Monday, September 04, 2006

Kicking the SPSA Can Again, Raises, and the 66th Percentile

"Hey! Who do I have to <<fill in the blank>> around here to become a Partner?"

That's one bit of fallout landing on Microsoft employees from this past week's SPSA payout to Microsoft employees at level 68+ in the company ("Partner" pay scale level - I'm not talking about the third party folks who Microsoft partners with in technology deployment). Tut-tut, don't bedevil me with my underwater options and paltry stock awards, I want to be where the real compensation is: Level 68!

(Hmm... Level68... local band name maybe, or perhaps my alter-alter-persona nerd hip-hop name.)

I'm sure if Windows and Office had shipped by now that the SPSA would have been a begrudgingly accepted payout to all the Partner leaders in the company, even those who don't have a damn thing to do with Windows and Office. Instead, the chosen weak metrics still point solidly to resounding success using a financial ruler that no jester in any court could stop laughing about long enough to make witty comments.

Hey, I recognize that running a big organization is truly a lot of work... and those folks already get well compensated for that. This redistribution of shareholder wealth to those that the shareholders rely on for exceptional performance - you know, shipping on time, increasing adoption rates, avoiding part supply problems, not surprising Wall Street, and not letting process and hiring binges saddle down Microsoft - just seems wrong and out of whack.

The big disappointment is that it's not a one time payoff but designed to keep the old guard around for two more payoffs. Damn.

And Microsoft is now officially a two-tiered company. There is Level 67 and below and then the Partners lording above us, throwing us the occasional coin. I certainly hate writing that. The SPSA, however, doesn't follow any rules related to the awards we receive. Does it take a year until some of the stock is available? Nope. Does it take five years to vest. Nope. Is it tied to personal performance and contributions? Nope.

The Partners are different from you and me.

One comment reflecting on this:

3 points I want to make:

  1. Why execs have 1/3 vested right away?
  2. Why are execs selling them if they believe in the company?
  3. Why other employees have to wait for 12 months and span across 5 years?

Following in that, and the ongoing discussion if any Microsoftie consciously cares about providing shareholder value or if doing so is even in alignment with their career, we have this comment:

So many people have attacked the person who questioned whether his first priority should be shareholder value. I've read this with curious amusement, especially in the wake of our top 900 or so executive leaders effectively ordering that they all receive buckets of money. There is no plausible justification for this action, and it has clearly been done at the expense of the shareholders. The next email from an Exec that I read that stresses how we all hold great responsibility to the shareholders will leave me laughing.

'Do as I say, not as I do.'

And so it is.

In reflection of all of this SPSA pocket-stuffing, a big tip of our collective hat to Jay Greene at BusinessWeek for the original article long ago last year that brought up this pending compensation program (hey, that's a great article to re-read). Some things have changed for the better. Some deck chairs have just been re-arranged. And some bad ideas have hit the fan. A snippet from Mr. Greene's article regarding that:

Microsoft's compensation moves have created a haves-vs.-have-nots culture. Newbies work for comfortable but not overly generous wages, while veterans have a lucrative treasure chest of stock options. Now a new pay scheme, scheduled to go into effect this fall, threatens to make the gulf even wider. If they meet incentive goals, the 120 or so vice-presidents will receive an eye-popping $1 million in salary a year, and general managers, the next level down, will get $350,000 to $550,000, according to a high-ranking source. But the rest of the staff is paid at market rates.

Only now we know it is 900-some recipients and close to $1,000,000,000 in payout. I think from now on we no longer brag about "growing our business one Yahoo!" or "...one eBay" but rather "...one SPSA." It's interesting thinking back to some of the comment conversations in the past about our huge thirty-something billion dollar war chest. People would often ask: "Hey, why can't we dip in and give out bigger bonuses or salaries to everyone from this?" and the back-of-the-hand retort was "That's the shareholder's money, not ours. We can't just do what we want with it."

Various stories on this from the past week:

Right before all this, Mr. Todd Bishop at the Seattle P-I took a side-trip to the recent 10-K filing: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312506180008/d10k.htm to revisit the recent hiring binge by Microsoft and how it breaks out for our 10-K hiring. MSN +44%? And while we're putting on the pounds, Intel might very well be looking at some severe cuts after an efficiency report (how do we get one of those?). Part of this is to make up for past sins of (dramatic pause) over-hiring.

I'm all for right-sizing Microsoft to be smaller by cleaning out the ineffective and the dead-wood. But it sucks beyond measure to have to reduce by 10,000 or 20,000 people all at once. That's the result of exceptionally bad leadership and I hope our Partners pause long enough over their new brochures of Italian villas to consider leading an exceptionally top-heavy Microsoft efficiently so that a few years from now we're not giving out tens-of-thousands Ooopsie! pink-slips.

If you're not a comment reader, then allow me to suggest dropping by the last post (Mini-Microsoft Looking Forward - Reviews, The Company Meeting, and Then Some...) and reading through what people have shared about their review numbers so far, along with their impression of the MyMicrosoft changes so far and the usual harsh real-world how it works way of getting by and getting the hell out of your current group if they've flipped the bit on you. One comment that folks liked in particular starts as such:

Hey! Welcome to the club. Pull up a chair and let me explain how this all works to you.

Random things around compensation so far as always includes discussion of the raise and whether it should at least match the local cost of living increases. Well? Within the mechanics of the HR-compensation beast, have to beat your compa-ratio first. Unless salaries are adjusted upwards and your ratio allows you more growth you're not going to be beating cost of living. And once you start talking about salaries, you start talking about the 66th percentile that Microsoft pegs compensation at.

