook are to wo...Any thoughts on how InfoPath and Outlook are to work for? Anyone with experience on these teams?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-8698643156241573562007-03-26T15:16:00.000-07:002007-03-26T15:16:00.000-07:00You're comparing apples to pears.Yes, that was pre...<I>You're comparing apples to pears.</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, that was precisely my point in illustrating the differences. IBM is a software, hardware, and services company. Microsoft (like Oracle) is a software company with a minor service contribution.<BR/><BR/><I>IBM is a services company. </I><BR/><BR/>Yeah, mainframe and middleware OS's, databases, networks and all that virtualization software and hardware that Microsoft is trying to catch up with is just a figment of every CIO's imagination (and budget).<BR/><BR/><I>Microsoft is a software company.</I><BR/><BR/>Agreed. My original point.<BR/><BR/><I>Whilst MS services are the cream of the crop in terms of the technology skills, 95+ % of revenue for MS is partner based. So add up all the certified partner orgs and your IBM number is dwarfed.</I><BR/><BR/>Relying on MS partner revenues to make your argument without likewise including IBM partner revenues in IBMs is classic cherry picking. MS service partners no more make MS a service company than Lenovo PC's make IBM a PC company. Stick with what any company legitimately declares on its financials. <BR/><BR/><I>we have never made a secret of the fact that we focus on our key IP, and the partners focus on extending it heterogenously. This in itself is a massive value prop that our enterprise competitors cannot match.</I><BR/><BR/>lol - what "key IP"? Vista? DCOM? .NET? Great Plains? Is that where the focus has been?<BR/><BR/>Microsoft's "value proposition" has always been years behind the curve. And of course your partners extend it heterogenously. What other choice have they? The enterprise is already heterogeneous with IBM, Oracle, Sun, SAP, Linux, EMC, NTAP, etc, with MS on the desktop and some departmental servers - 'course Vista may change all that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-63713515066273391872007-03-25T15:45:00.000-07:002007-03-25T15:45:00.000-07:00>>"Let me guess. You are planning on starting a la...>>"Let me guess. You are planning on starting a lawn mowing business using Adam's mower."<BR/><BR/>Not exactly. Laugh if you want, gd knows I do all the time. <BR/><BR/>Mini, shelve this if you want, but respond to lampoons I must. <BR/><BR/>But re the business plan, properly vetted interested parties willing to sign non disclosures can get enough information on my startup plans to evaluate the opportunities. <BR/><BR/>BTW, stage one involves between $250K and $500k to establish three sets of (utility) patents and creating a prototype skunkworks facility from which production quality prototypes would be developed. Following that contracted out for production. Second phase would involve putting together a marketing and sales team.<BR/><BR/>The company plan initially involves a series of three to five products working together to enhance value of one another. but which would be sold individually without requiring the other products to work.<BR/><BR/>I also have ideas on a couple of other patentable products unrelated to this initial plan. I would like to use some of the funds to acquire shared patents on these items also.<BR/><BR/>Re the mower, I was kidding, but I do like to mess with electric motors and would use the mower parts to implement some ideas on building a hovercraft using half of an old automotive inner tube some leaf blower parts and a driving fan hooked up on one side to propel it along. It all depends on what type and condition the battery is in.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-88577904026596256852007-03-25T13:22:00.000-07:002007-03-25T13:22:00.000-07:00If anyone at Microsoft has trouble spending money,...<I>If anyone at Microsoft has trouble spending money, I am looking for funding for a startup, that I can probably guarantee a 1000% return (minus my 51% holding in the company) in value over a seven year period, baring galactic catastrophes etc.</I><BR/><BR/>Let me guess. You are planning on starting a lawn mowing business using Adam's mower.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-15845603047600020162007-03-25T13:12:00.000-07:002007-03-25T13:12:00.000-07:00>> For 1 billion a year - we should send most of t...>> For 1 billion a year - we should send most of them to Google.<BR/><BR/>From what I've heard it's $300M/year. Peanuts compared to dozens of other worthless projects under development. The difference is that MSR goose can lay a golden egg and those others can not. I do wish there were "islands" of researchers embedded within product groups that need them, though. Just don't expect them to innovate on schedule.<BR/><BR/>>> failing to make the effort to transfer technology easier on the lesser product groups<BR/><BR/>I don't know anyone in MSR who would not be absolutely delighted by the prospect of putting a tech transfer on their yearly review. There are two issues though. First - 50% of Microsoft teams wouldn't be able to adopt anything even if they wanted to. Poorly imitating competor's offerings doesn't require any innovation. Second, of the remaining 50%, people often can't see the forest behind the trees. This is not their fault either, they're so hammered by deadlines they barely have time to fix their bugs (about 50% of them, that not even the most fearless PM can punt).