Microsoft FY10Q2 Results
Time for another Microsoft earning announcement. I'm going to be missing you, Mr. Liddell, and your New Zealand accent. With so many tech companies reporting good numbers and with Windows 7's success, I dare say that we're expecting a rosy quarterly earning report. And, if that's the case and knowing Mr. Ballmer's past record, he'll say something financially scary soon to rain on the parade.
Places I track for news on earnings include:
- Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Beta News (Joe has been on fire lately with all of his postings - one reason I've been quiet here is that when I think of something to write about, Mr. Wilcox already has it written up and posted)
- Mr. Todd Bishop over at TechFlash's Microsoft Blog
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org.
What questions do you expect or would you like to come up during the call? And if they don't come up during the conversation with the analysts, what Q&A do you want to send Mr. Ballmer's way during our upcoming Town Hall meeting?
- Windows 7 continued success: how does that turn into profits and what kind of projections are we looking at?
- Entertainment and Devices re-org: how does that align for future success and avoidance of being one big huge money pit?
- Windows Mobile 7: we so dropped the ball in our early phone OS presence that now it seems like it's a losing battle to have a dog in this fight. But WinMo7 is out there. To me, I can imagine this becoming like the Zune HD: well praised and all, but not making a dent in the market because everyone has already moved on to the iPhone platform.
- Bing: % of market share on track?
- Efficiency: are back to our "we always fire the bottom 10% every review cycle" line of B.S. or are RIFs and layoffs still in effect? Given that the tech market at least seems to be turning around with-respect-to hiring (at least looking at the internal openings in Microsoft and how often I get pinged by recruiters), does Microsoft need to close down on the layoffs loudly and publically for both morale and recruitment's sake?
- iPad iPad iPad! So what, the techie echo-chamber screams for the iPad? I'll be quiet happy with my Kindle for now, just because I do need it for lots of book reading vs. momentary goofing around with apps and browsing. Still, it does extend Apple's reach into the Windows market. What 'cha gonna do about that, Microsoft? How come you never thought of something like this? Or a book reader? You had what and what? Wow...
- Ballmer: seems as though people are questioning Mr. Ballmer's continued CEO-ship. How much longer did he say he's in for being CEO?
Going back to the layoffs: first of all, this round does need to wrap up by end of FY10. The stress of possible layoffs will continue to have a negative effects on Microsoft, let alone recruiting. We should have one last big flush and then call ourselves done. I'm tired of the layoff rumors as much as anyone else. Probably more so, given the comment fear-mongering. To paraphrase a commenter here: Mini-Microsoft has correctly predicted 12 of the last 3 layoffs.
One commenter made a good point in that it is going to take a while to work through the fat, though, because Microsoft dug itself into such a deep, undisciplined hole that when layoffs were needed, no one knew how or where to start and certainly didn't realize how bad it had become.
(later...)
Thanks to the deferral $s, it was a break-out quarter. Some follow-ups:
- Joe Wilcox: Microsoft reports $19 billion quarter, lifted by $1.71 billion deferral Betanews
- Todd Bishop: Windows 7 sales lift Microsoft to record revenue, strong profits and PC Windows sales strong, but other Microsoft units struggle
- Joseph Tartakoff: Microsoft Blows Past Analyst Estimates paidContent
- Mary Jo Foley: Earnings take-away Microsoft is still powered by Windows All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
- Brier Dudley: Brier Dudley's blog Microsoft earnings report includes CFO's hush deal Seattle Times Newspaper
- Nick Eaton: With Windows 7, Microsoft kills Wall Street with record quarter and Breaking down Microsoft's Q2 earnings
440 comments:
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this makes sense to me...
The first Xbox lost, what..4 Billion? The 360 has been, according to the videogame press at least, a huge success. But...I'm looking at the quarterly reports since it was launched and..I'm not seeing it.
Are you looking just at hardware sales or are you including what MS makes on each sold game? I don't think the XBox hardware in itself ever going to pay itself back. Don't think that was the original idea either.
Hey, anyone notice recently how much all the Google fellating has died down in the comments section?
With Google releasing dud after dud (Wave, Buzz, Orkut) and making lame copies of whatever is hot (twitter, facebook, iphone, netbooks). Looks like it's true that Google is a one trick pony (which ironically MS itself is not).
Oh well, guess you guys still have Apple to use in your passive aggresive 'na na na na na' comments.
Curious though, how did you spin your U10 status?
Before I signed my exit papers, I extracted a pledge from HR that they would allow me to insert into my HR file a rebuttal to the U10 determination. I was very direct in the response. First, I said that surprise (!), I was not a perfect employee and had areas that I needed to work on. Second, I directly addressed future hiring managers which may come across my resume. I asked them to read my previous performance reviews and note what I had done well. And note where I had done extremely well. And then concluded by saying that I had skills that had saved Microsoft millions of dollars by uncoving operational issues within several customer facing web platforms, etc. I was told that this statement was instrumental in being placed into the group I'm in. Also, HR told me later that they are required to allow departing employees to add a statement within your personnel file. So if you have an inkling that you are on the chopping block (meaning you've been told you are a U10), get that HR statement ready. It can really work for you.
Also, this can happen to anyone. My former boss was just assigned to the U10 category. Poetic justice.
>>3) Because of #1&2 most of the HiPos I have met so far (me included) really have no way to succeed but to focus on "managing up".
Which might explain that while all the HiPos reaching the top of the corporate ladder were focusing upwards, the company was sliding down the toilet.
> Office Labs has the best liberal arts group in the company.
Must be the group that shows up at 10:00 am and leaves at 4:00 pm.
Joking aside, the new project managment prototype from Office Labs is pretty promising. If they bake it more I actually would use it day-to-day with my team. The concept is very innovative/useful and I think it makes up for "ribbon hero" other and other silliness. They are trying new things, can't all be winners.
"I would be interested to read what people better informed than myself think of this official response by Mr. Shaw."
The Brass article obviously embarrassed MS at the highest levels, which is why Shaw was dispatched to do damage control and so quickly. But what could he say in the face of overwhelming observable evidence that Brass it at least directionally accurate, if not right on every point?
The “innovation at scale” excuse was lame, especially when Mehdi was out the same week blaming MS’s search problems on being outmanned and outgunned by Google. You can’t have it both ways: scale is a hindrance for you, but a competitive advantage for them. And the Xbox stuff sounded like desperation. When you have to point to a unit that has lost over six billion in the last nine years as an example of what you’re doing right, you’ve already lost the argument.
MS does have a chronic innovation problem made worse by a dysfunctional culture. Over the last decade it has outspent Apple 9:1 on R&D, yet Apple has created two major new successful business units and is working on a third (iPad). iPhone, a product introduced just three years ago, is now the leading provider of the company's revenue and income. MS, on the other hand, is even more reliant today on its legacy businesses for profit than it was a decade and a half ago. The company is living off the momentum of the past. If it can't find a way to change that, then it's destined to continue its slide.
Why I think MS will still fail even if Bill was still running the show:
"Gates said “You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that.”"
Requiring a pen and keyboard is soooo 1990's! I've been using a pen since the 90's when the Palm Pilot came out and I don't miss it one bit when I'm using an Android phone or the iPhone. When I have to use a Windows phone, I try to avoid using the pen and just use my finger nail to navigate. It annoys me when I have to pull out the pen to touch some tiny on screen button. Also, I'm always afraid of losing that damn pen.
And adding a keyboard adds significant weight. I don't want to have to lug around weight I don't need.
Re: Previous post about Bill saying a pen and keyboard still needed
Sorry, I meant Windows CE. I get mixed up between Windows Mobile and Windows CE with all the rebranding stuff!
Wow. There are a LOT of angry folks out there, perhaps with good reason.. but nevertheless a bit too angry.
Please, you will have a heart attack.. calm down.
I got riffed last year with my entire team, travelled for a month, did a vendor gig for 3 months, and am now back as an FTE.
About being a vendor: I was not a happy vendor (I was L65+). I was managed by a L62, my work was regularly presented by my manager as his own (in my absence), I had to frequently seek his help in setting up key meetings (people give low priority to an S+ from a vendor!), I could not call out the silly decisions made by the team... and more. I did not like the fact that I had no office and had to book a conf room for calls.
As an FTE, I am much more aware of vendors and their contributions - I have two and I make sure I focus on their strengths and appreciate their work. I will renew the one with a short term contract and will terminate the "regular" who is a bit too comfortable here.
In my experience in talking to riffed employees (in cafes, at DBM, and elsewhere), the level of venom directed against MS was almost directly proportional to their lack of any skills. Listening to many of them, my first thought used to be: "Wow, riffing you was exactly the right move!" The really qualified people, who were perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time, were busy interviewing - almost all landed good positions either inside or outside Microsoft.
We can all talk about MS politics - the fact is that most companies have it and you need to work around it. Microsoft gave us the illusion of being a secure place to work forever and our bubble was burst last year... and our response is to say the nastiest things possible about it. Think what Neutron Jack Welch did to GE (fire 75,000 emplyees in the 80's) or Bob Palmer did at DEC (swindled it from 130K to 55K in 5 years before selling to Compaq), the IBMs, the Wangs, etc...
Am I still 100% loyal to MS.. hell no. But will I work hard to ensure the success of my team and the company... hell YES.
Seriously, take a deep breath and move on - unless you have constructive criticism and implementable solutions; and your body and mind will thank you for it!
It's obvious now where MSFT earns money from. Windows and Office is driving this company, nothing else. Period...
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/02/where-microsofts-money-really-comes-from/
"It's obvious now where MSFT earns money from. Windows and Office is driving this company, nothing else. Period..."
Obvious now? MS reports results by segment four times each year. Windows, Office, and *Servers* continue to dominate. And if SAI hadn't "accidentally" left off last quarter until a reader called them on it, and if the scale didn't obscure the detail, you would see that E&D also had a good quarter profit-wise.
Curious though, how did you spin your U10 status?
Before I signed my exit papers, I extracted a pledge from HR that they would allow me to insert into my HR file a rebuttal to the U10 determination.
---------------------
This person signed contractual exit papers and thinks he has some informal leverage - he's an idiot. I had two law firms review the resignation agreement I was offered and both came to the same conclusion, the only correct answer if I ever wanted to do anything meaningful ever again was to not sign the damned thing.
Well glad to hear you are happy!
...
So put a sock in it, Pollyanna!
Well, nobody put a gun against your head before you signed that contract right?
And people still get fired over here. People were layed of at our office last year as well. In Europe people also can get in trouble when fired, it's hard to sell the house etc.
Not sure why you try to compare benefits from US with NL. all colleagues I talked to who moved from NL to Seattle say they have more money to spend. So I don't think it's so bad moneywise overthere.
Are you looking just at hardware sales or are you including what MS makes on each sold game?
Everything taken into account (hardware, software, accessories, subscriptions), the XBox program has generated several billions in losses over its lifetime.
It's unacceptable from a shareholder's point of view. Microsoft's excuse when the original hardware reached end of life, was that this was a "learning experience" that would be leveraged to make the next generation more successful. Epic fail on that front. In the world of game consoles you don't get to build momentum from one generation to the next. The rule has always been that the clock gets reset with each new cycle. Nintendo was king in the 16 bit era. With the N64 it lost the leadership to Sony and its first Playstation. The Gamecube finished dead last of its generation, only to see the Wii come in at number one.
Every product has to pay for itself within its own lifecycle. You cannot hope to make up for the losses of gamebox N with gamebox N+1.
Microsoft's problem is that its pockets are too deep for its own good. There is no discipline within E&D because they know the profits from Windows and Office will cover whatever hole they dig.
