MS Poll 08

MS Poll 2008: what parts of the employee poll do you see as critical in communicating any changes that need to happen at Microsoft?

Act Local: first of all, usually when I review poll results, my team looks at the questions and comments directly relevant to things that we can change. So if you want change in your day-to-day group, look hard at those questions that managers who report to a VP are accountable for. I can't count the number of times that we've looked through poll spreadsheets and some of the harshest numbers might be around "Microsoft is headed in the right direction" or something, and nothing but shrugs result from those number since the reaction is usually, "What can we do about that?"

I've also been in meetings where we sit down and look at every comment, and figure out ownership and actions. Again, for things beyond our scope of impact we have to move on. But for serious comments that are relevant to the team a lot of attention is given. Strongly disagree about something? Note it and put in a fix for it in the comments later.

What I'm saying: act locally first and honestly assess your workgroup and put some effort into comments relevant to your group, probably noting the group's / VP's name specifically in the comment for any roll-up your comment goes into, should you have a senior VP (or heaven forbid, a president) that actually glances through any of this.

Next, Think Globally for the Company: then there's the broader company wide feedback.

• Do I think we're headed in the right direction? No, not with our explosive employee growth and our highly questionable acquisition pursuit of Yahoo (oof, sorry, I just had a mental image of a smirking Kevin Johnson wearing a black top-hat + cape and stroking his long, skinny waxed mustache). And I fear with all these new people and buildings, Redmond and Bellevue are about to turn into a constant parking lot (especially when that monstrosity opens near Highway 520).
• Our systems and processes have exploded - and I'm not just talking about the pain in the butt magical commitment tool (magical in that it can make comments *poof* disappear).
• Our rank and yank employee calibration doesn't align with valuing contributing to other people's success, so why even ask a question about being rewarded and recognized for that? Bring in some sort of team-based recognition and rewards and this will change.
  • Follow-up: hell yes your success is assessed relative to your peers. Duh.
• This is the first time I've pulled in and shorted the number of years I expect to continue working at Microsoft. Usually I'm all "Here till I drop!" highly enthused, but now I'm concerned about the recent business decisions and the potential for that to make Microsoft go south, let alone the long-term impacts being felt now by the accrual of so many unneeded hires. Microsoft has the unfortunate potential to change so much that it will no longer be Microsoft to me.
• As for a message to send upwards loud an clear about what motivates people to put in the extra effort, I think I can sum it up as: stock.

The stock has to start performing well. Our executive leadership doesn't believe that the stock performance matters, especially to employees. Does Microsoft stock price matter to you? I imagine you just said, "Hell yeah it does, Mini!" Let them know. If our stock started shooting up (like it did oh so briefly) would you be more highly motivated and engaged in your job? If we hit $40? $50? If you started seeing the rewards of working at Microsoft around the stock you own and it actually being a benefit vs. a woeful joke going on over a half-a-decade, how would things change for you?

Employees have to say loud and clear, whether through the poll or other communications with leadership, that the Microsoft stock price does matter and it does make a difference. Want us to be bold? Re-invigorate the stock. Want us to take risks? Re-invigorate the stock. Want us to work above and beyond what's required of us? Re-invigorate the stock.

And do other things like have a better 401k match and bring back the old ESPP. There it is, stock again.

I encourage you to put in any positive remarks about things going well so that they don't change for the worst. And if something needs to change, it's always best to put in the positive business-based solution vs. just asking the problem being addressed. Otherwise, you might not like the solution.

I do think the poll is worth the effort, especially for provoking useful change in your group. As for a broader message, there's a potential that if key numbers radically change this year that it will be a wake up call. You might as well ring that bell.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft

That Whistling Sound

Some weeks you just feel like Wile E. Coyote, beat up and dazed at the bottom of a canyon you just crash landed onto, wavering back and forth in the swirling dust while new knots grow out of your head and little concussion spirals spin above your black and blue eyes. And there's a shadow. A shadow that's growing bigger and bigger around you, and you wonder, where did that new Acme anvil get to, anyway, and what's that whistling sound?

Time to pop up the little umbrella.

That's what last week sort of felt like to me. Fines. Stock beat to hell and back. Incriminating emails showing up in the Vista incapable lawsuit. The Yahoo acquisition stumbling forward against the better judgment of the world. Friggin' bugs in the review tool that causes feedback to disappear in the HR IT bit-bucket (hello, we have this neato homegrown technology called Word which tends not to lose things). OOXML on the ropes. Live-ID sign-in offline. Crap.

Fine, just fine: Shortly after the Steve / Brad / Ray show of all the new documentation we're unleashing on the world, the EU found that wallet they'd been feeling for as they groped us and slapped Microsoft with another big huge fine.

Dolores Umbrid- err, Neelie Kroes on this: "Talk, as you know, is cheap; flouting the rules is expensive, so to say. We don't want talk and promises, we want compliance. If you flout the rules you will be caught, and it will cost you dear."

To which she added, her eyes blazing in Steve Ballmer's direction, "I drink your milkshake!" Quickly followed by an email to SteveB of a photo of her cat sitting on a wad of euros, captioned "I'm in ur profitz, stealin' ur cash."

Intel certainly should be worried, too, having had an EU raid on a European office recently. And Google shouldn't be too smug either: Microsoft Is The EU's ATM Machine - And Google Is Next - Seeking Alpha. If you're #1 in something and not entwined around the success of an European partner / partner ecosystem, your butt is next to be hoisted upside down and shook until a few billion pop out.

And while I'm not going to go all Hank Reardon here and get upset about documenting how our particular kind of industrial steel works, I am having negative tit-for-tat protectionist reactions. I'm human: my company is bleeding fines - fines we'll pay especially given the Yahoo in-play factor - and nary a word from the US government saying, "Hey, whoa, we'd like some of that cash to stay local here." And don't get me started about fairness. This is international economic political reality, which is about as far from fair as you can get, although all sides can certainly enshroud themselves in the mien fairness as they speak their piece.

My expectation is, just like Windows XP N, a lot of this will just go unused. I mean, I guess if I go to Hell one of the first punishments will be "Here's the Exchange protocol documentation. Please write a server that works against this protocol." Probably followed by something much, much worse, "Here's the Sharepoint protocol doc-" "No! Just gut me or do something with fire ants and a poker already!"

I can only hope that the cash goes to something useful at the end of the day. You know, something better than ill-advised acquisitions, SPSA pay-outs, and hiring lots and lots of more Microsofties to do less and less. Hmm. Perhaps I could warm up to these fines.