Ah, the 66th percentile. Now, first of all, Microsoft does not intend to pay 2/3s the salary you could get anywhere else under this system. If you lined up thirty people who did exactly what you did from 30 different companies, you would be paid more than 20 of those individuals. Ten of them would make more than you. Maybe one or two of them a hell of a lot more. But in general you're earning more... at the moment in time that you got hired.

Where you're getting screwed is salary compression. The folks hired this year are coming in making a lot more than last year's folks, and getting a better taste of the stock sugar. Your recent raises certainly haven't let you, or the folks from the previous year and so on, catch up. And won't. So, if you've been at Microsoft (or any corporation) and want a fat raise then your best course of action is to switch companies and decompress yourself. And then work to get acquired by Microsoft so that you can come in as a Partner. Sorry, Lisa ain't gonna do that for you.

Your only way to win at the salary game staying at Microsoft is to get promoted as often as possible. On your march to Level 68.

Do let us know how you filled in your blank along the way.

Posted by Who da'Punk at Monday, September 04, 2006 233 comments

Monday, August 21, 2006

Looking Forward - Reviews, The Company Meeting, and Then Some...

Microsofties, what are you looking forward to? My top of mind right now - interrupted only when I take a good-long moment to enjoy this fantastic Redmond summer-weather - is:

  1. Review results.
  2. The 9/21 Company Meeting.

The new review: is the new boss the same as the old boss? Most review models should be closed by now and review deliveries should start in earnest. Some folks have posted comments that we still have a curve and that this year's rewards are going to be pretty close to last year's rewards, with the rating split into two on commitments + stock. Yes, there is a blurry curve that groups get to decide. You don't get to have a group that is 100% exceptionally exceeding everything. Well, you can. But then everyone gets the same meager reward. Different VPs and presidents have decided there should be a ratio of somesort of Exceeds vs. Achieved. All I can say is that I feel like tra-la-la dancing through daisies since I didn't have to be in a meeting with a bunch of glum managers and deal with, "We need to cough up N more 3.0s to meet the model." (Where N = the number of good strong contributors you're about to demotivate and practice giving the speech on peer-relative performance.)

Tra-la-la!

I'm too deep in the middle of it all right now to take a critical, constructive view. The new review model process has been a hell of a lot of work. I think it's worth it, but best practices need to be rolled-up for the next iteration. I'm still amazed that this all came together so quickly and now it's all done except for presenting the numbers and letting the rewards kick in on 9/15.

The 2006 Company Meeting: I feel like I'm in the minority for being a Company Meeting fan, but like I've said in the past it's my yearly chance to chug the MSFT-Koolaid and enjoy being with the best people in the world. Except, of course, I kind of look around at what groups I think we could spin off or downsize. But other than that I'm pretty cheery!

I'm sure the Company Meeting demos and the PowerPoints are coming together now that we're a month away. What do you want to see and hear? Personally, I'd like to skip any Vista or Office demos. Unless they're fast and just part of something else. I'd love to see some consumer focused demos, whether it's Live services or Zune or Xbox / PC games. How about a demo of the new Flight Simulator? And how about actually showing the 360 running games vs. last year. And I'd love it if we're talking about profits vs. revenue. Profits good. And if you're demoing something made with a small, effective, agile team, brag about it.

Some folks might be a bit disillusioned with My Microsoft and the review results by the time the Company Meeting rolls around. I think the Company Meeting would be a great time for LisaB to unleash more goodness. My couple of ideas:

  • ESPP: the return of the old ESPP, 15%, lowest-date and all that. Again, I'm just asking for you to return what was taken away, but, still... please?
  • Internal Transfers: optimize our internal recruiting by throwing away permission to interview, cutting internal interview loops to two-future peers + hiring manager, and starting an aggressive internal recruiting group to help optimize Microsofties we have vs. piling on any more.

Oh, and get those iDrinks actually installed.

Other going ons...

(I have about five pages of notes from the past week of random things to discuss, but I'm going to save some of that until later.)

SPSA Countdown: so, how did the SPSA percent pay-out end-up? Obviously, I'm not in the know. But you can start gently pushing your least-favorite Partner-level-L68+ peer towards the retirement door by leaving in their office various brochures of villas and such they can buy and enjoy their pay-out with. They got theirs. Clap. Clap. Leave.

Email retention policy: is it a good way to keep everyone's email boxes clean to just a six-month history or a cover-ya-ash cynical maneuver to ensure we don't have anymore embarrassing missives pop-up in court when a plaintiff goes on a fishing expedition up Exchange Bayou? Comments are all over the place for this one.

It doesn't bother me too much simply because it hasn't screwed me yet. But it will. I'm sure a couple of years from now I might start panicking because I lost some important email and that the incident in turn will cost Microsoft a bunch of money as we try to reconstruct the information in that email. I agree with Alyosha`: in a hard to quantify way, this is going to be more collectively expensive to Microsoft for losing its tribal wisdom. But, hopefully, no more head bruising, self-inflicted dope-slaps induced from de-contextualized email passages popping up in the news.

My only note of caution: I've worked for a tech company basically run on the whims of lawyers and staying safe and ensuring we stayed out of court. Life sucked. We never achieved what we could have and politically adept people became really good at sic'ing the lawyers on any groups they felt were threatening our legal standing. It's the safe road that leads straight to mediocre-ville.