By comparison Nintendo managed to survive the Gamecube's relative failure. They had a couple of so-so quarters but despite being less succesful than Microsoft during that hardware cycle, they didn't bleed money like a stuck pig.
What Microsoft needs is a dose of discipline (and not just in E&D). I left the company 3 years ago (of my own free will) and what I've learned from life outside MS is that a focused and dedicated team can ship products that rival Microsoft's in half the time and with a third of the manpower. Whenever I drive across your corporate campus I look at the buildings, their hundreds of windows, and wonder "What do all these people _really_ do?".There's no way it takes so many to ship what you ship (especially in the timeframes MS is famous for)
With Google releasing dud after dud (Wave, Buzz, Orkut) and making lame copies of whatever is hot (twitter, facebook, iphone, netbooks). Looks like it's true that Google is a one trick pony
I don't know what rock you're living under but it's scary how fast Android is catching on now. There are literally dozens of Android handsets. They are being advertised during the Super Bowl. Every cell phone carrier in the US will be offering Android devices in the next few months at most. I am seeing Android devices fairly often in public now.
Also, Orkut is hardly a recently released dud. It has been around since 2004 and is basically the Facebook of Brazil. Over 100M users. Not something to scoff at.
BTW, Chrome is already in 3rd place in terms of browser market share (ahead of Opera and Safari) despite only being out for a little over a year.
So, some of Google's products may be questionable, but others are actually gaining market share, which seems to be a foreign concept to Microsoft.
Mini, aren't you from the IE team?!
Rajan Anandan maybe a minor god in his own right and Ravi Venkatesan a major one... however together these two are running MS India (SMSG) to the ground.
Back in 2005 I used to believe that once you're 5 years old you don't leave MS on your own you either just change roles or get fired... Along came Neelam Dhawan and began the HP influx and almost all senior positions (at least in EPG) got filled by former HP/HCL folks with known loyalty to Neelam. There was some resentment and attrition as a result...
Neelam left and along came Rajan, the HP/HCL lot seems to be leaving albeit gradually... And whenever a senior position becomes vacant he goes shopping for leaders... Outside the organization.
Still Ravi keeps sermonizing about growing leaders from within... Grow whom? The ones in middle management are either leaving in droves or being passed in favor of sycophants and 'outside talent' (read Rajans men). Good ICs are so fed up with recent developments that they would not wait around long enough to become eligible.
But then who cares... I am sticking around just as long as my current job is exciting. And when I need a role change I will find it in another company.
@Thursday, February 11, 2010 1:44:00 PM
Wow, dude, it's a wonder you got that big head of yours through the oversized front door of your Microsoft building. Talk about ego.
We've managed to convince a bunch of new college hires that they're gonna change the world. So there they are kicking butt, sacrificing etc etc. When we know that one day, they'll clock in at 9am, clock out at 5pm etc.
Not all college / recently-out-of-college hires are dumb . Most are smart enough to figure out , that if not anything else , MS is still a very good place to observe and learn the craft of building software - aspects of software engineering which you do not get to learn in school . Regardless of whether the company you're working for is changing the world or not , if you start your career with luke warm energy levels , it isn't a good sign.Microsoft on the resume still carries weight and I don't see what's stopping ppl from making use of that. The pay+benefits are pretty decent at least when we start off. Yes, there might be quite a bit of process and bureaucracy but what I've noted is that every large company seems to have its set of unique problems. And if you really want to escape from them your only option would be to try out what I just stepped out for , and that's risky .
Try to figure out what you can learn from the place if you had to run your own business somewhere down the line and that can keep you motivated for a while. The problem really starts for those who wish to make a secure lifelong career out of one job and I don't have any solution for that.
Also when you start thinking in terms of how you've got to run your own business and keep money coming in , you become more appreciative of your employers and the decisions they make :)
( I was a college hire on H1B and decided to go back home to try out something of my own after approx. one shipping cycle. Before coming to MS - till my visa approval came through , I was working at another big company for a while , and that had its own share of problems too . I can understand people whining since I did it too - what I cannot understand is whining and sticking on for eternity to the current job. )
"Well nice to see you're not a cynical bastard or anything. I was laid off in May and even I'm not that bitter. I'm inferring from your reply that you don't think anyone should be happy in their job at MSFT or you're just pissed off because someone is actually happy with their job? If your answer is either of the above you should get some counseling and get on with your life."
Thanks for that robust riposte! I don't think you read my entire post, or perhaps your lips just got tired. I WAS trying to compare and contrast the relatively coddled state of EMEA employees, who enjoy benefits, vacations and job security undreamed of in the US. My intent was not to deny anyone their desired state of happiness in employment, within MS or elsewhere. And just for the record our excellent benefits afford me the choice of counselors.
"Report: Microsoft pushes 'Project Pink,' mulls RIM acquisition. http://bit.ly/d4DHUl
this makes sense to me..."
Yes agreed RIMM acquisition would me a great idea! Go for it STEVEB! You go for it! Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers,
Boring, isn't it? Monkey see, monkey do.
"* The system is getting destroyed in sales by the Wii this gen just like the first Xbox was destroyed by the PS2 last gen."
Your entire comment was wrong in pretty much every way, but this was especially laughable.
Xbox sales are very healthy, and althought Wii may move more units we *absolutely crush them* in attach rates (games purchased per console) -- and we also have a totally dominant online business that's basically printing money at this point and is so far ahead of both Nitendo and Sony that the game is, literally, ours to lose.
Please, don't offer an opinion about the console business if you don't know anything about it... and do NOT pull numbers out of your ass.
About being a vendor: I was not a happy vendor (I was L65+). I was managed by a L62, my work was regularly presented by my manager as his own (in my absence), I had to frequently seek his help in setting up key meetings (people give low priority to an S+ from a vendor!), I could not call out the silly decisions made by the team... and more. I did not like the fact that I had no office and had to book a conf room for calls.
Having a manager take credit for your work is not unique to being a vendor; it's not a reason to become a FTE again.
"Curious though, how did you spin your U10 status?
Before I signed my exit papers, I extracted a pledge from HR that they would allow me to insert into my HR file a rebuttal to the U10 determination." [...]
I appreciate this poster's story and the reply. Thank you.
As an added note, at least in the State of Washington, one has up to two years to view one's personel file at Microsoft, after you've left the company. -And before you leave, they must allow you to view its contents at least once a year. It's a searchable law at the Bureau of Labor and Industries and is similar in most of the states. I'm not quite sure on the laws to allow rebuttals, but I believe that is allowed by most companies, at least, and folks should take advantage of that option. The Company must include any rebuttal in your file.
>It's obvious now where MSFT earns money from. Windows and Office is driving this company, nothing else. Period...
Gee, thanks! What would we ever do without you to point out what everybody has already known for years?
Fun and games continue, for what this is worth...
Yup. It's great how upper management decides to make up whenever rules they want now. I was A/10'd last September and told by the current manager that they were not interested in managing me going forward. Nice. Regardless I went on the hunt and finally after a few informational and most of the managers running for the hills after hearing I had a 10 a former manager, who I exceeded under in the past, had a opening and said I was a good fit for the position and I would be given the opportunity to interview. Long story short before I got the chance to interview an edict came down from the VP that no one would be allowed to interview an A/10 w/o jumping through a bunch of hoops which included pushing all the hoop jumping crap-work up the chain (potentially to that VP)to get approval to interview that candidate. Wonderful. Might as well be a U/10 since that decree pretty much means no interview for any A/10 no matter how qualified you are. What hiring manager is going to go through all that garbage to hire one person? The arrogance exhibited in this company is astonishing at times.
@Wow. There are a LOT of angry folks out there.....
Funny how folks with a can-do attitude almost always do ok.
Refreshing to see a positive attitude posting here - keep it up.
I don't work for Microsoft, and work for a Microsoft Partner - and Microsoft can be incredibly frsutrating, and has some incredibly average people in some subs, but I have also met many many talented, go-get-em people at Microsoft. Met lots of duds at competitors too.
Some great things happening people - Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, Office and Sharepoint 2010, SQL (any version!). Who knows - maybe even Windows Phone 7?????
Sure, some underperformers too, but stop whinging and get on with fixing them!
My 5 tips for Microsoft:
1. You don't have to do everything yourself - trust your channel! Apple may have consumer fanboys, but noone has the channel that makes their LIVING on backing Microsoft. Understand what motivates your partners, work out who you can really trust and communicate together on how to win!
2. Communicate your innovation and wins - don't be humble! Windows 7 has touch - does OSX? No! Silverlight is WAY cooler than Flash. Sharepoint 2010 - Google who? .NET momentum vs Java? Do you realise the absolute flogging Exchange has been handing Notes?
3. Less more often. Get stuff out in the market more often - and its ok if people adopt every other version if you release something every year or two.
4. The devil is in the detail - not only consumers, but enterprise also likes software that is polished and nice to use. Functionality is important but bring back the (dare I say it!) "wow" or "niiiice" factor in software.
5. Simple integrated messages - what are the 3 things - at a high level, that Microsoft is focussing on this year? How do different products come together to make that happen?
6. (I know, I said 5) Leverage the cloud - Why hasnt BPOS and XBOX Live and Live been better integrated into products - I've heard the Windows Phone whispers - hope this happens.
7. (I'm on a roll) Don't go chasing shadows - stick to your guns and vision - and yes respond, but sometimes your competition isnt the only source of wisdom.
Focusing back on the FY10Q2:
1) I don't know how this is hidden, but fact is that Microsoft earns a lot just moving money across countries, betting on currency fluctuations. A lot of people in Finance are dedicated to this. When you have 60billion to move around, we are not talking about pennies here...
2) A lot of people from Windows/Office are quick to point out that their groups are profitable. Yet, a lot of users still need Windows/Office only because of other applications built on top of that platform. Most of Microsoft's revenue comes through partners, be those OEMs, ISVs, VARs, etc. My personal opinion: we need more training there to identify and pursue opportunities across the board, and also to "stop nonsense" when it is identified. Apple asks devs to register for the Apple Developer programs. But the $99 gets you XCode for free, a lot of content, your application is reviewed and then made available for potentially millions of users without additional cost. Meanwhile, why is Microsoft charging $99 for developers to register for the Windows Mobile Marketplace? That is nonsense.
3) Do not expect revenue to grow/decrease too much over the next quarters. Microsoft is nowadays the safe bet, as IBM was 20 years ago. Remember the "No manager gets fired for choosing IBM". Just replace with Microsoft nowadays. Yet, cost has to go down, and internally there is still some fat to cut. Partners (yes, 67+ people) are being put on the spot to cut the fat in their teams, and if not doing it, their are pursuing other opportunities outside the company. You will see a lot of that in the upcoming months...
Here is another sign that Microsoft is not as significant as it used to be:
http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/108831/7-states-with-no-income-tax?mod=taxes-advice_strategy
This is a fluff article on states, but read the part on Washington: "...and major employers like Amazon.com and Boeing the Evergreen State is an attractive place to live..."
Notice any significantly absent employer?
The more comments I read, the more I conclude that we must have gotten the majority of the layoffs right... the fact that the person commenting doesnt see that doesnt make the layoff wrong.
Lessons from HP's massive job cuts: http://www.mercurynews.com/chris-obrien/ci_14385203
Only to whiny trolls pretending to be employees. Others will see it as what it is, one option to consider when dealing with the increasing challenges of cybersecurity.
-Thus Spake Big Brother's Minion
>Joking aside, the new project managment prototype from Office Labs is pretty promising. If they bake it more I actually would use it day-to-day with my team.