Who said what? And they're still employed? Ah, email discovery. What's the point in having an ass if it you can't do something that comes around and gets your squarely bit in said ass? Some of those email exchanges I already kind of expected, but the one about possible collusion with Intel to support their chipset? Double d'oh with an oy-vey on top.

• Mr. Todd Bishop: Full text Microsoft execs on Vista problems and Vista How cozy were Microsoft and Intel.
• Mr. Joe Wilcox: Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Intel-Microsoft Vistagate, Part 1 and Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Intel-Microsoft Vistagate, Part 2.
• MSFTExtremeMakeover: Breaking News CVP Will Poole Certifies Another Laptop as Vista Capable.

Busted. This is where you reach for the wallet (if you can evade Ms. Kroes sticky fingers on an interception route) and just pay-up. In my opinion, we screwed up here, badly. God forbid if any of those friggin' Vista Capable stickers showed up in the EU...

Rewarding: so how was the Microsoft Technical Recognition Awards in La Quinta, CA this year? I still don't know why they need to go all the way the hell down to California for the technical semi-Partner achievement getaway. Oh, wait, getaway. And hey, didn't the Watson guys win last year, too? Sorry, but with everything going on and the stock down on the low end of $27, more weenies and less shrimp for the SPSA crowd would be mighty nice.

Silverlight lining: I can only hope that some good will and interesting results come out of Mix08 and our own Tech Fest. The last two Tech Fest have been really interesting for me. This one I don't have as high hopes for, having gone through the initial list, but that leaves the door for me to be pleasantly surprised.

Anyway, after this week, you've got to wonder: can it get any worse?

What's that whistling sound?

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft

Because the Last Aquisition Went So Well...

Check-in on Yahoo: BusinessWeek has a small take on Kevin Johnson's message to Microsoft and Yahoo employees. A number of articles have been posted putting this email in the light of "we're not going to be firing anybody! Please, don't leave, we luv you all and we have someplace to squeeze you in!" After our own CEO basically lied to his own senior leadership regarding the Yahoo acquisition, I'm not buying anything they are selling because their agenda, whatever it is, is built on misrepresentation. Or shooting from the hip.

Besides, of course, I want folks fired due to my original agenda; plus, the Yahoo Peanut Butter Manifesto probably pointed to more than just 1,000 Yahoo folks needing to find a better place to work.

Reading Mr. Johnson's email, I have an image in my head of John Wayne from McLintock, reassuringly saying in this case, "Somebody needs to fire ya, kid. But I'm not gonna fire ya. I'm not gonna fire ya. ... The HELL I'M NOT!" *biff* Or, in this case, *RIF*

A Couple More Perspectives:

• Mr. Jon Pincus: Yahoo!!!! (was Yahoo!?!?!): Why, after further reflection, I think Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo! is a brilliant strategic move
• MSFTExtremeMakeover: Awooga, Awooga... Abandon Ship!

From the Field: a welcome message from the field in this comment:

Working in the field and not in the US, I sometimes cannot relate to the comments that are heavily oriented at the minority of peopele working in MS which is dev. And maybe this is part of the MS problem? SMSG is swarming with people and due to the "Keep your scorecard green" culture that came with Kevin "thank you for all that you do" Turner, managers are not managing and coaching people anymore. Every day I see people that should be empowered to do business staring into their spreadsheets in order manipulate Siebel (yes we use that utter crap CRM system still) to keep the scorecard green instead of going out to meet the customers. Many MS people in (i think especially in services) miss the "techy" culture where we doing good things for customers, making them successful. Now all we get "Why is your scorecard yellow, just fix it".

Dirty aQuantive laundry: a very revealing comment worth reading in full starts with:

I'm no longer with aQuantive, I now work for a great team in MS. I was threatened not to talk, but my story needs to be told, to some people higher up who believe that they can integrate Yahoo, I believe that they can, but they have to hear what is happening to Microsoft's ad serving business, which will save the company years to find out, it will be too late once they realize. The engineers at aQuantive are great, some of the best, but the central nervous system doesn't exist, this is Microsoft's managements responsibility, and it could cost us the leadership in the ad business. [...]

Classy, real classy: I'm sure anyone who had ran Vista at work looked at the Vista Capable stickers on machines they wouldn't buy for their Mom and felt bad regarding the misrepresentation of those machines' capabilities. Even some of our VPs expressed their strong dislike (d'oh, [shake fist] damn you email discovery!). Now we're up for a class action lawsuit and I'm really interested to see what kind of leg we have to stand on here. Fighting to justify this poor decision doesn't rank up as high on the Bozo Meter as trying to defend browsing technology as being a core OS component, but it's close.

Rory Blyth channels Mini: Windows Live Writer Team and Microsoft - where Rory is put over the edge when Live Writer - a delightful blogging application I adore (and makes me wonder if my hatred of .NET apps is misplaced) - gets ruined by being wedged into a Live Suite installer infrastructure. Rory is no longer with Microsoft and he doesn't hesitate to load up both barrels and let loose. A little later in the comment stream:

What happened to me is I worked for Microsoft for three years. You didn't read the post in its entirety, so you may have missed it, but I wrote that this isn't just about Live Writer - it's about Microsoft's approach to user experience in general.

I saw - and was subject to - so many dirty tricks on the inside. There's a constant battle between the stupid people and the smart people, and the stupid people do quite well. Probably because stupid people are scared of the smart people and do whatever they can to get more stupid people to work at Microsoft. A good way to retain your power and position is to ensure you aren't being challenged by other employees.

The sad thing is that I'm not exaggerating.

The company is bloated. I said myself that firing tens of thousands is cruel, but when you have managers for managers for managers for managers for managers for managers and managers for them, you have something ridiculous.

Firing tens of thousands of Microsofties? Allow me to raise my hands in the air, wave them about, and yell out, "Hallelujah brother, praise the RIF!!!"