Buyback Later: so much for Buyback Mountain. A lot of shareholders passed on the dutchee and we're going to get around to it within the next five years. It's done the stock some short-term good, so I'm happy there. But it's caused some confusion and we know how much the market digs confusion (most hated thing, right after surprises). MSFT Extreme Make Over and Packet Storm have more discussion:

Windows Live Writer: excellent! Job well done. Kudos. I enjoy using Windows Live Writer. I'm not using it now for this post because I've got my own custom little content-management-system, but I was really happy playing around with Windows Live Writer and impressed with what it did. I'd be much happier with inplace spell-checking and grammar checking, but it's a nifty little tool that does just as well as stuff I've paid good money for in the past. My only regret is that good stuff like this only comes along when we acquire a product under development. What is wrong with our internal culture to not allow a tool like this to be built from scratch?

Random bits:

Posted by Who da'Punk at Monday, August 21, 2006 307 comments

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Niall Sez Microsoft is Too Big and Paralyzed

Well, allow me to be the last blog to shout into the echo chamber about Niall Kennedy... doing what? Oh yeah: Leaving Microsoft. Lots of high profile folks have been leaving Microsoft lately and I haven't been making a big show out of many of them, but for some reason, Niall's short-time at Microsoft got my attention.

Two interesting snippets, one from Niall's entry and one from the luscious Valleywag (I so wish we had a Seattle version of Valleywag):

(1) Windows Live is under some heavy change, reorganization, pullback, and general paralysis and unfortunately my ability to perform, hire, and execute was completely frozen as well.

(2) Wag: Microsoft seems friendly toward people returning after leaving for their own startups. I've seen a few people leave for other companies and return with no problem. Do you see yourself ever doing that?

Niall: Not really, but perhaps if the company was split up first and there was some new project I was excited about that could only be done at a company such as Microsoft.

Wag: Split up?

Niall: Splitting the company into desktop, server, online, and possibly gaming divisions. It's just too big.

(from: Exclusive: Niall Kennedy's Microsoft exit interview: He'd only rejoin if Microsoft split up )

Lots of echoes in the chamber rolled up at TechMeme. Rumblings of cut-backs and paralysis and Microsoft being the new IBM. I certainly agree with the desire for Microsoft to be a way smaller company (though I think every time I say that, or ring a bell, 100 more people get hired). I'm not bought into the split-up, except for the sobering benefit of cutting off the cash-cow money flow that allows an abundance of waste and bad decisions elsewhere in the company.

What does it mean to try to hire a superstar today or to grow into a superstar? Can superstars actually get things done at Microsoft? And does this show a revealing shift that all that Live stuff we yanked out of the plucky start.com as a grand, confusing rebranding effort is taking a moment to pause and figure life out? Did we wake up from the Live-demo-bender, rub our face and shake our head, and ask, "What the hell was I thinking?"

A compelling vision would be great right about now. And not a dorky wired-up clipboard that has seemed to have dematerialized. A vision around making money and doing things that, if I told people sucking on a Frappuccino about, they'd say, "Oooh, that's cool. When can I do that?" And if someone is talented and motivated to get things done, how do you unblock them to make it so?

Update: the initial bunch of comments don't weep for Niall and are pretty much summarized as "good riddance and Live is doing super-fine." Maybe more progress will be more exit-door seekers. One can hope.

Other notes:

Posted by Who da'Punk at Tuesday, August 08, 2006 146 comments

Dev vs Test vs PM

For those that care, I've thrown in the towel and have let the last post slide into the Dev vs PM vs Test discussion thread. Jump in, and I really encourage some thoughtful comments like this one:

Test? I love Test. I wish we had more testers, paid them better, and gave them more respect. I wish Test was more integrated into product development, and had better career paths. I wish we promoted more people from Test into GM positions...

Well, I have to admit I lopped off how that paragraph ends. I believe there are some great team-building activities spreading through Microsoft, like Feature Crews, that have Dev, Test, and PM working together to create something great vs blaming each other when the should-be-expected unexpected problems arise.

So, for all the "grr, screw-up!" venting you might have to share, how can things change for the better? Or how have they already changed?

More here: 10,000 More Microsofties - What Do They Do?

Update: while I meant for the comments to go to the above thread, a few folks have asked for this specific post to be open to comments as well. Okay. It's a bit late now, but here you go...

Posted by Who da'Punk at Tuesday, August 08, 2006 31 comments

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

10,000 More Microsofties - What Do They Do?

So there I was, languishing sideways in a sun-drenched chair, indulging in bon bons, and getting engrossed in another summer-time read when Todd Bishop and I had a quick conversation.

"...Microsoft increased by 10,000 in FY06," the ever vigilant Mr. Bishop shared with me, keeping an eye on the recent postings to Microsoft's PressPass site.

Goodness gracious!

A fine G-rated reaction. And thank goodness I didn't have a bon bon in my mouth right then.

This was a heck of a kick-off to the 2006 Financial Analysts Meeting. Who are these people we've hired around the world? Sales and marketing? The field? MSN? Perhaps I'm reading too much summer-time dreck, but it makes me wonder if we're hiring all the folks we can to keep them away from the competition, tucking them away in pods along the The Dalles and other international locales. I shared my opinion with Mr. Bishop: they certainly are not developers, unless we've really lowered the bar and have decided it's okay to hire people who don't need to know how the JIT works, let alone those memory pointer thingies. You can spell HTML? Hired!

Unless someone has a secret to share on how to hire lots and lots of super-talented developers.

Redmond employee count grew by what... holy crap, almost four-thousand people! And our total global growth, including Redmond, was originally projected at 5,000? No wonder we have streets that turn into parking lots around campus. You know, you can only put so many rats in a box before the stress gets to them and it gets toxic and ugly. And the Redmond box is pretty much full. The infrastructure can't take much more, especially if you consider the ancillary jobs that open up based on the increased Microsoftie jobs.