Sir, don't know what team you are in, but surely your IQ should be questioned. Installing that app made my mail pretty much unusable. Thanks but no thanks.
This person signed contractual exit papers and thinks he has some informal leverage - he's an idiot. I had two law firms review the resignation agreement I was offered and both came to the same conclusion, the only correct answer if I ever wanted to do anything meaningful ever again was to not sign the damned thing.
Please be more clear about what you mean by, "if I ever wanted to do anything meaningful ever again", and whether you were part of the 2009 mass layoffs (ie, if you presumably got the same paperwork thousands of others did).
Thankyou in advance for elaborating.
The Windows Mobile team seems to have done a fairly competent job of ripping off the iPhone from 2007. Let's see, they demoed a calendar, photos, music, web browsing, and Facebook... basically everything that every iPhone, Android phone, and WebOS phone has been doing competently for years. What's their sales pitch, "buy a WM 7 phone, it more or less does all the same stuff as the iPhone you probably already have"?
Long story short before I got the chance to interview an edict came down from the VP that no one would be allowed to interview an A/10 w/o jumping through a bunch of hoops which included pushing all the hoop jumping crap-work up the chain (potentially to that VP)to get approval to interview that candidate. Wonderful.
Same happened to me -- A/10. Adding insult to the injury, review actually said that I have great skills and great potential, but I didn't deliver enough.
Before I got my review, I actually had several hiring managers reacting very positively at my skillset and experience and I even had recruiter in the loop for setting up interview loop. However, once they got my review, they actually stopped all communication with me, even not responding on direct inquires.
Finally, one of my former managers (now partner), clued me in -- From the highest levels (President level), direction was to even not accept informationals from anyone who was in 10% bucket (both A/10 and U/10). He even advised me to look hard outside the company, as my prospects for satisfying career in Microsoft are slim.
Basically, I went from highly rewarded, highly visible E/20 to pariah in two years. Any manager will tell you that, in such cases, this happens when someone is saturated with current job, and that the best for that person and for Microsoft would be to change environment. However, our stupid presidents listen to HR-drones and effectively bury those people alive.
My advice to anybody with great review -- once you get E/20 or E/70, leave the group immediately -- that's how Microsoft works. Next year, you are not getting that E letter, and looking for job will be considerably harder.
I am at Microsoft for 9 years and only thing keeping me here is good health benefits and fear of recession.
Once we are out of recession, I am out of here...
I don't know what rock you're living under but it's scary how fast Android is catching on now. There are literally dozens of Android handsets. They are being advertised during the Super Bowl. Every cell phone carrier in the US will be offering Android devices in the next few months at most. I am seeing Android devices fairly often in public now.
Also, Orkut is hardly a recently released dud. It has been around since 2004 and is basically the Facebook of Brazil. Over 100M users. Not something to scoff at.
BTW, Chrome is already in 3rd place in terms of browser market share (ahead of Opera and Safari) despite only being out for a little over a year.
Wow, so Orkut is a success because it's used alot in Brazil. Now replace Orkut with say, hotmail or Live Spaces and see if you'd be as proud of that statement.
As for Android, since when did minimsft commenters gleefully accept photocopying Cupertino? Have you seen the latest handsets? Specifically Samsungs Wave?
But I guess my big problem is that people seem to be excusing Googles lone source of income and in the same breath deriding MS's THREE.
It's just dumb to me.
2. Communicate your innovation and wins - don't be humble! Windows 7 has touch - does OSX? No!
Actually, iPhone OS is OS X, so it absolutely does have touch capability... incredibly mature and well respected touch capability.
In addition, Apple has been shipping multitouch trackpads on their Mac OS X-based laptops for a while now.
And let's not forget Ink, built into Mac OS X for tablet-based handwriting recognition.
Seems to me that Apple has pretty much all the bases covered on the touch front with OS X.
Silverlight is WAY cooler than Flash.
Does anyone actually care? Have you seen the flogging that Adobe is getting in the tech press? People want Flash to curl up and die. By analogy, the same will happen to Silverlight.
I've been actively blocking Flash content for about a year now. Do I miss it? Not one whit. Good riddance.
Silverlight? I've never installed it... haven't found a reason to.
>>Wonderful. Might as well be a U/10 since that decree pretty much means no interview for any A/10 no matter how qualified you are.
I stepped down from being a manger for exactly this reason.
having to give someone a 10 (whther they deserve it or not) is a career killer. 70 is the new 10 and almost all groups have polices like the one mentioned by the OP.
In spite of HRs assertion about "situation 1 and 2" for 10, the truth is simple: 10 - now equates to "Underperformed".
@The more comments I read, the more I conclude that we must have gotten the majority of the layoffs right... the fact that the person commenting doesnt see that doesnt make the layoff wrong.
This attitude is not allowing MICROSOFT to grow. Why not MS is taking any negative criticism also as a good point for improvement.
"Xbox sales are very healthy, and althought Wii may move more units we *absolutely crush them* in attach rates (games purchased per console) "
I love how the Xbox supporters keep moving the goalposts. Let's see...originally it was "a years headstart gives us a huge advantage-no one will catch us". Then it was "first one to 10 million, wins". Now its "attach rates" that matter..you know, that universally accepted measure of success-"attach rates". I remember that being the main criteria in past console evaluations. No, no I don't.
What next? "The console with the camera based motion controller typically wins"? "Console where I can check my achievements from my Windows Phone 7 is the true test!"?
>> MS is still a very good place to observe
>> and learn the craft of building software
After getting a job at Google after a decade at MSFT, I strongly disagree. Microsoft has so many flawed practices in place that it can't build a V1 worth a damn even if it really wants to. Most Microsoft products become halfway decent only by V3 (or, rather, V3 SP1), and with long dev cycles getting there takes five years or more.
I think Google is a good place to learn the craft.
First of all, you won't be chained to Windows - there are opportunities to work on all three major platforms.
Second, Google won't tag you as a n00b automatically. It's much more of a meritocratic environment than anything I've seen at MSFT in my almost 10 years of working there. If you're just out of school but you have badass chops, you will get a chance to use them.
Third, Google treats engineers with respect. Engineers RUN THE PLACE. You most certainly don't feel like a cog, and if you hate your project you're free to switch to another one at will.
Fourth, Google assumes that engineers can drive features by themselves, and hires the engineers that can. You won't find that many PMs there. That's a good thing.
Fifth, for all the talk about the "Google attitude" I'm just not seeing it here at all. Folks are positive and eager to help. There's no elitism that I can discern. Obviously this will depend on the team and YMMV.
Sixth, the incentive structure is such that if you perform well, you will not be disappointed in compensation. This is something you can be sure of, and this is the opposite of what you will see at Microsoft where no matter how hard you kick ass, you maybe get an extra five percent of (meager) bonus, if anything at all.
I mean, I could go on and on about this, the list by no means complete.
I would advise recent graduates to apply to Google first, and only if they fail the interview here (let's be honest, probability is fairly high that they will) go to Microsoft. That's the only way to get Microsoft to treat the engineers, not managers, as first class citizens again.
This is not to say that MSFT is a bad choice. It can be pretty decent depending on where you land. It's just that Google is so much better, it's ridiculous.
"And people still get fired over here. People were layed of at our office last year as well. In Europe people also can get in trouble when fired, it's hard to sell the house etc."
Not in France, Germany or Italy they don't. And I can't see the Netherlands labor laws being markedly different. The way I hear it from the Germany sub, labor laws forbade their selecting individuals for layoffs so the company had to offer packages. The packages were so generous that the layoff target was overachieved by almost 100%. Brialliant strategy by the way ... lose the most experienced people - way to go SteveB!
Don't disagree that outside the US people are much lower leveled so moving to US may make sense from financial and tax perspectives, and certainly career opportunities are greater.
@Friday, February 12, 2010 8:54:00 AM
++
I give up defending Microsoft. I come home from work and my wife glares at me with obvious frustration: "SilverLight will not install on my G5". And sure enough, after uninstalling, I run into an ominous message:
"Silverlight is only available in version 1.0 for your browser - Firefox. My wife snorts in frustration behind me."
I initiate the download and launch the install. "You have successfully completed install" (or some such). Hurrah I think to myself - my wife reads my mind and says 'just wait'. And she is right...nothing happens after I we move past the congrat screen. Nothing. No video plays as you might expect, no redirect anywhere. Just a dead window in front of us. So I navigate to a random video on the nbcolympics site and try to play. And I get the "you're one click away from viewing your video" meaning install silverlight. It's TOTALLY absurd. Whoever dreamed up this user experience needs to rethink it and realize HOW PATHETIC IT IS.
And no, it explicitly states that a reboot is not required. Out of frustration, my wife will not view the video on my laptop, feeling completely betrayed by Microsoft.
Long story short before I got the chance to interview an edict came down from the VP that no one would be allowed to interview an A/10 w/o jumping through a bunch of hoops ...Wonderful.
Same happened to me -- A/10. Adding insult to the injury, review actually said that I have great skills ...
--
These posts are unfortunately very true and spot on. I was never a 3.0 or a "10%", but saw the damage this created, and where it was going. It is a paralyzing path and is going nowhere, especially since a lot of good people get 'stuck' by the tool, after HR scrubbing and tweaking to ensure they have the right diversity mix in the number, such as – “If we have enough women at 20%, we can afford to put more women in the 10% bucket”. The partner I worked for only referred to people as "10%-ers", like the rest of senior management. So much for Lisa Brummel saying there was any distinction between an A10 w/stock bonus, an A10 w/o stock/bonus and a U10. They're all treated the same "A 10%-er" – period. And it really doesn't matter what you did for MS in the past, or what he review says about you. Once you've been labeled a 10%, your management cannot change their mind, as that would question their putting you in the 10% in the first place, so you’ll get it next year too. (Someone in this post so eloquently spoke similarly about HiPo’s the same way – once in, you’re set – despite whatever reason got the HiPo in, and whatever long term damage happened in the HiPo’s wake). Many GM’s and VP’s require management approval to hire anyone with a 10, as that would question their judgment in hiring a “10%r” – when there are so many outside people (MS Hires only the best and brightest and is one of the largest college hire employers) who are dying to get in (and cheaper to insure). The message from top down is clear - squeeze anyone with a 10% out – no discussion, yet the same management will tell the 10% that they can get a new job somewhere else at MS, as they don't want the "push all 10%rs out", since it is bordering on illegal. Management gets real measured “points” on their HR management scorecard, for anyone who leaves with a “10%”. It’s called “good attrition” and it is a good thing for any manager to say he got rid of a 10%. If the manager loses a 20 or a 70 he gets negative points. This all ensures that there is even more pressure on even low level managers to unlawfully discriminate, retaliate, and illegally treat differently any pre-labeled 10%r in the org.
Now, if you’re a Partner with a long list of mis-deeds at the company, sinking a huge strategic product, and currently under investigation by the US Government, you get up to year paid to find a new job that is never even posted, it appears, but created for that partner.
Google has two sources of profit. Ads on its own properties (search ads aka adwords) and ads on third party site (syndicated ads aka adsense).
If you say it is a single business call "ads". Well by that logic Microsoft also has a single source of revenue "software".
If software is a domain with Microsoft have 3 sources, then ads is a domain too, and Google has 2 sources there.
>Once we are out of recession, I am out of here...
So, you're planning on staying here for the next decade I take it?
The Windows Mobile team seems to have done a fairly competent job of ripping off the iPhone from 2007.
Please. WinMo 7 has been getting lots of excited comments all around, and people are calling it a three way race on the basis of the outstanding demos. You would do well to heed the rule of thumb that if you want to be subversive you also have to sound reasonable...coming off like an ABM tard completely destroys your presentation.