Mid-year career discussion is upon us and now is an ideal time for you to update your resume and assess where you are and where you are going. Want a raise? Secret to Success, rule #1: the best way to get a raise is to change companies. Bar none. So update that resume and see what kind of follow-ups you get. Perhaps you're an eagle trying to soar with the turkeys... if so, some parting advice from one of our commenters:

I left months ago and am so glad I did. MSFT has a bunch of great achievers drowning amongst a gaggle of whiners who want top pay and work-life balance but don't want to work hard to achieve anything. Until you get rid of the latter, you wont' get top performance out of the former. The people who want challenges in life and to achieve something will just continue to get fed up and leave. It's sad. If you are there and frustrated there are many alternative lives you could be leading happily elsewhere. Go, it ain't that scary and you'll never regret it. Stay and you'll wake up at 45 yrs old (how many 45+ people do you see around you, eh?) sad and feeling empty. Go, leave, it's okay and you'll stop feeling so angry and abused.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft

Some Quick Quips - Yahoo, #86, and MSPoll

Just some quick quips:

yahoo... Sorry, I can't get up the enthusiasm to put the exclamation point into Yahoo anymore. So this past week had a number of voluntary and involuntary exits from Yahoo. Mr. Yang calls out, "White Knight? Anyone? Anyone?" and the Yahoo board gets restless.

An interesting bit comes from Joe Rosenberg in Barron's. The summary? Microsoft bid for Yahoo makes no sense. Some interesting snippets:

"It's a bad refection on Ballmer that he's willing to pay a ridiculous price for Yahoo. Microsoft is not going to earn anything like a reasonable rate of return in Yahoo," Rosenberg was quoted as saying.

:

Asked if it wasn't a strategic necessity for Microsoft to buy Yahoo, Rosenberg said: "I don't buy that. Yahoo would significantly dilute Microsoft's returns.

"Ballmer is a great operating man but he lacks financial acumen. He ought to be thinking more of Microsoft employees who own a lot of Microsoft stock and have nothing to show for it in many years. If the stock doesn't start doing better, Microsoft will lose good people."

Thank goodness someone is actually thinking that employees would react to the stock price, because it seems to be a foreign concept to our leadership. I can't make jokes about Golden Handcuffs anymore because most people at Microsoft don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I have not seen Microsofties so loose in their sockets since I joined years upon years ago.

Agent 86: Would you believe... that Microsoft has dropped down to #86 within the Fortune Best Places to Work survey? That's down from #50 in 2007 and #42 in 2006. Like a rock. In a bad way. And who is #1 for two years in a row? Grab that chair and give it a big effen toss in the air to Google! Toot! They get bigger and they're still #1.

(Oh, and Yahoo is attached to our hip at #87. I guess we're more alike than we knew.)

LisaB tackled the #86 issue this past week. Kinda. But I've got to wonder: if you sat down a bunch of hard-working, valued Microsofties in one room, and executive leadership in the other, and put down some simple questions like, "What would make employees value working at Microsoft even more?" I'm pretty sure the answers would have a wide gap between them.

The return of the towels was a symbolic admission to stupidity. The Bread and Circuses of various subsequent benefits doesn't align with what Microsofties need to be obviously valued and to have a great career at Microsoft that is satisfying. What would you want to see Microsoft do about addressing being a great place to work?

My #1 request has got to be to make Microsofties mobile. Intent to interview was a great first step. Now, just let people interview. If they get the job, their management learns they need to start a transition plan. Leaders might actually start managing their teams as if retention matters.

Right now, given Mid-Year Career Discussions, my #2 request is to boot all the friggin' tools and go back to the Microsoft Word form, all a part of streamlining career management at Microsoft. We're about to spend a couple of months in tool hell, have a big CSP codified discussion that may or may not align with the reality of your group, and then in three months do it all over again for the major review cycle. I seem to spend my life in calibration meetings and managing tools and asking HR-IT to fix bungled work-flow and whacked-out permissions. I need a "I'd rather be shipping features that make money" license plate holder. As do many of my team members.

My #3 is too intangible to tackle here, but it's more around gearing Microsoft to be a team-focused company culture, not the lone-rock-star-wolf. Yes, still reward the rock-star contributors, but also reward the teams that produce great results that they've committed to, and punish and don't reward dysfunctional teams that don't deliver.

Oh, and return the old ESPP and up the 401k match to be something stellar. Worried about cost? Headcount reduction works wonders.

MSPoll: Oh, and if you have ideas but don't feel like sharing them here, you can at least achieve some catharsis in writing your thoughts up in the upcoming poll. Maybe when it goes online we can find a few questions to hammer on to make a (useless?) point. I can tell you, with the Yahoo acquisition still in play and the impact that it's had to the stock and the reputation of Microsoft, I've got to say the question addressing "this company is headed in the right direction" should take a nosedive.

P.S. I'm going to mention Steven Sinofsky here (which I've avoided a lot, although I'm a great fan, because every time I think of typing something about him I hear in my mind batteries clattering down a wooden staircase and then imagine his angry, disappointed face appearing out of the shadows at the top of the stairs... scary stuff): so does this mean that Sinofsky is destined to be Mini-ized? Hmm.

P.P.S. Some executives moved around last week. One surprise departure, otherwise everything else seemed to have been whispered about for a while. Mr. Ballmer's email was interesting in that it seemed to imply that there was a whiff of accountability in the air with what was going on. Just a whiff.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft

Microsoft's Yahoo! Acquisition is Bold. And Dumb.

Please, Yahoo!: fight to stay independent. Or at least tear yourself apart and pop a couple of poison pills to go out on your own terms before this goes much further. Yeah, I've got your double-suck cake for you: one layer Yahoo!, one layer Microsoft.

I was on the internal Microsoftie bandwagon that Steve Ballmer was steering not too long ago that an acquisition of Yahoo! didn't make sense for Microsoft. So when the unsolicited offer went through, I was like a whole bunch of other confused senior people looking around trying to figure out what changed and why this suddenly was the right thing to do and to bet the company on.

I recognize that huge change for the future is typically greeted with 95% critical negativity. People don't like to change and huge change is an immense leadership challenge, especially when the change is the right thing to do and very few can see that perspective. So I've done my best to be open and accept that Yahoo!'s acquisition by Microsoft is a good strategic move for Microsoft, for our customer's, for Yahoo!'s customers, the shareholders, and for Internet users in general.

I haven't gotten there.

In fact, this still seems like a real dumb idea, like a staggering drunk trying to prop himself on an unwilling and lame adversary who wouldn't mind seeing the drunk facedown on the pavement. The only arguments that are half appealing are those that suppose there's going to be a $110,000,000,000USD annual online ad-market, and Microsoft + Yahoo! gets a third of that market. Hand-waving, "The acquisition pays for itself!" Yeah, okay, give me that dream and a milkshake and at least I get to enjoy the milkshake.