<BR/><BR/>Here's how you get ahead, folks. You come up with something that no one else has done before and build on it. By the time a competitor releases a product to the market and Microsoft realizes it's a threat, we're already 2 years behind. We will always be behind unless we break out of the habit of chasing everyone's tails and give them a chasing opportunity of their own.<BR/><BR/>Sadly, frozen pigs will fly in hell before this happens, because this requires risks, and risks could mean a bad yearly review if you don't succeed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-20535123998902298672007-03-25T11:44:00.000-07:002007-03-25T11:44:00.000-07:00"Why, congratulations, Keeperplanet! Unquestionabl..."Why, congratulations, Keeperplanet! Unquestionably the most impressive display of delusions of grandeur that I've seen in awhile, in keeping with your fine tradition of past posts. Easily deserving of a standing ovation."<BR/><BR/>Why, thankyouveerymuch. Do you need an address to send the check to?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-53177382575749911822007-03-25T11:19:00.000-07:002007-03-25T11:19:00.000-07:00He must have inside sources: http://www.dilbert.co...He must have inside sources: <A HREF="http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070323.html" REL="nofollow">http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070323.html</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-36312138134968285782007-03-25T10:29:00.000-07:002007-03-25T10:29:00.000-07:00If anyone at Microsoft has trouble spending money,...<I>If anyone at Microsoft has trouble spending money, I am looking for funding for a startup, that I can probably guarantee a 1000% return (minus my 51% holding in the company) in value over a seven year period, baring galactic catastrophes etc.</I><BR/><BR/>Why, congratulations, Keeperplanet! Unquestionably the most impressive display of delusions of grandeur that I've seen in awhile, in keeping with your fine tradition of past posts. Easily deserving of a standing ovation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-56696872219121888432007-03-25T10:16:00.000-07:002007-03-25T10:16:00.000-07:00In this case I can tell you exactly what will happ...<I>In this case I can tell you exactly what will happen. About 70% of the folks you fire from MSR will re-surface in Google Kirkland a week later.</I><BR/><BR/>Where they'll promptly be just as much of a useless drag on their bottom line as they've been on ours. How awful.<BR/><BR/>The point is not that product groups are the creme de la creme; we all know damned well they're not. The point is that MSR is reducing its own value by failing to make the effort to transfer technology easier on the lesser product groups. That has to change and it can change now while MS is still healthy or, as you said, it can change later when the Office & Windows gravy train is over and MSR is put under the lash.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-7004110748646504372007-03-25T09:49:00.000-07:002007-03-25T09:49:00.000-07:00>>"Therefore, we must conclude that MSR is worth e...>>"Therefore, we must conclude that MSR is worth exactly zero to most of MS. Oops."<BR/><BR/>Your comments remind me of what Xerox management said to John Warnock of Xerox PARC just before he founded Adobe Systems.<BR/><BR/>Yeah, I would suggest mining some of the Xerox PARC ideas many of which are just now becoming current and relevant. That way, Microsoft won't have to invest in intelligent ideas for at least another ten years.<BR/><BR/>What you are expecting is Applied Research. MSR is what you call Pure Research. Perhaps someone at Microsoft forgot to include the applications component needed so the people at Microsoft can then build products from the research.<BR/><BR/>No, I don't work for Microsoft.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-60303682055468081602007-03-25T08:26:00.000-07:002007-03-25T08:26:00.000-07:00RE: At-will employment...There's a saying that if ...RE: At-will employment...<BR/><BR/>There's a saying that if you're packin' a gun, you shoudn't pull it out unless you are willing to actually use it. Just "showing" it without the ability to use it will, more likely than not, end up as a bad thing for you. You'll either lose your credibility or it will be used against you.<BR/><BR/>Some at MSFT like to toss that term around like they could fire someone if the mood so struck. If that were really the case, why do still have so many people who apparently desperately need to be fired?<BR/><BR/>Any reasonable person understands that you can (should) be terminated for breaking the law (or robbing the shareholders), but, as any manager who's tried knows, it's actually a lot of work to fire someone who hasn't actually broken a law.<BR/><BR/>So. fire me or STFU and let me work, but don't sit there and toss around idle threats. (or, here's an idea, try to be a decent people manager so these problems don't surface in the first place?!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-87000414947590154872007-03-25T08:19:00.000-07:002007-03-25T08:19:00.000-07:00>A lot of people here are unbelievably, scary, off...