And for the record I don't work at MS, and I will be trading in my iPhone once the 7 series is out. Oh but I don't count because I'm not saying it with a cynical sneeeeeeeeeeer.
>> MS is still a very good place to observe
>> and learn the craft of building software
//After getting a job at Google after a decade at MSFT, I strongly disagree. Microsoft has so many flawed practices in place that it can't build a V1 worth a damn even if it really wants to. Most Microsoft products become halfway decent only by V3 (or, rather, V3 SP1), and with long dev cycles getting there takes five years or more.//
OP here. That is exacty why I (only) said MS is still a good place to "learn" some of the things which need to be considered when you start building your own software. Things which now seem obvious , but you might not realize them straight out of school ( e.g. - very basic things like how software should be secure , multilingual etc , use design patterns ; how you need to establish (*and eliminate) processes to keep so many hundreds of engineers working in sync . This Software engineering training is useful for people like me who are more like computer scientists after undergrad .There is something about the Product model which MS teaches you ( not saying that no one else can teach you this ) .
I spent over a year as a dev in a top tier investment bank - more centred around internet , analytics , services , lot of data & calculation intensive things , web , *nix environment , quick product cycles . For me , Google would have been less new stuff as compared to MS since I wanted to check out things other than the Internet too .
(The surprising thing was that even though it wasn't a tech company , the engineers had a lot more say in system and feature design than at MS.)
I'd say the data-driven world and (very-large-product)-world are orthogonal experiences , each with their own relevance and ideally an engineer should get both the experiences in a reasonably short while after college .
But I guess my big problem is that people seem to be excusing Googles lone source of income and in the same breath deriding MS's THREE.
The inane "one trick pony" argument is something insecure Microsoft employees say about Google to make themselves feel better.
You could make the same lame complaint about half the companies on the Fortune 50 list. All Toyota does is make cars. All FedEx does is ship packages. All Dell does is sell computers. All Wal-Mart does is run its stores. Etc.
An even better analogy is with broadcast television. They make their money from advertising just like Google, but I don't see you complaining about that.
Responding to "The Windows Mobile team seems to have done a fairly competent job of ripping off the iPhone from 2007. Let's see, they demoed a calendar, photos, music, web browsing, and Facebook... basically everything that every iPhone, Android phone, and WebOS phone has been doing competently for years. What's their sales pitch, "buy a WM 7 phone, it more or less does all the same stuff as the iPhone you probably already have"?"
You haven't actually seen the demo, have you? Your comments are really stupid and waste of time. You need to make an effort understand the product before posting.
BTW, the things you listed above existed in Windows Mobile even before iphone, but again, that is not the point of WP7.
The nbcolympic silverlight experience is crazy, I've been watching live hd events (yes at work), and there's good and bad. When it works it's awesome! But the 2 step process to see it has been very rough. Whewn I went to resume curling this morning I was told that silverlight doesn't work on 64bit, despite watching live events yesterday. A couple of window open/closes and voila --live streaming again. The boss button cracks me up, except for not being able to use it during the audi ad that seems to replay every 5minutes..
[Silverlight is only available in version 1.0 for your browser - Firefox. My wife snorts in frustration behind me." ...Out of frustration, my wife will not view the video on my laptop, feeling completely betrayed by Microsoft.
Does this cause you both to be that frustrated and 'betrayed'? what kind of world do you live in? where I am from people don't have food and water to eat everyday, yet they still manage to smile and be kind. You both left me seriously wondering about your society and the kind of life you live in, you have everything and a piece of crappy software makes you that angry ....
"I give up defending Microsoft. I come home from work and my wife glares at me with obvious frustration: "SilverLight will not install on my G5". And sure enough, after uninstalling, I run into an ominous message..."
Obviously you haven't used Apple's QuickTime enough to have run into similar problems. Or ever tried to run Flash on your iPhone or any other mobile device.
Dude, it's software that streams internet content. Everyone's shit is buggy.
an edict came down from the VP that no one would be allowed to interview an A/10 w/o jumping through a bunch of hoops
From the highest levels (President level), direction was to even not accept informationals from anyone who was in 10% bucket
What group or groups is the happening in so I know where to not even bother to look with my A/10. Never thought I would be looking for a severance package instead of a new gig.
Looks like some big shake ups over in EE (finally). People moving around and some others moving on to new roles.
Wonder if it will make a difference?
@I give up defending Microsoft
Not good, but better..
Perhaps you should ask you wife to install the latest OSX instead on the G5.
Oh wait....
@Actually, iPhone OS is OS X
Great, so your flicker ridden 27" iMac should be great for touch....
Not so much. Saying iPhone OS is the same as OSX is a twist.
As for flash, it may be pox, but I'd like to see the sites you avoid...
MS drops the ball again?
"Production of the phone (Windows Phone 7) has been stopped temporarily. "The phone is still alive," says Kumar, but its arrival to the market will now probably be put off until early next year. "
As an A10 person from the last review period, I feel like I am just waiting to be axed at any moment. I have been at MS for 9 years (most years in the same group) and never had a bad review until last fall. The upcoming MYCD is extremely stressful even though I have worked very hard since the 2009 review. I know I cannot interview and move to another team at MS, yet I know my worth to this company. So, with a family to support, I wonder whether I can even get a contract position at MS now. Does anyone know whether your most recent review has any influence on your prospects for a contract position?
I have always loved working at MS and enjoyed the people I work with - it's too bad that I would have to leave in this way.
"I've been actively blocking Flash content for about a year now. Do I miss it? Not one whit. Good riddance"
Who cares?
Watching the demo video of Win Phone 7, and reading comments by reviewers, it looks like 7 may finally be a well-timed winner. Here's hoping...
Playing off of Zune and XBox Live looks smart.
As for Android, since when did minimsft commenters gleefully accept photocopying Cupertino?>>>
Perhaps when Microsoft started copying everything that Apple does - the Vista UI, their joke of a retail store concept and now their phone.
Scott Berkun has an interesting blog entry about Microsoft's Online Services Group losing $2 billion/yr. One commenter there points out that while Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6 billion, most of the top talent from the aquisition has left MS. Many of them were apparently forced out or left from frustration. I think it is telling that Microsoft thought so highly of what these people created that it payed $6 billion for their creation, yet Microsoft wouldn't or couldn't keep the execs who created it. It's almost as if Larry the Cable Guy bought a highly successful Formula One racing team and their top notch car, kicked out their driver, and smirked "let me show you how you're supposed to drive this thing!"
How much money has the Online Services Group lost for Microsoft in total? I don't know the answer, but it must be monumental. It is certainly enough to be a serious indictment of Microsoft's senior leadership.
I love how the Xbox supporters keep moving the goalposts. Let's see...originally it was "a years headstart gives us a huge advantage-no one will catch us". Then it was "first one to 10 million, wins". Now its "attach rates" that matter..you know, that universally accepted measure of success-"attach rates". I remember that being the main criteria in past console evaluations. No, no I don't.
Yeah, the OP also fails to consider that Xbox depends on that higher attach rate just to make up the loss it takes on the hardware. Nintendo actually manages to make a profit on their hardware so the higher attach rate is a phantom victory.
Fired Worker Calls Microsoft 'a Lawless Place'
Wow - I have seen some serious MS bashing in here, but depending on what evidence he has, this could really blow the lid off...
I'm curious - did anybody here know or work with Craig Bartholomew?
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/12/24644.htm
About Lay-offs…
Yes, it will be sort of hidden, monthly/bi-monthly rounds. LT probably is thinking that repetitive, but continuous noise would be less negative for the WHI.
We should take advantage of the Poll and rise our voices... is not like they care, but it may be one of the few "open" spaces to do it.
Mini is back. i hope things go smoothly today. Microsoft is doing a lot of unexpected and unbelievable stunts today.I hope they think things over.
Fired Worker Calls Microsoft 'a Lawless Place'
SEATTLE (CN) - Calling Microsoft "a lawless place," a longtime worker claims in a class action that he was fired in retaliation for reporting supervisors' misconduct. He claims the company "routinely produces and/or condones deficient investigations, covers up alleged misconduct, mischaracterizes evidence, refuses to preserve or provide pertinent facts and data, protects the perpetrators and retaliates against victims."
Craig Bartholomew worked for Microsoft for 21 years, he says in his complaint in King County Court. He says he was fired after complaining that his supervisors had created a "dysfunctional environment that was harming Microsoft and risking certain of its programs and objectives."
>>Wonderful. Might as well be a U/10 since that decree pretty much means no interview for any A/10 no matter how qualified you are.
A10 last year and "trending that way for FY11"; needless to say I am interviewing outside Microsoft. Any stories of an A10 who did interview and move teams??? didn't think so...
Bing on a hiring spree again, offering $1000 for successful referrals. Looks like 2009 was a temporary blip in Bing's race to the bloat. Microsoft has been investing in online Search, in one form or the other, for at least 13 years with ever increasing losses. How long does it take the SLT to realize that doubling down on losing bets for a long time is not a good business model?
Microsoft's hidden liability is their inability to provide a working & secure operating system. As businesses come to grips with the reinstall-getinfected-reinstall lifecycle, they are leaving MSFT. Whether the company can succeed entirely on Office revenues is questionable. -Tyler
"I'm curious - did anybody here know or work with Craig Bartholomew?"
Nope, don't know him personally. Have heard of him. But what happened to him happened to me as well. I will never talk to HR again. Lucky for me though I left the team and found another position before they could "RIF" me.
"So, with a family to support, I wonder whether I can even get a contract position at MS now. "
Yes you can. I know someone who was actually put on a PIP and then promptly fired.He is now working at MS as a contractor
Does the level matter for 10%er. I have been in level 64 for 3 years and have no intention of going to principal. Can I get a 10% and stay on at my level?
You can get a MS paycheck twice a month without doing any real work because you will have a huge budget to hire a lot of vendors; you should consider working for SAT org. This group has not changed or since bretc becoming GM. Refer http://minimsftcrf.blogspot.com/2007/03/bret-clark-holy-smokes-new-comment-on.html.
I'm curious - did anybody here know or work with Craig Bartholomew?
Yes. I worked with him. Seemed like a solid and steady person.
Does any of you know if it is possible for a PIPed and terminated A10er not to get a 'No Hire' at his exit? I am in this situation and would like to come back to MS sometime in the future in a totally different role than I am doing right now. Please share.
"The Windows Mobile team seems to have done a fairly competent job of ripping off the iPhone from 2007."
You haven't actually seen the demo, have you? Your comments are really stupid and waste of time. You need to make an effort understand the product before posting.
For all your bluster you failed to point out a single unique feature that was demoed.
If I had to name one "innovative" thing the guy in the demo was really trying to emphasize, it would be WM7S's integration with social networking services. But I already have the Facebook app in the quick-launch bar on my iPhone. I didn't see anything done in the demo that I couldn't do just as easily or equally well with my iPhone right now. Likewise with the "Bing integration"... all it takes is 2 taps for me to run Safari and do a Google search on my iPhone.
The sales pitch for WebOS is laser focused on their innovative multitasking UI. The sales pitch for Android is that it's a totally open platform so it lets you do stuff the iPhone can't, e.g., run Flash, work on a bunch of different handsets, etc.
After watching the entire WM7S demo video, I have no clue why I really need to buy a WM7S phone. It doesn't address a single pain point I have with the iPhone, or if it does, nobody mentioned it. So, since you "understand" the product so well, help me out...?
".. early next year." for MSFT's latest phone??
Why bother. By then it will be at least 4 years behind the iPhone.
The Zune fiasco, all over again.