Some interesting posts on this:

• Mr. Todd Bishop: What's next Microsoft's options after Yahoo rejection.
• Ms. Mary Jo Foley: What’s Microsoft’s Plan B?
• MSFTExtremeMakeover: Media Roundup, Having Fun Yet, and This is like a person who's completely lost his mind.
• Mr. Nathan Weinberg: Some Microsoft/Yahoo Overlap You May Not Have Considered. I like Nathan's comments here. It's interesting how many technologies of Yahoo! he declares as being "dead." Why are we paying for dead stuff again? We're not taxidermists.
• Creating Micro-Hoo: a pro-acquisition editorial from the Seattle Times, taking a bit of a personal view of Google's impact on the newspaper industry.
• Mr. Philip Greenspun: Microsoft is 2000 times less effective than Google; Yahoo Board seems to be insane: snippet: "The interesting question is why a company that claims to know how to program would pay anything for Yahoo, much less a P/E ratio of more than 60."
• Mr. Henry Blodget: Microsoft's Colossal Strategic Mistake We Need to Be in Advertising - Silicon Alley Insider. Right. Ads?

Of course there's one big thing I haven't touched on: headcount. Let's see, why did I start this blog? Oh, yes: Microsoft has become way too huge to be effective and nimble in the creation of focused, passion-driven software. Fourteen-thousand or so demoralized people thrown on the heap does not help in the least. That's the amount we need to go down, not up. What is this, Bizarro Microsoft?

Have you brought up HeadTrax recently to see how many positions report up to the top? Give it a go. And how many people report to the various presidents. Any surprises?

Microsoft absorbing Yahoo! doesn't make sense to me given the extreme overlap in offerings that neither Microsoft nor Yahoo! have been terribly effective at. How many success stories have there been lately at Yahoo!? I like their portal. I use their search on occasion (only when Live Search and Google give me disappointing results). And their acquisition of flickr was really good for them, along with not screwing flickr up (and flickr users, you gotta know Microsoft would be pretty hands-off of flickr, other than probably putting a Live ID sign-in bar or such on there).

The only argument I've heard that makes sense from a conspiratorial Machiavellian kind of angle is that this is an opportunistic move to bust and cripple the already lame business adversary we have in Yahoo! We don't really want Yahoo!, but rather see this as an opportunity to kneecap and sideline them, pointing out their vulnerability to acquisition and angering their frustrated shareholders into revolt, all while putting them under the microscope of the analysts, pointing out their various failed and marginal ventures. And some glimmers of potential. But mostly, Yahoo! continues to come up in an unflattering light as people scratch their head as to how they'd help Microsoft at all.

If the acquisition doesn't go through, Yahoo! certainly emerges with several broken bones and bruises. Rebuilding from that will be a struggle that will require drastic and draconian decision making.

And the MSN, search, and ads folk at Microsoft certainly shouldn't be too proud right now, because you guys are under as much scrutiny as Yahoo!. Why are we proposing blowing $22,000,000,000USD in cash and going into debt? Because Yahoo! has something done right - relative to us, according to our leadership - that you haven't been able to do. Is there a Microsoft online-services leadership shake-up coming? One can hope. The fact that we've initiated this acquisition, for whatever reason, means that the people in charge haven't been able to deliver and are not on a path to deliver. Accountability?

I do want to see the strategic importance in this huge, complicated take-over. I do want to believe. If this all about ads and the acquisition goes forward I need the influentials in Microsoft leadership to connect with me and convince me to believe that this is indeed the next important foundation for Microsoft. To tell you the truth, if you had pulled me aside when I was in school, holding court in the computer science lab, and whispered in my ear ala The Graduate: "online ads..." I would have laughed my geek butt off.

So Google gets to have the joke on me, but for us to bet the company and build Microsoft's future foundation on ads revenue? WTF? As someone who considers themselves a citizen, not a consumer, I want to create software experiences that make people's lives delightful and better, not that sells them crap they don't need while putting them deeper into debt. I'm going to be in purgatory long enough as is.

Yes, okay, we should have a team do an advertising platform and do it well, but the money chest can be better invested across the company, let alone avoiding going into debt and putting us on another spiral of doubt and angst in the stock market, all while dealing with anti-trust maneuvering in Europe.

The attempt to acquire Yahoo! is a bold move. But bold and dumb are not exclusive. Q.E.D.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT YHOO

Microsoft and Yahoo! -- Stay on Target?

We Microsofties and Yahoos just entered some interesting times. Thank goodness we can take a break from talking about Win7 M1 leaks for a while. And thanks for the quality of comments in the previous post.

(Update: Google just posted about Yahoo! and Microsoft: Yahoo! and the future of the Internet - things are going to get real interesting.)

Here's a check-in on what TechMeme looked like at the end of the day on Friday the first. I'm not even going to begin to try to point to interesting articles: there is an abundance. Most cluster around "two wrongs don't make a right." Some are extreme in how bad an idea this is, and others are extreme in how good an idea this is. I like those that bring up the spirit of competition, saying that the combined entity would give a serious option to Google (which would help with prices) and that it would keep Google sharp and competitive (good for Google fans).

I've spent time checking in with various people I know to hear their opinion about the hosti- er - unsolicited offer and how it might impact them.

(I found out if you really want to piss some people off, send them an email with snarky Yahoo! questions. They've gone through disclosure and, man, they don't want to do that again. And I guess neither do I. So, no more electronic Y! trail there. Word to the wise.)

Reactions from most Microsofties: talk to me in a year.

No one anticipates anything happening by the end of this year, between the additional financial courting that might happen between Yahoo! and other suitors and then the subsequent complicated international regulatory phase. During a US election year, to boot. Here Nellie was getting bored and trawling through Office protocols. Consider this an early Valentine, Ms. Kroes. Mmmm-wha!

There's no way this is happening fast. Microsofties in groups most affected by a Yahoo! acquisition are plowing ahead, course unchanged, for the foreseeable future. No thoughts around brand or collaboration or nada. "Stay on target." Uh-huh.

Most engineers, as expected of engineers, see all the problems and that it's going to be a staggering mess, let alone that there are things that Yahoo! does way better than us and that our stuff should be dropped. Strategic optimists and those looking for a promotion will rebrand it as a synergistic opportunity to align our technological assets into a virtuous, hyper-competitive cycle to benefit our users, partners, and shareholders.

Get ready to find out what someone trying to make Partner or VP at Microsoft is all about, dear Yahoos. Be sure to ask about SPSA goals for a successful integration of Yahoo! and Microsoft assets.

