by anirudhgarg on 10/10/13, 4:50 AM with 77 comments
by RyanZAG on 10/10/13, 5:45 AM
Microsoft never did any of these industries any favors - they just managed to capture the market and extract a tax for a number of years. That is why the public does not like them. When they have to fight with Windows to log into their laptop and wait 20 minutes while it does so (Windows Vista?), they blame Microsoft. Microsoft's technical inabilities and millions of man hours wasted patching and rebooting their OS comes at the cost of most of the world's population being less than impressed by Microsoft and those who work there.
This whole post is written merely as a rebuttal to the widely publicized article about how Microsoft is telling lies about Bing. The rebuttal itself comes down to "he's lying, not us!" and "we don't track the results from the Bing It On challenge". Both positions are pathetic as the Yale article has no reason to lie, and the only reason a company would not track results is because the results are obviously unfavorable and so they cooked up their own favorable ones.
You want to know why nobody respects Microsoft? Because Microsoft employees post articles like this which are so far from reality it leaves you wondering how they drive to work.
by frenger on 10/10/13, 5:39 AM
The whole premise of this paragraph is wrong. Yes, most big businesses run Microsoft Windows, but most people hate and struggle with it. They run it not because it's the best, because it's not. They run it because monopolistic business practises forced out the competition. If he's trying to argue that Microsoft are misunderstood, that they do deserve respect after all, then maybe respect the hard-nosed business practises which have forced Microsoft products into every nook and cranny despite consistently having a shittier product than the competition.
by aaronbrethorst on 10/10/13, 6:00 AM
That’s right. The worst part of working
at Microsoft has nothing to do with our
internal culture (that’s not quite true;
more on that in a bit). It isn’t stack
ranking or ship cycles or trying to get
things done. It is working at a company
that people don’t believe in, despite
the immense importance it plays in
their daily life.
n.b. I haven't worked there in six years (and in fact the ten year anniversary of my FTE interview was this week!), but my feelings on the matter have been confirmed in every conversation I've ever had with an ex-MSFT FTE. Call it survivorship bias if you want, but this has been consistent in every conversation I've had, regardless if the person left a year ago or five.
edit: and the in-fighting. and the backbiting... but I guess those are just politics by another name.
by alrs on 10/10/13, 5:40 AM
Microsoft: For the Children.
by Anechoic on 10/10/13, 5:35 AM
Imagine you got out of that chair for a second. Walked across the street to get a cup of coffee. Got hit by a bus. The ambulance that picks you up? Microsoft. The hospital that saves you? Microsoft. The doctor? Trained at a school running Microsoft, using delicate instruments running Microsoft. If you prefer not getting hit by a bus, think about the role that Microsoft has had in making sure your baby was born healthy.
All of those things existed before Microsoft! Certainly the ubiquity of MS software has resulted in efficiencies over the years, but does anyone really doubt that another platform (Classic Mac, GNU, *BSD, VAX, etc) would not have filled the void in a World Without Microsoft?
by jlgreco on 10/10/13, 5:34 AM
The story is always "this shit we have in the pipeline is going to blow everyone away! why are you snickering!?" or "the consumers just don't understand us / never gave us a chance. we could have never anticipated this."
I do feel sorry for them, it can't feel good. I mean, obviously they are making cash hand over fist, but I really get the sense that they aren't getting any gratification.
by joe_the_user on 10/10/13, 5:53 AM
In a weird way, minus the "but really we're great" part, it must be hell to spend your life touting Microsoft when they are so hated. Because in these networked days, a PR person can't go home and tell their friends "they suck, I just work there" because things get around much more quickly.
by dmourati on 10/10/13, 5:46 AM
The worst thing about working for Microsoft? You have to run Windows.
by loser777 on 10/10/13, 5:43 AM
I can't see pushing Surface/Windows 8/Office/insert MS product here on students (especially young ones) being beneficial to anyone other than Microsoft. As a student who was expected to format essays according to Word and to use (Excel, Powerpoint, even FRONTPAGE) extensively in K-12 education, I really can't see a way to put this strategy in a positive light. "ad-free" bing for schools? Really? What's more poisonous--getting students dependent on a stack of proprietary software, or a search engine with ads?
by mynameishere on 10/10/13, 6:06 AM
What a larf. Why did Forbes print this? No, man, Alcoa picked me up. And US Steel. And Con-Ed. And Exxon. And Starbucks! Oh, wait, the driver had Dunkin' Donuts. Whatever.
by cfinke on 10/10/13, 5:26 AM
by devilsenigma on 10/10/13, 5:41 AM
Very true, Microsoft's business level software does not have as much visibility IMHO. People underestimate the role their software plays.
>> Imagine you got out of that chair for a second. Walked across the street to get a cup of coffee. Got hit by a bus. The ambulance that picks you up? Microsoft. The hospital that saves you? Microsoft. The doctor? Trained at a school running Microsoft, using delicate instruments running Microsoft. If you prefer not getting hit by a bus, think about the role that Microsoft has had in making sure your baby was born healthy.
What role, Windows, SQL Server, Azure? Microsoft may have helped there but so has the janitor who keeps the hospital clean, the barista who makes coffee for the doctors. Doesn't mean I'm going to thank Microsoft for saving my life when I get hit by a bus. This is a valid argument, but a very weak one because Microsoft is one cog in so many that keeps a hospital running.