Steve, you are the weakest link. Good-Bye!
Great, so your flicker ridden 27" iMac should be great for touch....
It's funny you should mention that. I just got one of the new 27" iMacs in my office last Monday. It's absolutely stunning. No screen flicker at all, btw. Oh, and I wouldn't consider using a touch interface on it. That would be ergonomic suicide. Apple's doing a good job applying touch where it makes sense. Everyone else (MS included) is scrambling to apply touch interfaces everywhere, and just end up looking foolish.
Not so much. Saying iPhone OS is the same as OSX is a twist.
Hardly. iPhone OS is OS X.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_OS
As for flash, it may be pox, but I'd like to see the sites you avoid...
I don't avoid any particular sites. I use ClickToFlash to block Flash content, and on most sites, that also conveniently serves as an ad blocker, too.
"I've been actively blocking Flash content for about a year now. Do I miss it? Not one whit. Good riddance"
Who cares?
Uhm... Adobe?
As more and more people realize what a scourge Flash is on the Web, and what a mistake it is to have so much Web content depend on a single-vendor proprietary solution, Adobe will take notice. As a matter of fact, I believe all the HTML5 betas popping up, and the lack of Flash on the iPhone and iPad, already has Adobe's panties in a rather tight knot.
Windows Mobile 7 will likely ship too late to have any impact. WinMob 6.5 market share is under 8% and plummeting. iPhone is at 18%, with Symbian having almost half the market.
I work for a hosting company and not once in the past 2 years has any potential customer asked about ActiveSync for anything other than Symbian, iPhone and lately, Android.
Windows Mobile is doomed, however while Ballmer has his hand on the tiller more money will be wasted on this fool's errand.
"Obviously you haven't used Apple's QuickTime enough to have run into similar problems. Or ever tried to run Flash on your iPhone or any other mobile device.
Dude, it's software that streams internet content. Everyone's shit is buggy."
--
QuickTime is actually much better than Windows Media Player. And flash is not supported on iPhone.
While all the software has bugs, macs are certainly way better when it comes to overall quality of a computer than any other machine considering battery life, security, user experience, weight of the machine, ease to use, boot time etc. etc.
but again, that is not the point of WP7.
But what then is the point of WP7? It seems to try to be a consumer phone (Facebook, Music, people hubs) and an enterprise phone (Outlook, Office) at the same time.
It won't have Flash (but may force devs to use Silverlight to develop apps) so it will be limited just like the iPhone for browsing Hulu etc.
The UI seems cool and gets all the buzz. But I will hold my judgement until it's released. Palm WebOS had all the press hype too, but as we now know, it failed expectations miserably. MS always puts on a good demo (and as the MS PM said in one of the videos while demoing it, lots of the UI were placeholders), but as they say, the proof is in the pudding.
"What group or groups is the happening in so I know where to not even bother to look with my A/10. Never thought I would be looking for a severance package instead of a new gig."
I heard about it in a few org's but most pronounced in STB. Some of the labeling I hear is unsubstantiated."You're an A/10 because you're an A/10", with no explanation of what you're doing wrong or what others are doing better. End of discussion, skip level mangaers will not even talk about it, saying they support their reporting manager's decision (so the skip level can keep all the 20's and 70's for his directs, who may be at the same level as the indirect report assigned the A10) <- check this metric, HR!
It's condoned discrimination, based on one arbitrary measure, plain and simple.
Sure, there may be some folks who need to go, repeat underperformers, but simply applying a label, that virtually ensures further discrimination and retaliation is not a smart move for stockholders.
"Microsoft's hidden liability is their inability to provide a working & secure operating system. As businesses come to grips with the reinstall-getinfected-reinstall lifecycle, they are leaving MSFT."
Sources please.
>You both left me seriously
>wondering about your society and >the kind of life you live in, you >have everything and a piece of >crappy software makes you that >angry ....
I'm not the OP, but well, this is a discussion about a company that produces SOFTWARE. I you don't like it, go to the UNESCO forums or something. Seriously.
Whether Microsoft produces good or bad software and however your reaction is to it has no bearing on whether people in your country are going to be able to it.
And btw, I come from a place where people not only do not have what to eat or drink everyday, but people are also killed in random acts of stupid violence. So what?
MS recently signed a new contract with an Indian legal outsourcing firm:
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/microsoft-outsource-general-legal-work-india
Since the overseas outsourcing of engineering is sometimes a topic of discussion here, I thought someone would be interested in hearing that they're not the only ones at MS facing potential salary and job security pressures from overseas.
I don't work for Microsoft but want to comment on the trend apparent emerging of strongly-encouraged attrition by forcing people in the 10% bucket while simultaneously raising the curve. Assuming the stories here are true, I think this is rotten and indicates leadership is too proud to do a single large layoff, and/or too cheap to pay severance.
Having worked for a company that died a long slow death which followed a similar path, I can honestly say that I don't wish this on anyone. It is demeaning and you start feeling like a liability instead of an asset. This is true even of top performers as they watch otherwise competent peers get arbitrarily targeted and then wonder "how long till the bell tolls for me?"
Large layoffs suck, and they generate negative PR, but to those affected (and to future prospective employers) it clearly communicates that their employment was terminated for cost reduction reasons, not poor performance. I've even seen great managers use their network to help those affected find new gigs.
In my personal experience, I realized (in hindsight) that I stuck it out for too long and this hurt my career and well being, though I recovered quickly after changing jobs. Don't make the same mistake. Yes the economy is shitty, but bide your time watch for the opportune moment. Above all, keep in mind that management's dysfunction has no bearing on your worth beyond the living hell they've created.
what's your reaction to craig mundie's recent town hall meeting?
The inane "one trick pony" argument is something insecure Microsoft employees say about Google to make themselves feel better.
You've got that backwards. Half of this entire comment stream is tearing up fairly good numbers by pointing out that MS has only two cash cows (I count three but whatever). In the same breadth these very same people rave endlessly about Googles numbers.
You could make the same lame complaint about half the companies on the Fortune 50 list. All Toyota does is make cars. All FedEx does is ship packages. All Dell does is sell computers. All Wal-Mart does is run its stores. Etc.
You and I both know this is an idiotic argument. Why not take it to it's logical silly extreme and say, every company 'makes things'
An even better analogy is with broadcast television. They make their money from advertising just like Google, but I don't see you complaining about that.
Erm, perhaps thats because you don't see me complaining...at all? I could give two sh*ts that company A or B are a "one trick pony" if that pony is insanely profitable as MS's are. I'm saying you ABM'ers need to stop arguing out of both sides of your mouths. It's stupid.
Hi all - I'm fairly new to Microsoft and have noticed that people of my age range and gender (female, 46) don't seem to go anywhere in my group - and there are some very talented people who seem to be stuck in neutral. Is anyone out there aware of a team at Microsoft that is a bit more equitable? Just wondering if it's a company-wide thing... thanks!
Craig Bartholomew was GM of Encarta / Education Products Division. I don't know if MS is *totally* out of that sector, but this is going to be one tough case to prove, given MS's long slow walk away from content-oriented products like Encarta and anything in this sector that requires domain expertise.
Subpoena those emails and procedural docs though, they'll sure be interesting to see. Too bad we'll have to wait 7-10 years for any impact while SLT denies the existence of any problems in the meantime.
"SEATTLE (CN) - Calling Microsoft "a lawless place," a longtime worker claims in a class action that he was fired in retaliation for reporting supervisors' misconduct. He claims the company "routinely produces and/or condones deficient investigations, covers up alleged misconduct, mischaracterizes evidence, refuses to preserve or provide pertinent facts and data, protects the perpetrators and retaliates against victims."
Craig Bartholomew worked for Microsoft for 21 years, he says in his complaint in King County Court. He says he was fired after complaining that his supervisors had created a "dysfunctional environment that was harming Microsoft and risking certain of its programs and objectives."
I am not surprised. Quite a few areas in OABG are like federal superfund sites, led by personalities who would shame the dude who ran Exxon Valdex aground.
Office Labs needs a leadership change. There is a need for a group to validate new trends in productivity that Office isn't attempting. Labs has failed to help Office. The group needs a fresh start and a new leader.
A year ago at last MYCD, was told to keep it up, and would get a promotion. At reviews, surprisingly got A10, yet told the last 6mo my performance was great. Now just told that I'm projecting towards U10, yet there's no task I've missed or been tardy for...
Reading this blog, seems like a lot of people are experiencing this....
Anyone have contact information for sending cards, flowers and warmest wishes to the guy who finally said and did what someone needed to say and do a long time ago?
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/12/24644.htm
Oh great.. Another bad hire.
WASHINGTON—The Food and Drug Administration's top medical device reviewer is stepping down to take a job in Microsoft's lobbying office.
Donna Bea Tillman told staffers in a note she is resigning as director of the office of device evaluation, after 15 years with the FDA.
Tillman said she will serve as director of regulations and policy for Microsoft Corp.'s health information unit.
Tillman was one of several FDA officials criticized by lawmakers for their handling of a knee repair device. The device was approved in late-2008 despite repeated objections from FDA scientists who questioned its safety.
Ha ha, Ballmer is crying that Google is kicking Microsoft's ass by playing unfair. How's it feel old buddy? Meanwhile Microsoft stock tanks because the rest of the world is starting to see what a poser Steve really is. Very sad.
Anyone have contact information for sending cards, flowers and warmest wishes to the guy who finally said and did what someone needed to say and do a long time ago?
I suggest his attorney as listed in the Courthousenews story, who'd just gotten off the phone with another MS FTE when I called.
Courthousenews was kind enough to attach a PDF of the filing (look for the link at the end of the article). It is a beautifully-thought-out document. I tip my hat to those involved in its creation.
Ballmer at it again. Just give it up. You will never ever beat Google.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/ballmer-well-beat-google-someday-441
Tillman was one of several FDA officials criticized by lawmakers for their handling of a knee repair device. The device was approved in late-2008 despite repeated objections from FDA scientists who questioned its safety.
I for one applaud the insight of hiring someone with a solid understanding of knee repairs. Given the amount of genuflection demanded by SLT, our employees can use help in this arena.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) - Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer intends to keep the regulatory heat on Google as his company strives to lessen its rival's dominance of Internet search.
In an appearance Tuesday at a search engine conference, Ballmer said Microsoft believes Google Inc. has done things to gain an unfair advantage in the Internet's lucrative search advertising market.
Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, has had its own troubles with regulators.
Since Microsoft's own antitrust showdown started in the late 1990s, more people have been relying on their computers chiefly as a conduit to the Internet. The evolution has turned Google's Internet gateway and other online services into a major threat to Microsoft, which has tried to respond by investing billions of dollars in search technology.
Microsoft has made little headway. Even with some progress since unveiling an upgraded search engine called Bing nine months ago, Microsoft remains a distant third in the U.S. search market.
Shares of Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., fell 56 cents, or 1.9 percent, to close Tuesday at $28.46. Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., gained $8.37, or 1.6 percent, to $541.06.
Pass the popcorn. This just gets better and better.
My advice to all msft. Do not be too happy when you have good review, it is a matter of time that you will get a bad review. It is better to leave MS with a good review rather then wait to be hot with a bad review and you can't move internally and is also difficult to get a job out there. Be smart. Microsoft is no longer a good company to be in. There are many companies out there better than MS.
Why bother. By then it will be at least 4 years behind the iPhone.
The Zune fiasco, all over again.
Steve, you are the weakest link. Good-Bye!
Your Windows Mobile 7 phone is also a Zune.
There's a saying at Microsoft - "the pioneers get the arrows".
Microsoft lets other companies work out the details and then copy what works.