I can only hope that FY07 will not be another 16% growth year. But I'm one beaten down individual, as if each one of these new folks have walked right over me as I sputter, "Mini- Microsoft- Lean- and- Mean- ooch!"

As for the FAM... lots of good coverage all over. I know, we didn't give anyone confidence about Vista's slip ship date (including a report that the press groaned to the answer about when Vista would ship... like we stuck our stock's chin out for a prime right hook). Personally, I would have loved some theater. Like BrianV being onstage giving that initial answer, "...we slip so that we don't ship shit!" and then being fired (or sent to MBS or something) and Jon DeVaan being yanked out of the audience and asked the same question, "We're shipping on time! I promise!" Now that would be refreshing.

Well of course that's not how it's shaping up in the near term. Some folks are grumbling about Sinofsky cronyism as Windows reorganizes for the future. I'm excited for any change that seems to be busting up the levels of hierarchy, clearing out the old, and bringing in the new. Some folks aren't going to be happy with any changes. But I think it's promising. What would you do differently? One positive outlook:

JonDe is a microsoft hero. He and EE team will make windows a tiger again.

It makes me wonder if the folks being given the bums rush are looking for jobs elsewhere or if this SPSA grant coming up very soon is having the positive benefit of "I finally got mine and I am out of here!":

My office is currently being swamped with senior microsoft partners looking to explore options, to consider employment with my firm.

What I am trying to get a handle on is if this is the first wave of Vista related attrition, or is this people planning on moving on after the first slug of the big $1m payday, or is this the first wave of the rif?

I am just curious. It seems odd that we would see so much activity now.

(Lord, it's me... Mini. Please, please let this be the truth and not some sadistic soul playing me for the fool. It's been a rough year, Lord, and I need something hopeful like this to make it through!)

Well, if your office is Google then I hope folks realize they might have a rush to beat... let's see, what's that URL from today's PI? Here we go: http://www.google.com/aspirejennifer - time's a-wasting!

Other goings on...

(1) FAM demo blowout: I was in too much shock from the employment growth to complain about this. In the meantime, both Larry Osterman and Rob Chambers have owned up to what went wrong and why. That's pretty damn open and honest. Some commenters wrote conspiracy theories around it being a staged demo, but somehow I think if it was staged it, ah, wouldn't have crapped out.

(2) Microsoft Lays Out Plans at Analyst Day has the following encouraging note:

It's only a matter of time before Wall Street takes notice of the strides that Microsoft has made of late to transform itself from a slow-moving software behemoth into a company that can better take advantage of new trends in the marketplace. Microsoft's renewed focus on online services is a good move for the company. Meanwhile, the company has taken full advantage of the XBox 360's head start on the other next generation consoles, and it has been doing a good job of leveraging the system's popularity to generate new revenue streams. With all of Microsoft's initiatives set to come together next year, fiscal year 2008 should see huge profits for the firm.

Well, it was encouraging until that FY08 part... better than FY-never.

(3) Ballmer Analyzes Microsoft's 'One Big' Vista Mistake - Mr. Ballmer continues the long mea culpa around integrated innovation. Additionally, Mr. Ballmer is attending his own kind of listening tour around campus right now with Ray Ozzie, meeting with L65+ employees, group by group, and having frank conversations. Hmm!

(4) Watch out, Google, Microsoft now gets the Net - interesting that folks are writing about the Old Microsoft and the New Microsoft.

(5) MSFTextrememakeover FAM - Ante up, up the ante, or just plain bluffing - Microsoft Extreme Makeover's summarization on the FAM - very nicely done.

(6) Charles DiBona and Dylan Yolles shared some interesting insights at the post-FAM Breakfast Series event. They saw it as extremely positive that Microsoft responded with a buy-back. Next request (same as last year): a consistent significant dividend. That would increase all sorts of investment in the stock.

Why is such a dividend a bad idea?

For Dylan: Linux, not so much of a worry on the desktop given that the TCO isn't terribly different (upfront cost is negligible compared to TCO). OpenOffice: beginning to worry more about. Interesting that he brought up a worry over developers and how he sees developers gravitating towards an Eclipse / Open Source environment. What do we do to get developers excited and engaged?

For Charlie: well, he can make us feel better for suffering through a Series of Unfortunate Events: the love affair with Google, the Vista delay screwing over those looking for a Vista dividend (and they in turn screwing us over), and the unknown payoff of the unexpected $2,000,000,000 investment. He saw big changes over the past three months: communication being open, being receptive to feedback, and to act on that feedback. Kudos to those change-makers.

And the reward for, well, the ballsiest question during the Q&A goes to the gentleman who asked about the prospects of taking Microsoft private. That question resulted in Dylan sharing an interesting nugget from five years ago: Bill Gates told Dylan that if the stock got low enough Bill Gates would take the company private.

How much lower is low enough?

Updated: fixed a couple of typos, especially one where I said "slip" when I truly meant "ship." Oy.

Posted by Who da'Punk at Tuesday, August 01, 2006 206 comments

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

We Are FAM-ily! - Links+

I look forward to the day when Microsoft leadership can strut onto the stage at the annual Financial Analysts Meeting to the glorious high-fiving pumping sound of Sister Sledge letting loose with a victorious "We Are FAM-ily!" as everyone celebrates the incredible ascent of the Microsoft stock price.

It won't be this Thursday.