>A lot of people here are unbelievably, scary, off the charts smart. Believe me, even if they don't produce anything at all (and it's not the case), you don't want them working for Google. <BR/><BR/>For 1billion a year - we should send most of them to Google.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-20517893155595118792007-03-25T06:46:00.000-07:002007-03-25T06:46:00.000-07:00What to do about a manager's ignorance?He was prom...<B>What to do about a manager's <I>ignorance</I>?</B><BR/><BR/>He was promoted to a manager's position less than a year ago, obviously due to lack of technical abilities.<BR/><BR/>He is known for producing Project Plans in which team members are assigned completely undefined tasks to complete in fixed time.<BR/><BR/>Tasks assigned for a team member look like this:<BR/><BR/>"Implement task #1" for 3 days.<BR/><BR/>"Implement task #2" for 3 days.<BR/><BR/>"Implement task #3" for 3 days.<BR/><BR/>And so it goes for all tasks of this employee.<BR/><BR/>Nothing is known about the tasks, except the number at the end of the title. When asked in a meeting, this manager replied that the tasks serve merely as placeholders in the Project Plan.<BR/><BR/>Now, as part of the Mid-Year Career Review he is assessing his reports on such competencies as "Analytical Problem Solving" and "Strategic Vision".<BR/><BR/>People who asked about the ambiguity of their tasks are ranked low by him due to "Having problems working in a dynamic environment". <BR/><BR/>Some of the people ranked low by this manager are well-known and respected by the professional community and don't actually need his assessments.<BR/><BR/>This is an example how applying the current review system produces wrong, unfair results and supports managers incompetence. The performance review process itself takes considerable, non-productive time. Assessments like this naturally force good professionals to start actively looking for better, non-Microsoft jobs.<BR/><BR/><B><I>What can be done to deal with managers ignorance and the Microsoft's Performance Review Process that supports it?</I></B>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-30783857397971852472007-03-25T06:02:00.000-07:002007-03-25T06:02:00.000-07:00People are making fun of Vista error messages: Err...<B>People are making fun of Vista error messages: <I>Error, the operation completed successfully</I></B><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://jeremiahpalecek.blogspot.com/2007/03/windows-vista-is-here-wow-im-so-excited.html" REL="nofollow">http://jeremiahpalecek.blogspot.com/2007/03/windows-vista-is-here-wow-im-so-excited.html</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-30345650457102313492007-03-25T02:16:00.000-07:002007-03-25T02:16:00.000-07:00I've seen interns here that could wipe the floor w...<I>I've seen interns here that could wipe the floor with senior SDEs in other parts of the company as far as IQ and pure mental bandwidth are concerned. A lot of people here are unbelievably, scary, off the charts smart. Believe me, even if they don't produce anything at all</I><BR/><BR/>Experience and interest make a person a good programmer as much as IQ and "mental bandwidth" (whatever that means). If you spend your time doing math and publishing papers, you will not be able to produce practical, reliable, maintainable, performant code. The code I've seen from MSR is a disaster on all counts. It suffers from problems that are common in 2nd semester programming classes, which in many cases is the highest level of "practical" coursework necessary to get a Ph.D. in CS...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-84677955112733902052007-03-25T02:12:00.000-07:002007-03-25T02:12:00.000-07:00Anonymous, at Wednesday, March 21, 2007 8:42:00 AM...<I>Anonymous, at Wednesday, March 21, 2007 8:42:00 AM said: Charles, You do know we have a pretty good services org, right? over 8k people covering consulting and support, and it makes profit too...microsoft.com/microsoftservices<BR/><BR/>Indeed, which is why I suggested the comparison with Oracle which also has about 8,000 consulting employees (*not* including an additional 7,000 in support).<BR/><BR/>IBM, OTOH, has upwards of 190,000 employees in IBM Global Services with annual revenues approaching $50B (from services alone). That is what diversified looks like.<BR/><BR/>IBM offers multiple computing platforms and many of its core systems software products run on multiple platforms (e.g. DB2), as do Oracle's.<BR/><BR/>Comparatively, Microsoft is not diversified; not in revenue streams, not in offerings, and not on platforms (and no, money losing game consoles, media players, and websites don't count).</I><BR/><BR/>You're comparing apples to pears.<BR/><BR/>IBM is a services company. Microsoft is a software company. There's a definite difference in core strategy which nobody on this blog comment trail is going to change - and right now, why would we. Granted, services provides for more revenue per head but software provides much more margin per unit. Most of Oracle's services arm comes from recent acquisitions - right now their revenue from that aspect is more by accident than design, although this may change if they move to a more IBM-focused business vertical approach. And they can't do end to end business solutions like IBM or even MS can, despite what they claim.