Music + Video
Zune has heavily influenced the media section of Windows Phone 7 Series, and if you've ever used a Zune HD, you can't mistake the overlap.
The Zune section of the OS provides playback for music and video and includes podcast support, built-in Internet radio powered by Pandora, and a marketplace for downloading new content. Syncing with the Zune software on the PC is also supported, which provides a more iPod+iTunes like experience than current Windows-powered smartphones.
A year ago at last MYCD, was told to keep it up, and would get a promotion. At reviews, surprisingly got A10, yet told the last 6mo my performance was great. Now just told that I'm projecting towards U10, yet there's no task I've missed or been tardy for...
Reading this blog, seems like a lot of people are experiencing this....
----------
Then ironically they all get thrown out the door on the same day, having reached the end of their warning letter or PIP timeframe on the same date and time. You would think an individual truly underperforming would not have their status coincide with several others underperforming at the same rate and time, in the same group, if MS really has valid metric for "underperform".
A handfull of FTE's got hit, in STB this week at the same time due to "underperformance" issues, regarldess of how documented.
Staying a performer in place (former 3.0 A/10 designation) used to be okay, now it is not. MS will always have a 10% and they will continue to cull/freeze that group every year, even if only one manager put that lable on you, until they find out they cannot find anyone good - during a hiring upswing - and will throw money at whatever hits their doorstep, and wonder why it costs so much to find good people.
I agree with the poster that even top performers will wonder when the system will hit them and look leave (I know of 3). Could be as early as a change in management or a re-org where they decide you don' t have any future at MS and thus the 10% designation. If you're a partner, you'll tread water as long as possible. Many are good, but many are going from job to job just holding one, regardless of the cost to MS.
To:
Hi all - I'm fairly new to Microsoft and have noticed that people of my age range and gender (female, 46) don't seem to go anywhere in my group .........
Not unless the group is wildly expanding. Assuming your age reflects 20-25 years of relatively steady progression in your field/work history you are at the point of rapidly diminishing returns in general:
1. You are senior and your level in role averages will be much much greater than a new college hire. Do some searches in Mini for details - there was quite a good post on Moving beyond 63-64. At the most senior IC level you can stay for a long time.
2. You have many less competitors for promos.
3. Extreme breadth experience matters a lot at higher levels. Many people leave MS to get it.
4. Shrinking budgets, shrinking headcounts exasperate the math around the issue.
5. Shrinking headcounts with no indicator where the next RIF will be causes people to huddle in for a longer duration where the devil is known.
If you are NOT a senior IC or manager by this duration in your employment tenure, that can also be a message being sent.
5.
>Office Labs needs a leadership change.
Amen. The prototype visions is getting stale.
How do internal transfers work? If a job is listed at one level higher than mine, can I ask for a level bump when they hire me?
I was told I was in the top 20% in the MYCD and I feel I'll get the promo during annual review but given the choice I'd rather move to the next opportunity.
Response to Anonymous 2/27/10 8:43pm
Sadly, your observations about the lack of females over 40 at Microsoft are spot-on. You can find us at the unemployment office. It's no coincidence, most of the people laid off from Microsoft in '09 were over 40.
Good luck - and watch your back. Despite top qualifications, still NO jobs.
Hiring managers, please keep an open mind to hiring highly qualifed Microsoft alumni RIFd in '09, instead of offshore replacements.
In an appearance Tuesday at a search engine conference, Ballmer said Microsoft believes Google Inc. has done things to gain an unfair advantage in the Internet's lucrative search advertising market.
The ironic thing is that nobody really cares about Google's search market anymore. They've won, get over it, move on.
Much more interesting is Google's perhaps-unintentional foray into operating systems with Android. It was designed for phones but is being used in more and more e-readers, tablets, and netbooks. It's rough around the edges but in general it's stable, secure, and easy to use. It's made so much progress in the last 2 years that over the next 10 years it may replace Windows on the desktop.
It Ballmer had focused his attention on Microsoft's core business--i.e., operating systems--instead of trying to compete with Google in a completely different market 10 years after the fact, Microsoft would have a much brighter future.
Hi Mini, there is something wrong with the blogger tool again. It looks as if ther are as many as 401comments from folks, but when you click on newest you get a page that is blank and says meessages "401-310" (w/options for Older), yet the latest message I can see is from February 10th (as of this morning on 3/4/10). I know there are later ones in there since I have read them in the last few days, but I haven't been able to reach much beyond 230-270 before.
Help Mini, we need our fix!
Is it just me or are internal transfers much harder now in the post-layoff era?
I had an informational with a team last week, and the hiring manager agreed to move to a full loop, but later sent me a mail saying there "wasn't enough of a match".
Another interview I had recently, the hiring manager just berated me the whole time about why would I apply for a the position in his team, and not some other position. He seemed genuinely angry about it, I tried my best to answer the question, but he never seemed satisfied with my answer. The weird thing though was that we had already gone over this in the informational and he seemed satisfied with my answer and laid back at that time. Another interviewer in that same loop asked me about my marital status.
I've never had a bad review... Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Or is it perhaps could it be just a patch of bad luck?
I don't work for Microsoft but want to comment on the trend apparent emerging of strongly-encouraged attrition by forcing people in the 10% bucket while simultaneously raising the curve. Assuming the stories here are true, I think this is rotten and indicates leadership is too proud to do a single large layoff, and/or too cheap to pay severance.
Microsoft did not invent it - it's based on Welch's model at GE. If anything Microsoft lets the good attrition stay around too long.
Problem is that she doesn't know jack about knee repair. She f* up that whole mess.
So another useless GM.
I for one applaud the insight of hiring someone with a solid understanding of knee repairs. Given the amount of genuflection demanded by SLT, our employees can use help in this arena.
Looks like some big shake ups over in EE (finally).
wow - not the changes I was expecting. Sure, the org has changed a bit, but the Director of Test leaving EE? That's unexpected (to my friends and me at least)! Big shoes to fill as far as I'm concerned.
@12:01pm March 03, 2010 points out a gray area that has hit others in the past:
A handfull of FTE's got hit, in STB this week at the same time due to "underperformance" issues, regarldess of how documented."
Beats me how one can be an "underperformer" and not be given a chance to be on a PIP to improve, just subject to their manager saying "improve or we'll fire you". But it's happened to people. Does anyone know how groups decide whether an FTE is "underperform with a PIP" or "underperform without a PIP"?
Predictions for how soon after Apple passes MS on market value Ballmer finally gets the shove? I say two months max.
Good artice on GE's 10% performance system: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_02/b3966060.htm
Key points:
- only works for 2 years, then becomes demotivating
- have to rank good professionals as mediocre eventually (see below)
- hits smaller groups harder - GE adjusted metrics for those
- GE removed 20/70/10 - prone to discrimination lawsuits
- Seems our HR is behind the curve themselves.... -> 10%
The 10% metrics over the years would roughly look like this for people starting from year 1:
- first year 90% survives,
- 2nd year: 81% survives,
- 3rd year: 73% survives
- 4th year: 65% survives
@My advice to all msft. Do not be too happy when you have good review, it is a matter of time that you will get a bad review. It is better to leave MS with a good review rather then wait to be hot with a bad review and you can't move internally and is also difficult to get a job out there. Be smart. Microsoft is no longer a good company to be in. There are many companies out there better than MS.
VERY TRUE
"Ballmer at it again. Just give it up. You will never ever beat Google.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/ballmer-well-beat-google-someday-441"
Naive.
Google is now a giant behemoth and it's increasingly out of touch and alienating its customers -- the global Buzz debacle is the latest case-in-point.
Sounds familiar, 'eh?
This is the way the world works -- giant mega-companies rise, then fall, then frequently reboot themselves and rise again.
The most likely scenario is that a new company rises-up and teaches Google a lesson, then the playing ground is levelled between MSFT and GOOG against the New Hotness.
The SLT had a meeting on merit increases for this year. It was decided to award merit increases only to the top 20% bracket. The decision will be announced as soon as MSPOLL closes.
I feel compelled to post a comment; I was at msft for over a decade and left around 5 years ago. I've noted a few points as "correct" (simply for want of a better term) as they are in a way all responsive to previous posts:
1. Correct: if one manager decides you aren't worth a good review it is almost impossible to recover. Delivering above and beyond will not make any difference. Some people have successfully found a new sponsor but without one you won't be able to do well.
2. Correct: It is a lawless place
3. Correct: Females over 40 generally don't go anywhere. When I was there they pretty much didn't exist except in HR and generally below L61 - 62. Some of that may have changed now as I have heard that more females have made it to director and still very few above that. The real diversity numbers if you took HR out of the picture would send chills down your spine.
4. Correct: there are better places to work
5. Correct: there are also worse places to work
6. Correct: take care of your finances; don't go into debt, make sure to have at least 6 months of living expenses readily available; in this economy you may want to make it 12 - 24 months. Pay off your mortgage as soon as you can.
7. Correct: performance evaluations are subjective and political. In many cases the review scores are determined before the work his handed out (understand?) This means the golden boys and girls get the plum assignments and the others, well, you get it.
8. Correct: you cannot determine one's work quality, intellect or leadership potential from a single blog posting.
9: Correct: Msft has always had layoffs. How else do you get rid of a Director over 40 with no performance issues? You lay off the entire department, then hire everyone else back. It's been going on quietly since the beginning.
10: Correct: If you have a sponsor, count yourself lucky and do your best. Good performance can be fleeting. I have seen grown men turn as white as a sheet and break out in a sweat at the rumor that their sponsor may be leaving the company.
And to close in a positive note, all workplaces have politics. It's best to get over it and figure out how they work without compromising your integrity.
"e SLT had a meeting on merit increases for this year. It was decided to award merit increases only to the top 20% bracket. The decision will be announced as soon as MSPOLL closes."
FALSE.
Sure, the org has changed a bit, but the Director of Test leaving EE? That's unexpected (to my friends and me at least)! Big shoes to fill as far as I'm concerned.
AlanPa is leaving EE? Leaving Microsoft?
Anyone who has worked for or with Alan knows what an asset he is to the company. The company needs more people like him but unfortunately it has only managed to drive his kind away under Ballmer's watch.
Is it just me or are internal transfers much harder now in the post-layoff era?
I had an informational with a team last week, and the hiring manager agreed to move to a full loop, but later sent me a mail saying there "wasn't enough of a match".
Don't read too much on this. It happened before layoffs also. That said, be aware of 3 important things.
1) Don’t leave a bad team to join another bad team. Be careful. Join only teams with people you know and trust (harder for those new to the company). You may be lucky that you got a “wasn’t enough of a match”. The worst that can happen is for you to fall in love with a position description, and then join a team and be put to work on something completely different (and be stuck for 18 months!).
2) Hiring managers are feeling “empowered”. More good people are currently available. That is the reality. Period. The consequence is that more and more hiring managers are suffering from “hiring paralysis”. They are seeking for the perfect candidate, who will solve all the interview puzzles, have perfect experience, and yet accept to do level 65 work at level 63 salary. You don’t want to join such team, since you will fail to meet expectations. It is a risky career move. See a good post about this in the Hard Code blog, titled Hire’s remorse.
3) Mismatches do happen. Sometimes, just use Occam’s razor, and accept the simplest explanation. It may be that there wasn’t a match. Comfort yourself thinking like this: “That team was seeking someone to be in the underperforming bucket in the next review cycle, and I wasn’t going to be that person, and they perceived I was too good to be manipulated”. Know what: sometimes that really happens!
"The SLT had a meeting on merit increases for this year. It was decided to award merit increases only to the top 20% bracket. The decision will be announced as soon as MSPOLL closes."