Rest of the arguments in the article are quite valid, but when some tells me my ambulance is running Microsoft software I have a horrible flashback with a BSOD.
by curiousDog on 10/10/13, 5:43 AM
by maxmcd on 10/10/13, 5:34 AM
by toddwick on 10/10/13, 5:32 AM
by noisy_boy on 10/10/13, 8:20 AM
Just when you got something right, after over a decade, and had a chance to build goodwill/positive response from your users, you go ahead and royally screw it up. I won't even go in their predatory/arm-twisting business practices.
The worst thing about Microsoft is that they never seem to learn from their mistakes or, more importantly, care.
by Mustafabei on 10/10/13, 8:24 AM
by mcot2 on 10/10/13, 5:47 AM
by cestep on 10/10/13, 5:41 AM
by stratosvoukel on 10/10/13, 6:20 AM
by jaseemabid on 10/10/13, 6:33 AM
by nate_martin on 10/10/13, 6:10 AM
by jmduke on 10/10/13, 6:24 AM
by mrmondo on 10/10/13, 6:13 AM
by patg on 10/10/13, 7:14 AM
by Tmmrn on 10/11/13, 4:01 PM
"Asked to name the most innovative tech company, they’ll say Apple or Google. And they’ll do it with a straight face, while sitting in a chair made by Microsoft. Wait, Microsoft makes chairs? No, not directly. But the part of that chair? Manufactured in facilities running on, you guess it, Microsoft software."
Let's look at this statement. "sitting in a chair made by Microsoft". It's pretty clear what "made by Microsoft" should mean, shouldn't it? What do you think when I say "a smartphone made by nokia"? You surely think that the smartphone was manufactured in a facility that may or may not used some software from nokia, right?
So my issue with that article is very misleading language. Can I call it newspeak?
So "made by microsoft" means neither made by microsoft nor does it mean made with sotware made by microsoft. It means it was made in a facility that may or may not uses an operating system made by microsoft. Who actually made the chair is an ingenieur using software not made by microsoft but that for reasons decided to target the microsoft operating system.
And these reasons are not something anyone at microsoft should be proud about. They worked really hard at disabling their competition with unethical methods. It's not exactly secret, anyone can read about their history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107...
"Transported in trucks built by Microsoft software, on roads built by Microsoft software,"
Microsoft produces software for building trucks and roads?
"Trained at a school running Microsoft,"
Said as if it wasn't a bad thing microsoft is pushing educational institutions to use proprietary software.
"If you prefer not getting hit by a bus, think about the role that Microsoft has had in making sure your baby was born healthy."
Ok, do people really think that it's not a bad thing that (according to the article) the whole manufacturing chain is dependent on proprietary software made by one vendor? Is it not bad that fucking hospitals and their instruments "run on" proprietary closed source microsoft software? Again, this was achieved by becoming a (quasi-) monopolist by methods described in the links above.
"we’re only able to do so because of generations of Microsoft leadership in technology."
What gets me is the casual tone that (as I read it) sounds like microsoft had "generations of leadership in technology" on their own merits instead of because they disabled their competition by their business behavior.
"I run our Bing for Schools program. It gets hardware in the hands of kids, teaches them digital literacy skills, and creates a safe environment for them to practice in. And when we launched, the haters emerged from the woodwork with pitchforks and torches, growling “Google! Google!” Just for fun, see the comment stream on The Verge story: Microsoft offers classrooms free Surface RT tablets with ad-free Bing for Schools"
Again, as others have said. It's cool that children are introduced to technology. It's bad that it's proprietary technology. Especially at educational institutions. When I advocate that they get android tablets instead it's not because it's from google but because it is (mostly) free and open source. Meego/Sailfish OS/Firefox OS would be fine too. But getting taught proprietary microsoft software, possibly with their first contact to this technology? No.
"But think about the number of young people who make a face when you say Microsoft. That’s an entirely different problem."
Why is that a problem? Sounds totally healthy to me.
"Because even if you know that you are working on something that will help save lives"
Actually you don't do that. You are working on something that others will build something for that will save lives. And because you work for someone who has become a quasi monopolist with unethical behavior those others will have to give a lot of money to your employer even though without you we may or may not had a world running on free and open software by now.
"or make things better for humanity"
Again, look at the list of lawsuits microsoft was in and lost. And that's only the stuff that is actually illegal, there is a lot you can do that is not illegal but still unethical. There's everything from their faked "get the facts" studies to the plan to pressure hardware manufacturers to cripple absolute basic standard functionality just to make their competitors look worse http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/...
"I’ve pushed through a program that does good things for kids."
You mean the program that is designed to make children already dependent on microsoft software? It's called vendor lock-in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in#Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft#Vendor_l...
Tl dr; I personally don't see how anyone that thinks stuff like "know that you are working on something that will help save lives or make things better for humanity,", i.e. who has a heart and a conscience can work for Microsoft. I'm sure the working conditions aren't as bad as some people say and the products aren't as bad as people say either. For example the metro interface: I don't really see why microsoft thought it was a good idea, but I could certainly work with it with no problems if I wanted to. It'd be only a little bit annoying but as someone who has no problems with fluxbox/openbox, xfce4, gnome2, gnome3, kde4 etc. it'd be no big deal.
The thing is that it's not just microsoft, they "support" a whole industry intentionally or coincidentally designed to lock you in: Adobe Flash DRM, while atrocious, did work on linux. But it wasn't "good enough" or something. The media industry had to choose microsoft technology with silverlight. Result: netflix, lovefilm, ... only (officially) work on either microsoft windows or apple's mac os, both commercial proprietary operating systems.
by bsullivan01 on 10/10/13, 5:56 AM
Yeah, all altruistic no doubt.