The discomfort has set in and the pointy sticks are out. No more of this waiting until next year or the product pipeline of glory on the way. It's time to get down to the brass tacks. "Show us the money: where it's being spent, where it will be spent, and where it's going to be coming from."

What questions would you ask if you were an attendee at FAM? Mine would focus on accountability and, as part of looking where the money is being spent and rewards for our current accomplishments, wanting to understand more about the upcoming August SPSA grant-award, what % level it's going out at, and what the total cost of that is. How has it been a good investment with a good return?

Other interesting things:

  • Vista slip? One commenter thinks the buy-back we've announced is meant to stabilize the stock should we soon announce a Vista slip.
  • WSJ: thank you for the kinder, gentler Steve Ballmer graphic with the recent Zune article. It's much improved over the snarling Orc Ballmer.
  • Swan song for Microsoft's music allies CNET News.com Speaking of Zune: Zunked? Are we screwing our partners? I don't think so. We've given them a great platform to implement Plays for Sure and plenty of time to innovate long before we come along and try implementing a device. Anyone who can implement a WiFi sync has my money. Freaking wires. I just want to come home and unbeknownst to me have any interesting syndicated content (like a podcast) synchronized to my device so that I can discover and listen to it the next day. Plus Zune is a platform, too.
  • Good long comment on Big Bets: Long Term investments: how long is long enough? Microsoft has ruthlessly killed projects off in the past or sold the properties off. Have we lost the cancellation mojo? A number of discussions in the last post went over the financials and wondering when enough is enough and it's time to throw in the towel (now that we have an abundance of those). Are we playing to win or playing not to lose?
  • The Post Money Value The Microsoft Manifesto - Rick Segal's take on the recent Twelve Principles.
  • Workplace Advantage Planning - Adam Barr discusses the designs being worked on for new workplace areas at Microsoft. What do you think? Given that at least one comment was posted about this with great envy I think some folks are looking forward to working like this.
  • Misunderstanding "The Innovator's Dilemma" - Mr. Barr again, spanking me for a coupling of The Innovator's Dilemma with the pulled private folder feature. Nice read, even if it hurts. That original thread here was interesting because (1) some IT folks weren't too happy with my grumbling, (2) others pointed out that it's really hard for us, having one OS now, to serve two masters: consumer (more whizzy features!) and corporate (nothing new! Don't break anything! Keep it stable!). It's a pickle.
  • Musings on Software and Technology » Blog Archive » Whats going on - Musing on the Mini-Microsoft-like sites springing up (plus an interesting comment from Shel Israel). Let's see, the active list looks like:
  • Official Google Research Blog Hiring The Lake Wobegon Strategy - I've been meaning to drop this link in for a while. Something I didn't know about Google hiring: the hiring manager is not allowed to be part of the interview process. Google hires for the company, not for a particular position. Hmm!
  • iCup? Oh where is my Starbucks iCup? Perhaps a war over Starbucks beans? Perhaps we just have to wait until summer is over?
  • Mini-Microsoft Cutting Room Floor (Feed) - What The HECK? Yes, occasionally I'll share the kind of comments that just don't make it through now that I'm moderation 100% of the time. I wish for a better commenting system with a secondary "all comments" page where I can bring up into the cream the comments I approve and everyone can roll-around in the ones I don't, should you desire. But this will do for now. Some of the comments just about make it... if only they just didn't go and use that ever so witless M$. Others can just be wildly off-topic or just something I don't want to show up here. Okay there. Not here.

And lastly: I think it's too early to judge the review system change. All I know is that there are probably a legion of managers wanting to string-up whoever was responsible for getting rid of the performance curve. It must take ten times the amount of effort to enter numbers into the review tool and try to reconcile compensation across the organization. I don't think this is a bad thing - it's the kind of work we get paid to do.

But the stack rank is still there. But we can be honest with our review feedback. Kind-of. The curve is still there, just sort of blurry and a bit more gracious.

The dissonance of change is pretty heavy right now and, personally, I'm feeling a leadership gap to help us keep our balance now that the training wheels are off and we're wobbling along down the road. My guess is that we'll develop some best practices out of what we learn this year to have an even better next year. But right now? Scuffs and scabs.

Posted by Who da'Punk at Tuesday, July 25, 2006 109 comments

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Microsoft FY06Q4 Results

Time for a financial-focused week. First is FY06Q4 results. Then the 7/27 Financial Analysts Meeting. If this kind of thing gets you excited, I certainly recommend showing up for the financial-themed Breakfast Series on 7/28.

I'm not expecting much news out of the Q4 results. I'm so overscheduled that I'm not going to have a chance to catch-up on the news analysis for a bit - when I can, I'll go through the comments here and other sites to round up the links. I'm certainly hoping not to be surprised. Before hand we went and hid - er - simplified our financial reporting. Surprise.

Pre-discussion of the earning results (really slim pickings as of my writing this...):

Post-discussion earning results: buy-back? Looks like executive management decided that wasn't such a dumb idea.

A question that has come up in the comments so far about the buyback is the cap of $24.75:

Microsoft has capped the tender offer at 24.75. Does it mean that Microsoft's share price can't practically go over 24.75 until August 17th?

What happens if the stock price does go above 24.75? What happens to the 20 billion dollars put on this tender offer?

Personally? I weep a little with each Xbox 360 sold.

Posted by Who da'Punk at Thursday, July 20, 2006 101 comments

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Intel-ligent Re-design

The Intel employee count is bigger than Microsoft and Intel is a way different company. Intel has one-hundred thousand employees. May Microsoft never be so cursed. Intel decided that you can get too big and too many decision makers can block effective decision making. So this past week Intel announced 1,000 management positions are being eliminated and analysts hint at further layoffs.