At the basics, though, our imperial Lego blocks and their metric Lego blocks use very differently sized connectors.

I'm more concerned about the Yahoo! workforce. The talented remaining in the Yahoo! workforce, specifically. What a sucky week of events for them. Two weeks, really. Layoff rumors, bad financial results, layoff for real, and then a big corporation darkening their door, sans chocolates, saying that we're done with the sweet-nuthins-talk and it's time for my way or the highway. Well, actually, saying that it's time for my way or my way. What's a Yahoo to do? Wait it out, keeping things purring along? Start learning Windows Server, IIS, .NET, and Silverlight? Jump ship for a start-up, right in the middle of a looming recession? Damn.

Like I've said here over and over again, talent is talent and if you're good you can decide what you want to do and where you want to be. You're not locked into Yahoo! anymore than any Microsoftie is locked into Microsoft. It's a choice. And to feel good about your choice, you need to know and explore all of your options. There are no victims here. And the risk of that is that when the acquisition goes through, those left are those who either can't or won't find a position elsewhere. How much passion will remain? How do you keep the engagement going?

If we can help Yahoos explore Microsoft and it's culture, I'm happy to help. Realize this isn't the sunshine and teddy bear ice-cream parade site, though. I know little about Yahoo! culture so I don't know how different it is from Microsoft, although comments from former Microsofties tell me that its engineering groups aren't too different (which might be good and bad).

The Microsoft leadership also has to realize that the "Stay on Target" strategy isn't going to work for groups that heavily overlap with Yahoo! or would be replaced by Yahoo! implementations. On the surface, the coming year or two for a lot of online groups is looking like nothing more than a lot of angst, crap, and loss of momentum and brand. Why not dive into http://career/ and find something more rewarding? What's the reward for staying on target? It certainly looks like a bold opportunity to break through, but it has to be recognized as such and driven as such. Otherwise, it becomes the elephant in the All-Hands that starts chasing people out of the group, looking for a vision and hearing none.

And then: Ballmer. This will certainly serve as a transition out of the Gates era. Is Ballmer an Ahab figure, chasing the white whale of Google once and for all by roping two whaling ships together? If I write a book on my years at Microsoft one day, will it start out as "Call me Mini," as I reflect on the Microsoft flotsam and jetsam swirling around the world? I hope not. This will serve to define Ballmer, however. All online decisions and strategies have led to this point. And the scale of leadership required to pull success out of this bold move is, to tell you the truth, beyond any accomplishments I've seen so far. I have hope, but not much to back it up.

Oh, and this pretty much puts on the kibosh on any other big acquisitions for a while. So no need to speculate about Microsoft buying Adobe or anything like that. For now. One less thread for the rumor mill.

(Update: s/Yahooligans/Yahoos/g per comment. Added TechMeme link to Google's shot across the bow.)

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT

Microsoft + Yahoo! = Microsoft - $44,600,000,000 ?

Oy.

My first reaction: "That's a lot to pay for flickr."

I'm surprised yet not surprised. Internally, a number of us had heard reasons from Steve Ballmer why a Yahoo! acquisition didn't make sense. One that sticks in my mind right now is how if we acquired Yahoo! - such a big company - we'd have to naturally have layoffs within Microsoft to accommodate it.

Maybe there are HR people wandering around Microsoft this morning asking, "What color slip did you say? Pink?"

Man, if I was in the Online Services Division I would be worried. Especially if Yahoo! did something my team did and did it well.

I guess you can track down the 10:00am meeting and see if you can get your question answered.

Forty-four point six billion US dollars. In long hand: $44,600,000,000 USD.

So, if your team is naturally at risk due to the acquisition I would start checking in on your local network and see what's going on elsewhere in Microsoft. If there's someone within Microsoft you've always wanted on your team that has some turbulence ahead due to the acquisition (yeah, I know, Ballmer's telling us "stay on target") check in with them and tell them the groovy things your group is doing.

If the buy goes through, it will be one huge turning point for Microsoft: I think we'll either turn it around brilliantly and our mega-investment will be worth it, or we'll be torn asunder and revert back to our core cash cows. It will be a story worth telling, one way or the other. In the meantime, that big huge money-chest is going to go empty, and that might bring a new sense of clarity to our operations.

Initial posts:

• Mr. Todd Bishop: Microsoft's big Yahoo bid Behind-the-scenes details - nice flow of updates over time and info on the Yahoo! board. Follow-up story by Mr. Bishop: Microsoft offers $45 billion to buy Yahoo
• Ms. Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft to become Micro-ad All about Microsoft ZDNet.com

(more later.)

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT

Microsoft FY08Q2 Results

FY08Q2: As always, my favorite post-analysis sites for the results:

• MSFTExtremeMakeover,
• Mr. Joe Wilcox, and
• Mr. Todd Bishop.

At a simple level, I feel anything that Microsoft reports is like spitting in the wind during the current financial storm. I'll be interested in hearing if we have anything encouraging to say as being a safe-haven for investors during this period, given the current releases and the upcoming releases.

Mr. Todd Bishop has a preview and nails my concern about the analysts concern of our forward looking statements. Also - though I doubt it will come up except as a generalized catch-all warning - with the EU feeling us up again to try to figure where we moved our wallet to, we have more legal uncertainty to deal with.

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Update: After the release...

FY08Q1: ba-da-Boom!

FY08Q2: ba-da-BING! (or should that be, "ba-da-Cha-CHING!"?)

Channeling an upbeat attitude that could be heard as, "no, really, our poo doesn't stink," Mr. Liddell got to take lead on one of the most positive and reassuring Microsoft quarterly results conference calls I've heard in a long time. He expressed extreme pleasure over the results, as do I imagine every Microsoftie (unless you do want to point at the stinky poo of OSB and how E&D / Xbox has a deep, deep hole of billions to fill income into).

I'd say every time I heard an analyst try to give Mr. Liddell a soft-pitch opportunity to say something negative or overly cautious, Mr. Liddell was like, "Nope, things are going great, and will continue going great. Or greater."

Safe-haven for the investors' money, indeed!

Oh, and kudos to Jason Maynard for asking Liddell about the new EU actions and how that figured into Liddell's thinking. Not much of a meaty answer (well, most of the answers weren't very meaty) but it was nice to hear such a challenging question. I hope it comes up again during our Friday Town Hall Meeting in 34, though I wouldn't expect a more detailed answer.