<BR/><BR/>The key aspect is that regardless of how many MS services people there are, it represents a small pool (<5%)of the overall services base in the market. This is intentional. Whilst MS services are the cream of the crop in terms of the technology skills, 95+ % of revenue for MS is partner based. So add up all the certified partner orgs and your IBM number is dwarfed. Hugely. How many IBM or Oracle partners are there? Also realise that the partner space is where the platform diversification is made real - we have never made a secret of the fact that we focus on our key IP, and the partners focus on extending it heterogenously. This in itself is a massive value prop that our enterprise competitors cannot match.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-61678015283783837232007-03-25T01:44:00.000-07:002007-03-25T01:44:00.000-07:00Microsoft has shut off new registrations to the So...Microsoft has shut off new registrations to the Soapbox site (Microsoft's YouTube killer). Problem? Too many bootlegged videos. Not a good thing to have when your lawyers are sitting down with Newscorp and GE lawyers to try to figure out to pull the rug from under YouTube. Its really the best Microsoft can do. They could go head to head with Google and get clocked in this area - or they can sit with the content providers and share whatever comes of it with Yahoo, AOL, etc. It will be awhile before Microsoft can execute their patented 'embrace and extend' in this area - today they are merely sitting in the sandbox with other equally fretful playmates.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-76821736936564054432007-03-25T01:16:00.000-07:002007-03-25T01:16:00.000-07:00I bet the 'MSR insider' above is http://kschofield...I bet the 'MSR insider' above is <A>http://kschofield.spaces.live.com/</A><BR/>Kind of silly to compare MSR researchers with product team people. MSR hires PhDs exclusively, and product teams usually hire straight out of college. These are two very different kind of people. To say that PhDs are smarter than college grads and conclude that product teams don't hire the best and brightest and MSR does is nonsense. And we at MSR know very well that the best and brightest among PhDs prefer Academia -- Stanford, MIT, Berkeley -- or Google over MSR. In the last 4-5 years we haven't been able to attract most of the great people we were after.<BR/><BR/>Schofield is known internally as a management laptop. Yes, MSR management is as bad as management throughout the company, and its lapdogs' noses are as brown. Ling, the retiring MSR VP, has a habit of promoting mediocre people who agree with him uncritically and report those who don't. Lucky for us, and for MS, that group is slowly making its way out. Breese took off a bit over a year ago, Ling has just left, Schofield will hopefully soon follow, and so will the others, you know who you are.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-24998360552732451602007-03-24T23:13:00.000-07:002007-03-24T23:13:00.000-07:00someone wrote:[b] Its just a matter of how fast ca...someone wrote:<BR/><BR/>[b] Its just a matter of how fast can MS cost reduce the hardware.[/b]<BR/><BR/>And, can it get anywhere near profitability before the shelf life of this console generation has passed.<BR/><BR/>Seems like Xbox1 didn't make it in time. Xbox360 has done a smarter job of controlling the IP to provide for more flexible manufacturing of the chips, but it's already been out over a year and isn't outselling PS2 yet. You can't get "economy of scale" without the "scale".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-68113654048075015242007-03-24T22:06:00.000-07:002007-03-24T22:06:00.000-07:00Dilbert on Career Compass:http://dilbert.com/comic...Dilbert on Career Compass:<BR/><BR/>http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2007031349101.jpg<BR/><BR/>Honestly, if I didn't know that Scott Adams doesn't work at Microsoft, I could have sworn he's here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-61726624817964447752007-03-24T21:06:00.000-07:002007-03-24T21:06:00.000-07:00>> And we all know what happens to people who don'...>> And we all know what happens to people who don't pull their weight<BR/><BR/>In this case I can tell you exactly what will happen. About 70% of the folks you fire from MSR will re-surface in Google Kirkland a week later. <BR/><BR/>I'm not even a researcher, I just write code and contribute to papers researchers publish every now and then. I'm an ordinary grunt just trying to learn things an keep up with the new stuff. Back when I was in a product group (for 7+ years) I thought I was creme de la creme also. The truth of the matter is, most of the things Microsoft is built upon are commodities by now. There are half a dozen usable operating systems and at least a few decent office suites available to anyone for zero dollars zero cents. Sooner or later people will figure this out. <BR/><BR/>Granted, it is hard to see more than a couple of years out. But one thing should be clear to everyone - five years from now Office and Windows will matter much less than they do now. And I'm not some sort of Web 2.0 batshit insane fanatic - web probably won't be "it". It's just that you can't sell commodities at a premium forever.<BR/><BR/>Now, the question is, what do we do? Do we allow PhDs in MSR to advance the state of the art (and patent/transfer the ideas), or do we just fire them all and hope that Windows/Office gravy train will run forever?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com