Could your group be more efficient and agile and focused without a layer or two of management?

The only extra insight I can add here is to take Guy Kawasaki's layoff advice (though more geared towards Web 2.0 startups and their upcoming "pop!" days ahead): "#2: Cut deep and cut once:" Guy Kawasaki - The Art of the Layoff. It's no fun waiting for the other shoe to drop and your best folks will tend to say "to hell with this" while living with the stress and the ambiguity of wondering what's next and when. Oh, additional insight: Dear Microsoft HR: please don't go and hire all these displaced Intel managers. Sugar on top.

Other interesting going ons on the Minidar:

Financials: FY06Q4 financial results are coming up this Thursday, 7/20. Allow me to ask this to our executive leadership: guys, is there anything going on that Wall Street might be, well, surprised by? If so, how about letting it loose before Thursday? More sugar.

The Microsoft Financial Analysts Meeting is the following Thursday, 7/27. My wish: Ballmer gets up there and gives the same frank heart to heart he did within his keynote at the recent Microsoft Engineering Excellence conference. Integrated innovation: bad idea. Innovate first and then integrate: much better idea. Straight forward common sense stuff like that makes me see the clouds parting and the sunny future breaking through.

Underwater Options: in the world of rebel-rousing for the stocks, one commenter has this idea:

Do you have underwater options expiring this month?

On 7/24, a week before they expire, go to your SSB account and exercise 1 option. Pay the difference between fair market value and your strike price (this will be somewhere between $0 and $40). Microsoft will handle the paperwork, the volume will remind management that we options holders are still here, and the cash you pay to exercise the stock will go to Microsoft (as non-negotiable options, Microsoft must broker the exercise). Win-win, as they love to say.

And if there are institutional investors looking to engage with stock-price-aware discontented Microsofties, getting popular press for an idea like this out would certainly serve as a rallying point, if not a sobering reality check. Other ideas? (Ooo, I better be careful, less I need to start delivering this in a hall vs. via blog... I guess I help put the Red into Red Herring).

Eeek! An unhappy IT lord: Microsoft shutters Windows private folders CNET News.com - here we go and release a relatively cool tool that also helps justify Windows Genuine Advantage (see, sugar on top!) and then we go and yank it fast when the corporate IT lords fret over it. This is a key example of what's truly wrong with Microsoft today when it comes to features. We are so obsessed over getting the IT department happy with deploying our bits in the corporate world that we forgo (or yank) features that users might actually want to use. Sure, throw a policy key or two in there so that the IT lords can turn it off. But don't abandon customer centric features. Is it possible to take Total Cost of Ownership too far? Yes, and this is a dead end path that ends with a pile of the easiest to maintain features of all: the ones we never ship out of fear of IT backlash.

Let's see if some of the big-bet features in Office are enough to cause a user-driven upswell to get the IT departments to upgrade to Office 2007 before 2010.

Joshua Allen has a good write-up, too: Better Living through Software » Blog Archive » Oh No!!! People Will Love It!

Isn't there some popular book about innovation people love to quote that tells you how it's sometimes a really bad idea to do what your customer wants?

Posted by Who da'Punk at Sunday, July 16, 2006 77 comments

Monday, July 10, 2006

The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown - Links

The Good

Before the fourth-of-July holiday, SteveSi let loose with a mammoth 30-some page memo describing his refreshing org restructuring going forward. Lots of praise and excitement, even amidst the ambiguity and angst. For the non-memo'd, you get some brief ideas from the previous week's Micronews and from people here leaving "I'm not telling, but I'm very excited!" (generally) comments. And, blog-posting internally, David B. Cross left his own impressions of what this means going forward. I agree, David, it is an exciting change.

I can't wait until we can share it more broadly. I have high hopes.

Additionally:

The Bad

Oh, is something going on over in Europe?

So you have Henry Sanders and teammates scrambling like the dickens now but all I can say is there goes another $500,000,000 or so. Plus daily cash. I think we might need to pawn the handful of Starbucks iDrinks that have managed to pop-up around campus. Somewhere along the way it occurred to us that the Euro Commission was actually serious about this. And every settlement we make results in some other group or government or other offended party licking their lips and thinking, 'Hmm... your bank account inspires us to sue you to help you share it!'

The Unknown

  • The Seattle Times Business & Technology Argo aims guns at more than iPod - all I can plead about the Argo is "please, please, don't pull an Origami here!" Lots of good buzz and people speculating about the features. And you know what, if someone is speculating about a fantastic feature that we're not planning on delivering (say, converting your iTunes over to licensed WMA), how about pulling a Snakes on the Plane and doing it, and reward the community with praise for their feature design. Oh, and: I want one.
  • » The pain of switching to a new OS Ed Bott's Microsoft Report ZDNet.com - okay, I'm setting myself up here to bounce raving Linux fan comments for the next week. But this post is a reality check for Linux / Ubuntu fans thinking they are going to supplant Windows any day now. Uh uh. With servers, you have a fighting chance. With Alpha-geeks reading an O'Reilly Hacks book in-between MakeZine projects, you have a more than advantageous chance. But everyday folk? Nope. Not even for saving $100. But: Thank God for Linux. Thank God for Apple. If it wasn't for competition nothing would get done around here...
  • The Post Money Value An Echo Chamber Moment - goodness, I need a good PR person... maybe the firm could be called Echo-Location? So, should you ever start wadding your panties tightly in anger over what you read here at Mini-Microsoft, just read Mr. Segal's post as a pleasant reminder: 99.99997% of the world's population have never even heard of this freaking little blog. blog. blog. blog.