GOD BLESS THE SLT. Surely as THEY are blessedly parallel-parked with the Arc of the Covenant, what can us lesser mortals expect? Percentage-wise, that is?
Isn't it time for the Vision Hero from Office Labs to be put to pasture?
Another interviewer in that same loop asked me about my marital status.
I believe this is illegal in the U.S.
Apparently it is allowed in the U.K.
Microsoft did not invent it - it's based on Welch's model at GE. If anything Microsoft lets the good attrition stay around too long.
OP here. I didn't claim Microsoft invented it. And in any case, who invented it is beside the point. The person who copy-pastes bad code is still responsible for the mess they check in.
I can't wait to complete MSPoll this year.
Question: do managers have visibility into what I choose? Sure, they give the obligatory "This info shall remain private." blah blah blah, but who knows if some drone is Zuckerberg'ing my info.
"Unless Microsoft manages a miracle and produces an unprecedented run of amazing growth-driving products, the only question is when -- not if -- Apple's market cap will surge ahead."
CHART OF THE DAY: Apple's Market Cap Shoots Past $200 Billion, Closes In On Microsoft
Beats me how one can be an "underperformer" and not be given a chance to be on a PIP to improve, just subject to their manager saying "improve or we'll fire you". But it's happened to people. Does anyone know how groups decide whether an FTE is "underperform with a PIP" or "underperform without a PIP"?
Managers and the Law class teaches managers that PIPs are preferably not to be used. This is because PIP is saying that there are stages in the future which need to occur to retain employment. This creates an implicit employment contract which HR avoids as it conflicts with the employment at will doctrine.
For the guy who was asking about PIPs and underperforms ... GET OVER IT ALREADY. THERE'S NO REASON IN THE SYSTEM, NO ETHIC, NO MORALS, NO DISCIPLINE, NO RULE AND NO LAW. ZERO. NONE. NOTTA. NO ONE CARES.
GET IT?
More than 4 years ago now I saw the first instance of someone being "put on PIP" that was never followed through. Not once, not one single 1:1 or defined set of goals ... and when he complained to HR he was fired. Just cornered by a manager, the HR rep and security, handed a resignation agreement to sign, and escorted out the door.
I complained about the business ethics of a friend of a VP and I was immediately U/10'd and fired.
That's how this works. If you've already been fired (without signing a resignation or severance agreement)or are pretty certain you will be shortly, there's no downside to talking to Michael Helgren ... look up Craig Bartholomew's complaint and do a quick Google search for the phone number.
For anyone who doesn't know, the statute of limitations is 3 years, from the day you were terminated.
guys, what should one do if you empire building going on in the team?
The most likely scenario is that a new company rises-up and teaches Google a lesson, then the playing ground is levelled between MSFT and GOOG against the New Hotness.
Well, that would only happen if the new hot company can quickly build infrastructure to challenge Google. Google got where it is by building massive infrastructure and using it well to provide kick ass online services. Google's success is not based on a couple of ranking formulas or ideas -- it is based on ideas PLUS massive infrastructure.
Microsoft wants to challenge Google but it won't be able to do so unless it does a much better job of building good infrastructure. Bing infrastructure is inefficient and Microsoft has to throw lots of hardware and people to scale up. Even if Bing manages to buy a few more percentage points of "search traffic", it will pay heavily to support that traffic because of its poor infrastructure.
I hope Ballmer understands this. But then again, if he really understood this, he would have asked tough questions long time ago and made fundamental changes in the online services division. Instead, he chose to throw money at the problem to buy market share. What good is market share if you can't generate profits out of it? You can't generate profits operating an inefficient online service.
Unusually early MSPoll as well as our VP encouragement to participate indicating at the same time that HR is going over the comments as soon as these are provided! I wonder whether these are the result of the class action suit mentioned in this thread.
What information is so pertinent that HR needs to get at it instantly? Trying to pinpoint instances of gross malpractices that might feed into the suit and possibly cover up? Or alternatively - assemble a list of possible 'troublemakers' that dare to voice dissatissfaction to put on the fast track to unemployment? Either way I am not sure have not seen in the MSPoll consent/description even a suggestion that HR will be screening data.
Anybody witnessing similar on their teams?
>Just give it up. You will never ever beat Google.
Ohhhh lawdy, Google is staffed by super-genius robots that cannot be beaten in anything as they are so superior! Let's just give up and exit all areas they are in and hope they just leave us a alone!
>over the next 10 years it may replace Windows on the desktop.
Hahaha, sure thing. Who (apart from geeks) has even considered Android as a legitimate Windows replacement? I guarantee if I ask any of my non-techy friends what Android is they will say a phone. As much as geeks like to trumpet themselves as harbingers of what's to come the actual correlation between geek love of some technology and its mainstream win is far from impressive.
So in all honesty...how anonymous are the MSPoll results? How easy is it for a manager to find out who selected what responses regardless of how pos/neg?
The website says no individual data and only aggregate, but it also says you can run custom reports by level, demographics, role, etc. Seems somewhat contradictory...
Microsoft lets other companies work out the details and then copy what works.>>>
It's so odd to me that you actually feel absolutely fine with stating this with no qualms! You're essentially taking other's innovations, copying them, then throwing massive amounts of money at making people use it.
Perhaps you might want to consider actually inventing something that makes money that isn't Office or Windows? Just a thought.
If Microsoft were any other company Ballmer would have been shown the door after the Vista Fiasco.
That sounds like you have far too much faith in corporate management in general. I could go from here to the wall and back with examples of incompetent senior management who got to fly their companies into the ground.
Over the last decade it has outspent Apple 9:1 on R&D, yet Apple has created two major new successful business units and is working on a third (iPad).
It turns out that innovation isn't proportional to funding. Gee, who could have guessed? Maybe anyone familiar with countless examples of shoestring start-ups that made major changes in our industry, perhaps?
The problem with R&D at Microsoft is that it's managed like the freaking Vietnam war. It's not about the numbers, people. It's about the results.
Microsoft simply doesn't have the management talent to recognize what is and what isn't worth developing. Playing catch-up to Google and Apple is guaranteed to be a sucker's bet.
The Food and Drug Administration's top medical device reviewer is stepping down to take a job in Microsoft's lobbying office.
...could be worse. She could be joining the company in a technical management capacity.
The FDA is the biggest obstacle to progress in medicine ever conceived by mankind. Shame on Microsoft for employing this enemy of humanity.
To Anonymous @March 04, 2010 10:40:00 AM
First let me say that I agree with your comments about it being harder to move around. However, really can't say cause I only just now tried it, but I've seen before others coasting through and heard other reports recently of difficulties.
Next:
"Another interviewer in that same loop asked me about my marital status."
Asking marital status is an illegal interview question.
"Another interviewer in that same loop asked me about my marital status."
That is totally unacceptable and could be a source of discrimination. If the interviewer had taken the class on how to conduct an interview he/she would have NEVER asked that question. I hope you didn't respond, it should be irrelevant to the position.
Exerpted rom http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/13/microsoft-workers-hide-iphones/?test=latestnews:
Microsoft Corp. employees are passionate users of the latest tech toys. But there is one gadget love that many at the company dare not name: the iPhone, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
The device's success is a nagging reminder for Microsoft executives of how the company's own efforts to compete in the mobile business have fallen short in recent years. What is especially painful is that many of Microsoft's own employees are nuts for the device.
Nearly 10,000 iPhone users were accessing the Microsoft employee email system last year, say two people who heard the estimates from senior Microsoft executives. That figure equals about 10 percent of the company's global work force.
Employees at Apple, in contrast, appear to be more devoted to the company's own mobile phone. Several people who work at the company or deal regularly with employees there say they can't recall seeing Apple workers with mobile phones other than the iPhone in recent memory.
In what some employees interpreted as a sign that Microsoft was clamping down on the iPhone, the company in early 2009 modified its corporate cellphone policy to only reimburse service fees for employees using phones that run on Windows Phone software.
Pathetic.
Hahaha, sure thing. Who (apart from geeks) has even considered Android as a legitimate Windows replacement? I guarantee if I ask any of my non-techy friends what Android is they will say a phone.
10 years is a long time. Right now Android is a phone OS, which is just starting to be used in tablets, netbooks, and e-readers. The Android phone market share just recently jumped to 7%. Imagine when 50%+ of smartphone users are running Android, then it won't seem weird to want it on your netbook. Then maybe your laptop. Then your desktop. If this happens, it won't be a geek thing--geeks will still want to use Windows. It will be your non-techy friends wanting computers that are as easy to use and secure as their phones, and to use their phone apps on their computers. I'm not saying this will happen but it's within the realm of possibility. In a month we will find out if people are interested in dumping their netbooks for tablets running a phone OS. If so, it's an extremely bad sign for Microsoft.
I heard there will be no standard raises again this performance review period. Any word on if that is true?
Ballmer wanting Microsoft to emulate the wild success of Detroit...sounds about right
WRT HR a true story: About 300 billion years ago I managed a team of 35 people. This was in the halcyon days before LisaB's announcing the 'curve' was gone. We worked thru the numbers and came up with rankings ... 4.5 - 3.0. All hurdles had been met AFAIK, scrupulously scrubbed based on personal goals (not Commitments which reared their ugly head years later).
Two days before the review model was to lock, I received a call from HR. I was told that I had ranked two African-American females 3.0. My response was "yes, based on all the criteria by which I evaluate the team, that is correct". HR's response was "Unacceptable. This throws off our statistics and sends the wrong message. One of these folks needs to get 3.5!". So someone else (white guy) got 3.0.
Please don't interpret the preceding as my wearing white sheets and hood daily. It is just an indication that something is seriously wrong somewhere. Why on earth should HR be meddling in performance assessment outcomes versus methodology?
Finance fares no better. With all the various checks and balances, buy-desks, iRIMM, tools, blah-blah-blah, finance is not a partner but a roadblock.
Just wait for this year's review fallout, with the fabulous Sam's Club afficionado, one Brian Kevin Turner, mandating 5% underperformed to the population. That would be 2000+ people in SMSG ... get those resumes ready, folks. Except of course my friend in the Netherlands, who is so enamored of working Microsoft. You go! And don't let your company car run over you on the way out.
Words to the wise in Windows Mobile.
Most people know by now that HR exists to protect the company. But not all HR reps take it one step further and selectively ignore company policy if they think it will improve their careers at the company by avoiding potential problems for their management in HR and on product teams.
One HR FTE in Windows Mobile appears to be, based on my experience with her, such a person. Both managers and IC's who interacted with her before she moved to Mobile have shared with me their own uncomplimentary accounts of experiences with her.
So Mobile guys and women, be even more careful than you're already inclined to be, when interacting with HR. This is particularly true concerning interactions with HR staff who have come to WM from other parts of Microsoft.
As she's not GM or higher, I'm complying with Mini's policy and not naming names. However, in case anyone at WM was under the impression that your HR was necessarily free from some of the issues elsewhere in Microsoft: it's not, so don't say later that you didn't know.
"It's so odd to me that you actually feel absolutely fine with stating this with no qualms!"
I think it's pretty clear that the guy doesn't actually work for Microsoft.
Most people on this website who work for Microsoft, when they complain, complain about work environment, management, their review history, the stock price, and continuing to invest in $BADIDEA which is *obviously* either going to disappear in 5 years (Windows & Office, for at least 10 years running), or it was unprofitable 5 years ago and therefore profits today don't count and it should still be shut down (xbox) which I guess cancels the unprofitable years and not the profitable ones?
Well, maybe I don't have a lot of respect for a lot of the comments of the form of the last pattern. There likely are some bad ideas, though.