Follow-up posts:

MSFTExtremeMakeover: Q2 FY08 Earnings. Snippet:

Short version: strong results, increased guidance, generally upbeat tone, and no really embarrassing items for analysts to question. Good job! Yes, online continues to be a sinkhole for cash. But everyone is used to that by now, and at least the top line result is semi-respectable. Yes, there's still no color on actual large scale Vista deployments. But at least client revenue and unearned remains solid. Bottom line, if last report was sufficient to get some investors to take another look at MSFT, then this one should attract others and perhaps reduce doubts that last time was merely a fluke.

Mr. Joe Wilcox: Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Microsoft Q2 2008 by the Numbers. Snippet:

Liddell's confidence may have something to do with where Microsoft makes its money. Just four years ago, the majority of revenue came from North America. Now, 60 percent of sales are outside the United States, Liddell said. For the quarter, Microsoft sales increased 30 percent in emerging markets, 20 percent in established markets like Europe and 15 percent in the United States.

Even if the U.S. economy slows down, overseas sales could offset any decreases in technology spending here.

Mr. Todd Bishop: Microsoft beats quarterly estimates, raises forecast. Snippet:

Microsoft's Online Services Business was the only one of the company's five divisions to post an operating loss for the quarter, $245 million in the red. The company's Entertainment and Devices Division climbed to a $357 million operating profit thanks to holiday video-game sales. Chris Liddell, the company's chief financial officer, said this afternoon that Microsoft is still expecting that division to be profitable for the full fiscal year, which ends in June.

And the general attitude of the rest of the reports:

• Microsoft in the Money Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: Snip: If the economy is slowing down, Microsoft isn't feeling it.
• Microsoft raises fiscal 2008 outlook for divisions Markets Markets News Reuters
• Microsoft CFO sees no spillover from US economy Markets Markets News Reuters
• Microsoft Set To Move Markets - Forbes.com
• Microsoft 2Q Profit Tops Expectations Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
• Microsoft Looks Mighty - News & Analysis - Software - MSFT: Snip: Even inside the domestic market, growth was 15% in the quarter. "You have to look really hard to find any weakness in our results," Liddell said. [Mini: aka: our poo, no stink.]
• Microsoft earnings surge; raised forecast a boon for shares - MarketWatch: Snip: Liddell told analysts not to expect a profit from online services for some time. "We see it as a multiyear journey that we're going on," he said, adding that Microsoft hopes the unit will "be at a critical mass in several years."
• Command Performance By Microsoft - Forbes.com. Two interesting snips here: (1) [Trip Chowdhry] said there was no indication as of yet that Google Docs, Google’s online office tools program, has negatively impacted Microsoft. (2) A major shift in the marketplace, Chowdhry said, is that the rapidly growing BRIC nations--Brazil, Russia, India and China--have realized that open-source software, where anyone can copy anything, is not the way a country builds core competencies in technology. Microsoft did well in BRIC nations during the second quarter.
• Microsoft profit rises 79 pct Financial News - Yahoo! Finance: Snip: "Microsoft often sets the bar low for itself," said Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "These numbers tell me that Microsoft is seeing strength in the pipeline."

Ba-da-cha-CHING!

Now, let's be sure we don't start slipping back to our old sloppy ways, because, well, our poo does stink. Just like everyone else's.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft MSFT

Raikes and Other Exits

Well, I should be sweating to the 80's soundtrack at the ProClub with about half of Microsoft that's trying to squeeze in there for January to burn off Christmas cookies, but here everyday that passes yet another exit hits us, and today we have a biggie...

Jaffe: Exits Microsoft dealmaker Bruce Jaffe going startup - shoot, why swing billion dollar acquisitions when you can be a billion dollar acquisition?!?!

Fitzgerald: Another of the Microsoft old guard moves on All about Microsoft ZDNet.com.

Raikes! Microsoft Announces Retirement and Transition Plan for Jeff Raikes, President of the Microsoft Business Division Company announces it has hired Stephen Elop from Juniper Networks; Raikes will continue at Microsoft through September 2008.

Wow, I'm surprised. I can understand that Mr. Raikes has had a long, long career at Microsoft, but as we wonder about the leadership in the upcoming (and no doubt somewhat dysfunctional) post-Gates era, my money was riding on Mr. Raikes to step up and perhaps be on the shortlist for running more of Microsoft. At least Jeff gets to go out on a high-note.

And of all of our leadership at Raikes level, I respect him the most. There's something more to him (there is something there there) that I admired when around him.

And Stephen "Who?" Elop? I found it ironic that while Mr. Ballmer in the announcement email was praising Mr. Raikes ability to recruit, mentor and nurture Microsoft leadership, Raikes was not being replaced by someone he groomed. I tell you, if I was a Raikes direct I would seriously be considering whether I was ready for a new challenge, at Microsoft or elsewhere.

The Market's reaction on Friday? MSFT Extreme Makeover has an interesting comment on this:

The [external] choice for replacement seems to have the right pedigree, but Raikes did a solid job with Office and was widely seen as the leading candidate for eventual Ballmer replacement as CEO. So I don't think the market is going to react positively to the news tomorrow.

Two more quick things:

CES: MSFT Extreme Makeover has a compilation of BillG and CES and a take on the $1,200,000,000USD acquisition of Fast Search.

Xbox departures: a commenter makes the following observation:

It's weird that Mini and all the commenters here have failed to notice the mass exodus from the Xbox team in 2007. By my count, more than 15% of the product team (dev/PM/test) have left Microsoft for Apple, Sony, Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Amazon, and various other companies (including several startups, local and in the Valley).

This is great progress towards a Mini-MSFT!!

(Though, it's mostly bad attrition and has some other negative implications you can work out on your own.)

The main complaint I hear about the games / Xbox area is things are drying up given the "show me the money" religion that's been adopted. Some pet projects (or just random projects) that had nothing to do with future profit have been disbanded. Man, I can't even squeeze out some crocodile tears for that...

Administrivia: expect more CRF'ing after that last post. Boy, did that suck given all the high hopes I had for positive, aspirational comments. I'm bearing a grudge. I'm human. I'm upping the moderation a bit more to be on-topic and less open to general gripes by anti-Microsofters.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft

Microsoft's 2008 - What's Going Well?

Here we are, wrapping up 2007 and launching into 2008. I continue to believe that we're in a good transition time at Microsoft and that 2008 will help cinch that transition as some of the bigger products wrap up major development (Office 14, Windows 7). Trying to keep a positive vibe, I just want to share some of the things going on in and around Microsoft that I see as goodness. I'd like to know what you honestly think is going well, too.