Posted by Who da'Punk at Monday, July 10, 2006 129 comments

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Online Anonymity is Good, But it Takes Work on Everyone's Part

Here I sit, in the same public space where two years ago, about this same time, connected to public wi-fi, I created http://minimsft.blogspot.com/ and shot out two initial posts and then a third noting the web feed URL. Whew, that July 2004 was a busy month! And it has been a hell of an uphill ride from there... I've learned a lot and I feel like a lot has been accomplished at Microsoft, along with sharing and discovering information in and about Microsoft that have helped countless Microsofties.

How's the score? Microsoft sure has gotten bigger, with no end to expansion in sight. Mini-Microsoft 0, Maxi-Microsoft 20,000.

Nevertheless, given that lots of good changes are emerging (first LisaB and now Sinofsky world), I've put away the pointy stick and have pushed the mental pause button here. It seemed, however, some kind of news event happened every week... so I put up a matching post for discussion: Scoble leaving, Gates 'retiring,' Vic leaving, etc etc. But between that and no mini-essays, the commenting sort of meandered along. And the comments got a bit nasty, not helped by my mis-approval ability.

So I've now cranked up the comment moderation quality gates.

Anonymity check. Is anonymous commenting a good thing? Is anonymous anything a good thing? Why is the EFF so passionate about anonymous rights? Hmm. It's a good discussion to have. My immediate answer is an affirming, "Yes, anonymous protection is a good thing. Judge the content on its own merits, not by the speaker." Other people's immediate answer is "No way! The message is ignorable without a person standing by it!"

While TDavid has been ragging on me for a while, recently Scoble flipped the bit and ripped through the commenting here, basically saying:

  • Anonymity is cowardly, especially backstabbing co-worker anonymous commenters.
  • No worthwhile content can come from unsigned, anonymous sources.
  • I'm being used by the commenters here with their anti-Microsoft agenda.
  • This blog is now harming Microsoft more than it's helping.
  • Non-Microsofties frequently pose as Microsofties to post as part of a subtle, intentional tear-down of Microsoft via Mini-Microsoft.

Surprise! It was as if I switched on the TV and saw Scoble's face pasted over Kanye West, saying, "Mini-Microsoft is bad for Microsoft!" Oh, and Dare jumped on that bad wagon, too, also hedging that this blog has jumped the shark again (third time's a charm, I guess).

Counter to this, Adam Barr also weighs in with Scoble vs. Mini (nice! reasonable!).

Now then, Scoble was coming off of a totally justified reaction to the harsh comments posted around his former team, Vic, and the newly designated leader. Doug Mahugh has a follow-up on that and anonymity: Doug’s World » Response to Robert Scoble. But, damn, when Scoble's bit gets flipped, it really gets flipped.

So he's in the very anti-anonymous world right now. Anonymity bad. Cowardly. Useless. And Scoble signs out of Mini-Microsoft land for good. Hmmph. Maybe he's pulling a Dvorak here, or this is an indoctrination into the crazy uncle club. On one hand, since I respect Scoble a super-great deal, it gives me a good bit to think about (and thus this post). On the other hand, it makes me want to proclaim Tuesday July 11th 2006 as "Be Robert Scoble Day" and sign your posts and comments across the web and blogosphere as Robert Scoble so that everything you write has a proper name associated with it. To quote Scoble, "Heh."

As for Microsoftie-posers contributing comments here: duh. Sorry I can issue forth anything more intellectual than that, but I'm sure it happens. Which posts, though? I have my suspicions, but I can't be 100% sure, so I break out the salt. Scoble quotes a reliable-kept-anonymous source as being quite in the know of all these posers here. The same source likes to spread similar FUD about how it's no more than thirty-some people rotating through various roles posting comments here. And how folks here are all a bunch of whiners. I know, we live in the age of saying it makes it so. I can't invoke divine wisdom on every Microsoftie post to clearly understand if it's blue-badged or not, though somehow this Agent Smith can. Take two grains of salt in search of your own opinion in the world of grey here.

One thing I can rely on is the community that's part of the conversation here to call B.S. on things that are suspicious, or when something gets through that shouldn't. Do you think a particular comment looks suspicious? Call B.S. on it an explain why. Your B.S. calling doesn't make it through my newly modified highly fortified comment filter? Link to that post in your own blog calling B.S.

As an anonymous blogger, it would be wrong for me not to extend the same to the commenters here. I have to. But I've heard everyone's feedback, too: the moderation quality has to be better. And please whip out the B.S. stamps and let me know when it's not.

Other commenters recent opinions on this topic (sorry if it seems like a love-fest - if you have differing opinions, submit them or link to this post):

(1) Until Mini came along, Microsoft thought their entire stack of management was super, and very well respected by employees. The reason they thought this is that detractors were tarred as traitors, whispering campaigns were started against them, and they were managed out. This summed up nicely with Ballmer's statement during the recent town hall: "if you're still using Google raise your hands." No, the first amendment is good for something, and nicely applied here.

(2) Not singling anyone out, but if there had been no way to anonymously post during the lengthy "stack ranking" discussion, is it likely the changes seen recently would have occurred at all?

(3) If it means anything, I think you're serving a valuable purpose for fellow employees. Without your forum, there's no sanity check for individual observations.

(4) Mini, if ever you were in doubt about the amount of good or bad that can happen through minimsft blog, I hope those have now evaporated. Although unelected by us and sometimes your posts are fluff:), your blog has provided an avenue for exchanges that were hitherto impossible.