Indulge in some praise, too, if you will. We can get around to the constructive criticism after we're settled into the new year. Drop by MSFT Extreme Makeover for a dose right now if you need a hit.

Competition: Praise the Lord for competition. Without some light to shine the way, we really tend to get lost in our own initiatives. Think of pre-reset Longhorn. Think of post-IE6 (Blake Ross, I've got a hug with your name on it). So I'm thankful for Google, Facebook, Apple, and Adobe. And Amazon. And Nintendo. And all those startups who show that good ideas don't take an army to deliver. And that design matters. And that everyday citizens have cash they'd like to spend, too, for quality products. If it wasn't for our competitors doing so well in their respective areas I'm willing to bet that we'd still being ignoring good design and consumer facing features. As of now, those internal champions have leverage.

Something I haven't seen before, especially around Apple, is a level of humbleness and respect when considering, say, what Apple is doing - and doing well - and how we can endeavor to do better ourselves. I haven't or heard much trash-talking around Apple, but rather aspirational discussion. That's great and makes me believe that we'll be able to deliver something that actually delights our users... and hopefully therefore our shareholders.

I've been bummed lately when our competitors screw up. Really. No schadenfreude here, as much as they do indulge in it in our direction. Yeah, I'm bummed when Apple's latest OS comes equipped with a Blue Screen of death and other failures. When Facebook starts upskirting all of their users' purchases. When Google potentially jumps the shark. I'm bummed because their great accomplishments serve as a big walloping stick to break through blockers at Microsoft (because there are still people convinced that the most secure, robust, solid features are those that you don't ship - not exactly a formula for success 100% of the time).

Their failures serve as excuses to keep on doing what we're doing, or less.

Surprise! Holy smokes, stop your grinnin' and drop your linen! I love my new Zune player. That's right, I'm having a blast listening to my tunes and podcasts on my little black 8GB Zune. I promised to buy a Zune when a solid-state Zune with wireless syncing came out. Now, I'm sure you iPod fans just had to spit out three mouthfuls of foamy indignation. Uncross your eyes and let me comfort you in saying that yes, the iPod is still better. When I picked up the very first iPod nano I was amazed at how it just worked. It was delightful. Not delightful is the decision I made years ago to rip all my music in WMA. Now I know all that is just one big transcoding script job away from being something else, but I'm sticking with WMA. And the Zune is my first WMA player (going through about five different players, all the way back to an Intel 64MB player I first owned) that just works right.

And I really enjoy the Zune desktop software. And I intend to rip off some of their UI designs. Imagine that! A Microsoft team ripping design ideas off of another Microsoft team. "Hello, Hell? How's the snow?"

Solid VS2008? When VS2005 came out, there was a series of negative reactions I noted, mainly around its IDE. Dealing with the VS teams quite often, I certainly know they did a major reset in the way they develop software post VS2005. Is it paying off? If so, will other teams adopt this level of engineering excellence to address issues they have in shipping solid features?

DRM die-off? Raise your hand if you love DRM. I don't dork with anything that has DRM because it's so incredibly rare that I've gotten that crap to work without a lot of manual intervention. How am I supporting the non-DRM initiatives? By spending cash buying MP3 albums as much as I can stand. Radiohead. Amazon. And even the Zune Marketplace MP3s (surprise, part II). Do you hate DRM? Show the DRM-free music the love, then. As expressed in cold, hard cash. Or dippy Live points. Put down the Rock Band guitar and go buy some classic tunes in MP3. This kind of success will help Microsoft detangle itself even more from the DRM monster (which, by inadvertently killing Plays-for-Sure, we're well on the way).

Translucency: I know there are a lot of customers, partners, and competitors who enjoy knowing everything going on with every little new Microsoft feature along the way. When it comes to translucency vs. transparency, I support putting the kimono back on and tightening it up, perhaps doing so in an enticing burlesque-style way, revealing only what we want to reveal. A little toe here, perhaps an ankle there...

Part of my support is obviously Jobs/Apple envy of being able to surprise people with a feature just being released. The other is avoiding embarrassingly-public screw-ups like WinFS or other big features we're going to deliver and then end-up cutting. I think we've stopped being the Britney of the software-news world, now we're aspiring to be the Angelina Jolie.

Obviously, we'll still be doing betas for Windows and Office so that by the time they are released everyone will be yawning about the by-then well-known features, but I hope we can pull-out a few surprises and underpromise and overdeliver. So: way to go IE8 team! And I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions at Mix08.

Not the Bad Guy? It's taken a long time, but I don't believe we are perceived as the Evil Empire anymore. Part of that went out when people decided, at least contextually, to bust apart our empire. Okay, fine, we're playing catch-up now (wink wink). Now the evil part starts fading based on the relative failings of other firms. This is a grand opportunity for Microsoft to follow a vision like the one that Mr. ... Mr. ... Mr. Ozzie shared with us (wow, my mind blanked trying to remember his name there for a second... not sure what that means) at the 2007 Company Meeting and be the good guy on the side of the citizen and their private information, making it protected and easily transportable so that you are assured that you own and have access to what's yours, even it if passes through our clouds.

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(Administrivia: sorry for falling off the map, but it just plain hasn't been computerized happiness for me over the past month given a wonky Neomailbox email service [probably anything you sent to me directly from the middle of November for a few weeks got bit-bucketed] and a series of cascading hardware failures on the home network. This is the first time in a while I've gotten the "Mini" account going again vs. the minimal life-support it has been on. It's still rough going as I try to duct-tape things back together and bond with Notepad for a while. I guess I'm working through some karma here.)

Mini-Microsoft Microsoft

Low Hanging Late Harvest Fruit

Boot! Yoink! Yank! What does it take to be disappeared from Microsoft? We can only guess one day Stuart Scott was walking outside of his building when a black Escalade with VI0L8R plates pulled up, Ken DiPetrio swung open a door and said, "Get in." Along with, "Martin, scoot the hell over and make some room." It takes something pretty egregious - more than shipping Vista two years late - to get scooped up in the VI0L8R.

Some one was kind enough to drop a hint here back in October that Mr. Scott had some interesting antics going on. I have no idea what the reality is, though several comments are like the following:

No, Stuart was fired for the affair and the hostile work environment he created for women in his org. Great to see that HR finally did something about it, and that the reason publicized was company policy violation ...and not "spending more time with his family".