Do not let this go to waste. Several times the site has jumped the shark with the unchecked or poorly checked comments but several times it has managed to come back to relevancy. Like Scoble or not, there is some truth in his remarks above. While I don't believe the era of Mini is over, I doubt my MS is being helped by some of the things you let through on a consistent basis.

(5) I'm an ex-employee and current shareholder. My experience then and now is that unfortunately, in more cases than not, MSFT's leadership responds to pressure vs proactively doing the right thing. When that pressure doesn't exist or can be easily ignored, MSFT often makes no course correction at all. We see this competitively, legally, internally and wrt customers/partners and especially shareholders. Dare's right that some unfortunate comments have made it through the filter and included "character assassination, racism, sexism, fear mongering, unfounded allegations of sexual misconduct, information leaking" etc, but that's not a whole lot different than many conversations over coffee at MSFT locations worldwide - or most other companies for that matter (regretably). More importantly, in my experience, comments like that have overwhlemingly been the exception vs the rule. Again as a shareholder, I think your site has done more than ANY to foster questioning of current management by both internal and external stakeholders and that's a GREAT thing given their penchant for ignoring the numerous and very obvious current concerns. When we get CONCRETE signs that senior leadership is willing and able to make the difficult course corrections (including changing the dysfunctional corporate culture) w/o external pressure, then your site's contribution may no longer be needed. Until then, I hope you'll keep at it and ignore the naysayers.

(6) The vast majority of us (who actually read lots of blogs every day) appreciate what you are doing. Not everyone realizes yet that this site is going to help mold the future of the company and maybe even bring it into the 21st century as far as how the tech world and how employees gather information and share thoughts and mature debate.

Please edit out the random trolls and potential planned posts that seem to be geared to distracting from and discrediting the mini focus.

(7) This blog is awesome simply because it IS anonymous, and people can post without fear of retalliation. Given the cloistered and clannish atmosphere at Microsoft, this is not cowardice or paranoia. It's common sense.

(8) Those in power to make a difference (LisaB?) who happen to read the blog will automatically ignore those items that don't happen to be true and posted anonymously and filter them away as noise. However, complaints that have an objective point and are posted anonymously will be considered on their merits because everyone who *really* works here knows its true. Therefore, ignoring the comment, because its anonymous, is illogical because employees can attest to its veracity and are able to contemplate the argument presented based on the content of the message itself. Moreover, upper management knows that impactful messages resonate strongly with the masses *despite* their anonymity (the discussion about stack rank is a representative example). As such, these anonymous discussions can certainly form the seeds of revolution. Ignore actual employees who post incorrectly because of their error; these are typically corrected later on by another employee and as such, the former's anonymous (incorrect) message has no impact.

So, damn me and cast aspersions upon me, but I'm going to keep keeping on.

Any other thoughts?

Oh, and finally: if some poor potential candidate came to Mini-Microsoft as part of their decision-making to join Microsoft and got scared away, well, great! Who would make such a judgment based on the radical content of a blog slavishly devoted to down-sizing Microsoft? Not someone I want on my team. Instead, I'd expect them to use it to have a challenging conversation with their recruiter and hiring manager so that they could start a job with eyes wide open and savvyness set to eleven.

Updated: corrected spelling of Doug Mahugh's last name. Sorry!

Posted by Who da'Punk at Thursday, July 06, 2006 92 comments

Monday, July 03, 2006

Bad Mini, Scoble's Exit, and Truthiness - Links

Holy crap, that last post really spiraled into some chaotic nasty sub-threads, mostly due to me slipping several times and hitting 'Publish' instead of 'Reject' and letting through some under-the-bar material.

I have no excuse.

The responses to that fire-fuel got so cross-threaded that it's hard to just delete my boo-boos. I'm taking a quick break between holiday beers just to put something (anything!) up to throw some cold water on this little blog.

Please, go enjoy life! I can tell you, post that comment-stream I'm going to kick up the quality bar a notch and stop letting the character assassination through... it doesn't feel right. But, you can always start your own blog to unleash your insight onto the world.

Meantime, just a few interesting things I've seen going on:

  • Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger » Your exit interview of me - how does Scoble find all the time to wrap up one job, go to a local geekfest, have parties, sell a house, buy a house, prep for a new job, visit here to post some pretty strong defense for his former group, and blog? This is a pretty good post-Microsoft entry regarding Scoble's point-of-view as he leaves. Good advice, and I'll be just as interested to hear what other advice Scoble has three months from now as our own little reality-distortion field fades and more distance reveals other insights. For instance, sounds like the bloom has already faded from the rose with respect to me...
  • The Rumors Are True Layoffs Hit Microsoft - well, there was at least truthiness to the rumors, but no outright divisional butt-kicking truth. There was an interesting amount of discussion generated around it, though.
  • Micro Persuasion Cuban Kills Blog Comments - Mr. Rubel notes Mark Cuban's defection from the comment feature. Well, for at least one post. First, thanks to the Google Blogger team for adding moderation to the commenting system here. I actually manage to use it correctly some times. But, if commenting and linking and pingbacks are part of the infrastructure to great blogs leading great conversations, they really have to be top notch. And commenting right now has plenty of room for innovations. I'd even add advertisements here if I could have an excellent commenting system.
  • The Blogging Journalist Who's Mini - Mr. Umrani... can you give me a weeeeee bit less attention? It's attention like this that makes me want to focus more time on building led-throwies than slapping up the occasional post here.

Posted by Who da'Punk at Monday, July 03, 2006 87 comments

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