As we speculate about affairs and relationships at work, it's interesting to reflect that Microsoft has a unique history for singles at work given how BillG and Melinda met. Obviously not apropos to the married philandering type. But it makes for a fun lunch-table subject and probably a bit of an HR headache.

Now, just short of the VI0L8R seems to be the BUMZRSH treatment that Mr. Selberg mentioned recently of a Microsoftie friend immediately shown the door upon deciding to join Google. I agree with Mr. Selberg that you should always leave with your bridges well in place and with grace, and that this is a two-way street. But you know, I was thinking after reading this post: who do I know personally that's recently left Microsoft to join Google? No one. Weird.

Then again, maybe not. From the Newsweek Google story by Mr. Steven Levy:

Earlier attempts to hire veterans from firms like Microsoft had awful results. "Google is so different that it was almost impossible to reprogram them into this culture," says CEO Eric Schmidt. The difficulties led Google VP Mayer (employee No. 20) to wonder whether experience was way overrated.

Finally, one last departure: Jon Pincus. A lot of Microsofties interested in changing Microsoft's internal and external-facing culture rallied around Mr. Pincus, who has had quite the distinguished Microsoft career. He gets given crap sometimes for being different or a self-promoter, but I just have to wonder what kind of leader or change-agent isn't. Anyway, it's a bit sad for me to reflect on Mr. Pincus going quickly from being up on the big-screen several times at our 2007 Company Meeting to being shown that there was no home for him - and his refreshingly different spirit - at Microsoft. It shows that our increasingly bland golf-club leadership is satisfied with the status quo and that the Good Ship SPSA need not be rocked.

Mr. Pincus leaving at a time of dubious a dismissal and bad diversity attrition is a rotten seeping from Denmark, indeed.

If I had my druthers, I'd at least offer Mr. Pincus a position to be the Microsoft representative of goodwill to the Silicon Valley and Seattle local tech community and serving as the connection between The Outside and the generally protected Microsoftie product team members. I especially thought of this after reading Microsoft wants to add Silicon Valley as a friend. Snippet from the end:

Angel investor Tom McInerney, co-founder of the video site Guba.com, agreed: "Microsoft has been humbled a little bit. They've been forced to play nice. A cultural change has taken place with Microsoft. There is an acknowledgment that they are not the king of the hill anymore. And there is the looming concern that Google is the new Microsoft."

Has the big-huge aircraft carrier finally started the turn?

An Appropriate Home: reading Mr. Bishop from the Seattle-P.I. this week, I find irony in the reports that the Entertainment and Devices division - home of the billion and billion dollar loss leader Xbox group - is going to have its new home right on-top of the huge West Campus parking garage pit. Instead of something boring like P1 and P2, perhaps the parking garage levels (all painted in increasingly dark levels of red) can be named -1Billion, -2Billion, -3Billion, -4Billion, and -5Billion.

In all seriousness, now that Sony has capsized on the PS3 I expect that the next generation of Xbox will be designed to be profitable from day one.

Sunday update: Mr. Benjamin Romano in the Sunday edition of the Seattle Times has a larger article about the new buildings at Microsoft and the Microsoft expansion: Microsoft campus expands, transforms, inside and out. And there's a fun little interactive campus expansion map. An additional article on open workspaces: Microsoft strategy throws open the doors.

Not So Limited Kim - Not So!: I have great respect for Adam Barr, and we disagree over the whole Limited II (now 10% Situation II) career designation. He dropped by the last post with a couple of comments to reiterate that it's not a bad thing:

I continue to disagree with the consensus here on the alleged "Kim" situation. Mini, this is the one area where I feel you are actively promoting something which is factually wrong.

This is what I see:

1) Microsoft decided to bucket people for stock grants, and decided there would be a bottom 10% bucket.

2) The name chosen for this bottom 10% bucket, "Limited", was poorly chosen due to the connotations of the word--so it was changed to "10%".

3) The description of the bottom 10% bucket implied that Microsoft didn't see those people as having much value--this was incorrect, so Microsoft created a second definition to correct that (for some people in the 10% bucket, the original definition WAS accurate, so it is still available).

And more specifically, the change in #3 was done to AVOID people getting a more negative message than was intended...so I don't see why people are interpreting it as trying to force a more negative message and push the entire bottom 10% out of the company.

As always, I invite any Microsofties who want to discuss this more to contact me via internal email. Thanks.

I hope that people who don't believe it's a good thing (perhaps who have had their career Kimmed and maybe even left Microsoft because of it) will accept Mr. Barr's offer to follow-up 1-on-1 about the issue. And while I'd love to host a guest post on it here (really) I think this topic would also serve as a great cathartic use of InsideMS, should someone like Mr. Barr be ready to slap on the asbestos suit and give a post on the subject a shot. They'll need to be ready to explain why the following story is okay and in-line with expected results of the designation:

After being promoted a year ago, I was blindsided during this annual review period with the Kim label. I know exactly why it happened. It happened because I was caught on the wrong side of a spiteful, incompetent manager. That, after a 13-year career at this company, during which I'd received awards for my work, many 4.0 reviews, and steady promotions. Every other person who'd submitted feedback on my performance during the last annual review period had submitted positive feedback.

So does being slapped with that label make me a loser? I'll go ahead and answer that for you: No. Is it "good attrition" now that the team is losing me because of that review? I'll go ahead and answer that too: Um, no. With me, seniority and a great deal of valuable in-house knowledge are walking out the door.

So I'm lobbying and providing feedback wherever I can to encourage others to lobby for getting rid of the asinine 10%/Limited "Situation 2" label. If that label is being applied to others in the same way that it is being applied to me, the company will not have "good attrition" or "losers" going out the door. They will have long-time, great performers walking out the door. And for every one one of us who walks out the door, the company will need 3 or 4 lesser-paid junior people to do our work. It will take months, or perhaps even years, to bring the new kids up to speed, and they won't have the history or background knowledge that we do.

And every Kimstar who walks out the door will do so with resentment for this treatment after years of great service to the company. Since these people aren't "losers," they'll be hired by our competitors or initiate their own competing start-ups. You can be sure they won't be providing great publicity for their alma mater.

So before you label people "losers" because they received a "loser label," stop, step away from the keyboard, drop the chalupa, and think.

You just haven't been Kimmed yet.

Shareholders: reminder that the Microsoft Shareholders meeting is this Tuesday downtown. A webcast will be available.

Updated: added link to Mr. Romano's article about the campus expansion.

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Mini-Microsoft Microsoft