Oh yeah, and people are variously impatient with the advertising.
"It's so odd to me that you actually feel absolutely fine with stating this with no qualms!"
lol, because when Apple copies people and then lies through their teeth about it, THAT'S virtuous and creative
Apple has never innovated, it has like MS taken existing research and ideas from the outside and built products around them...anyone with any historical knowledge knows they do not have a great track record, and that there aren't enough data points to conclude from their two recent successes whether they are bound to have more
AppleTV? How soon Apple FUDsters forget...
What now with Windows Phone 7? Having too much iPhone envy that they decided not to include CUT & PASTE?
"Windows Phone 7 Series will not come with cut-and-paste functionality, according to a wide number of reports citing information Microsoft reportedly revealed during a Q & A session at its MIX10 conference late Tuesday"
Windows Phone 7 leaves out cut and paste
An interesting article on Forced Ranking Systems in the Harvard Business Review: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/02/olympics-1-aig-0-why-forced-ra.html
And after I posted the first Harvard Business Review article, I actually saw one about Microsoft on their homepage and the inability to innovate :)
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/keeping_small_bites_from_killi.html
"Two days before the review model was to lock, I received a call from HR. I was told that I had ranked two African-American females 3.0. My response was "yes, based on all the criteria by which I evaluate the team, that is correct". HR's response was "Unacceptable. This throws off our statistics and sends the wrong message. One of these folks needs to get 3.5!". So someone else (white guy) got 3.0."
This is against company policy and places Microsoft in a legally dangerous position -- I hope you escalated this immediately to the diversity group for a review? To be clear, the diversity team would *not* support forced ranking based on race and would ensure that the HR team corrected that direction.
It's your responsibility as a manager of a large team to ensure that this kind of thing never happens. It's not HR policy to stack by race or gender, so if you were getting that message from a segment of that org it needed to be corrected.
So, I just got back from the MIX10 conference where details of Windows Phone 7 Series were released, along with the CTP of the SDK, which supports only C# managed code, Silverlight, and XNA Studio for creating applications.
No native code, no access to operating system calls, no P/Invoke, no interprocess communication, no database storage, no access to the file system, no 3rd party background processes, Telephone API, or any of the hundreds of features that phone developers have found useful in the past. Your applications run in a completely locked-down sandbox that in many ways is more restrictive than any other phone platform ever before including Apple's first iPhone.
No enterprise distribution model for line of business applications, no way to get events from phone operations like an incoming call or add/delete/update of contact information. Storage of your data is in a local silo or on the network cloud. Events can come to the phone from the cloud and update parts of the UI like "tiles" but your application cannot be informed and brought to the foreground for any reason without user action. The conference was as much about what you can't do on the phone as what you can do on it. There were a lot of angry developers in the crowd.
All that said, it is a pretty kick-ass platform that is a complete departure from what Microsoft or anyone else has ever done before on a mobile device. There are a lot of application models that cannot be made to work on this phone. That said, I'm certainly going to be building applications for it because Windows Phone 7 Series is going to be a giant succeess and hit with consumers and I want my share of the pie.
Well done, Microsoft.
Apple has never innovated
Really? That's a pretty bold statement.
AppleTV? How soon Apple FUDsters forget...
I bought my family one of these for Christmas. Amazing little device. With my Netflix account and iTunes, I canceled my cable TV subscription and cut my media consumption costs in half.
AppleTV is very underrated. With more (and cheaper) content, it would of course be even better. I expect the new TV deals Apple is working out for the iPad will benefit the AppleTV as well.
If you're interested in AppleTV, buy one on refurb from the Apple Store, and then upgrade the HD yourself.
It's so odd to me that you actually feel absolutely fine with stating this with no qualms! You're essentially taking other's innovations, copying them, then throwing massive amounts of money at making people use it.
Perhaps you might want to consider actually inventing something that makes money that isn't Office or Windows? Just a thought.
Microsoft copies the iPhone and includes the Zune in the Windows 7 phone so you do not need a separate music player.
The Windows 7 phone gets sold by multiple carriers and you end up with a lot of people who don't need an iPod because they already have a phone that plays music.
Awesome!
"Apple has never innovated, it has like MS taken existing research and ideas from the outside and built products around them...anyone with any historical knowledge knows they do not have a great track record, and that there aren't enough data points to conclude from their two recent successes whether they are bound to have more"
"Never" isn't correct. But they do get far too much credit for inventing what more often is refinement. Even Jobs has admitted in the past that they copy freely. That's been lost in the recent reality distortion field. Now Apple "invented" the portable music player (lol), the touch phone (lol), the tablet (lol), even multitouch itself (lmao).
Still, there’s no comparison between the financial success they have enjoyed "standing on the shoulders of others" relative to MS, or the marketing success they have had establishing Apple as the innovator and MS as the laggard and copier.
Which is why they're 12-24 months away from surpassing MS on market value and then revenue. For a company that was nearly bankrupt ten years ago, spends a portion of what MS spends on R&D annually (just $1.5 billion this year versus $9.5 billion for MS), and has 1/3 the employees, that’s a remarkable performance. Indeed it’s the best record in technology, and possible unprecedented in any industry ever. More importantly that success has come from the holy grail of business, and something that has mostly eluded MS for the past fifteen years despite spending in excess of $100 billion trying: establishing highly profitable new areas of business . The iphone, for example, is now their largest revenue and profit generator after just three years.
Past success is no guarantee of future success. We agree on that. But when a company like Apple has succeeded spectacularly on everything new it has tried over the last ten years (except Apple TV, and it’s probably at least profitable), while MS has failed equally spectacularly in almost every case (Tablet, Playsforsure, Zune, Mobile, Search. Even Xbox is net unprofitable after nine years) as well as in its core (IE, Vista), it’s reasonable to be more optimistic that the trend will continue for Apple and skeptical that it will reverse for MS.
This is not surprising. It is never objective in appraisal in MS.
WRT HR a true story: About 300 billion years ago I managed a team of 35 people. This was in the halcyon days before LisaB's announcing the 'curve' was gone. We worked thru the numbers and came up with rankings ... 4.5 - 3.0. All hurdles had been met AFAIK, scrupulously scrubbed based on personal goals (not Commitments which reared their ugly head years later).
Two days before the review model was to lock, I received a call from HR. I was told that I had ranked two African-American females 3.0. My response was "yes, based on all the criteria by which I evaluate the team, that is correct". HR's response was "Unacceptable. This throws off our statistics and sends the wrong message. One of these folks needs to get 3.5!". So someone else (white guy) got 3.0.
Please don't interpret the preceding as my wearing white sheets and hood daily. It is just an indication that something is seriously wrong somewhere. Why on earth should HR be meddling in performance assessment outcomes versus methodology?
Finance fares no better. With all the various checks and balances, buy-desks, iRIMM, tools, blah-blah-blah, finance is not a partner but a roadblock.
It amazes me that so many obvious non MS employees would take the time out of their day to either pretend to be an MS employee or spew their clearly biased and uninformed tech allegiance to {insert company or product} on this blog. What kind of life does one lead when the thing they are most passionate about in life if their chance to bash MS while pretending to be an MS employee?
Apple has never innovated, it has like MS taken existing research and ideas from the outside and built products around them...anyone with any historical knowledge knows they do not have a great track record, and that there aren't enough data points to conclude from their two recent successes whether they are bound to have more>>>
You know, I'm not even an Apple fan and this is the worst case of denial I may have ever seen. Apple has simply dominated both the mobile phone and the MP3 markets, both of which represent massive margin. They *own* the over $1000 laptop market which represent any kind of margin that makes sense for PCs. Their market share has grown in one of the worst economies
Mini, wake up!
What's the big deal about Sinofsky's meeting Friday afternoon?
I feel like skipping. Should I go?
Steve Schwartz
I am in OABG and have a great offer in one of our competitors. Are non-competes enforced?
AlanPa is leaving EE? Leaving Microsoft?
You really didn't expect me to stay in EE forever, did you?
EE just wasn't the right place for me anymore, but I'm completely happy to stay at Microsoft and have found a new job that I'm incredibly excited about.
I'm not sure who made the comment about me leaving and being "and asset", but I'm sure my mother would be proud that someone feels my move is Ballmer's fault.
I'm too lazy to look up the exact link, but more details on my move are in some posts on my blog if anyone is interested. I'm happy to continue any conversations there, or on email (or over coffee - I'm an espresso junkie!)
Mini, has your blog been hijacked? Seems that a good 10 days to 2 weeks go by before we see any comment updates. Whassup?
@Anonymous Monday, March 08, 2010 5:00:00 PM
Don't read too much on this. It happened before layoffs also. That said, be aware of 3 important things.
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Thanks for the advice and kind words.
While of course I realize that not every engineer will be a perfect fit for every team, I think the thing that really bothers me is the lack of respect and professionalism of many (most?) hiring managers toward internal candidates.
If a hiring manager doesn't feel a candidate is a good enough fit, fine, but why can they not be bothered to give any sort of feedback whatsoever? Something like, "We didn't feel that you demonstrated quality X enough" or "We're looking for someone with more experience with technology Y." Typing up an email like that takes at most a minute, and when I've interviewed at other companies as an external candidate, usually I got the courtesy of receiving at least that level of explanation. But why can't I get even that as an internal candidate? I thought, to some extent, that we're all on the same team here. Also, if there's some area where a candidate needs improvement, wouldn't that benefit Microsoft in general for them to be aware of it?
If a hiring manager doesn't feel a candidate is a good enough fit, fine, but why can they not be bothered to give any sort of feedback whatsoever?
Aside from those that are just rude and inconsiderate, some hiring managers are just swamped with requests. A lot of which come from completely unqualified people who are just nowhere near where they need to be for the position (not that I blame them for applying, it never hurts).
Also, once in a while, you get that pain in the ass candidate who wants to make an issue out of it, so ignoring or just saying no is often the best option.
Your applications run in a completely locked-down sandbox ... Events can come to the phone from the cloud and update parts of the UI like "tiles" but your application cannot be informed and brought to the foreground for any reason without user action
Bravo, Microsoft, for learning the most important lesson from the iPhone.
Sandboxing is great. Microsoft's Achilles heel since the DOS days has been giving users and software complete freedom to modify and customize the system. For every one program that customizes your computer in a useful way, there are 100 programs that spew random files all over your hard drive, configure themselves to run at boot and in the system tray, install auto-updaters, bring their windows to the foreground all the time for no reason, and email your credit card numbers to the Russian mob. This sort of BS is why I switched to the Mac... which doesn't sandbox programs but at least they usually behave in a more "sandboxed" fashion.
So while Microsoft is wisely taking a cue from Apple on sandboxing, they are also copying ALL the major deficiencies of every cell phone platform out there. No native code? (Even Google has finally relented and allowed native code on Android.) No 3rd party multitasking? (Don't regurgitate Apple's BS about CPU or battery power, most cell phone platforms handle multitasking with aplomb.) The crap notification system lifted directly from the iPhone? No side-loading apps? No memory card slots?
Seriously, Microsoft, you have to give customers at least ONE reason to buy your product. You're trying to make money, not get a gold star for more or less copying the competition. Please just do ONE THING better than the iPhone so if somebody asks, hey, why should I buy a WP7S phone, we can say SOMETHING.
OP: This is against company policy and places Microsoft in a legally dangerous position -- I hope you escalated this immediately to the diversity group for a review? To be clear, the diversity team would *not* support forced ranking based on race and would ensure that the HR team corrected that direction.
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I agree that stack by diversity group/gender is against company policy (and the law); however, the OP telling his story of HR calling him to say he needed to change a ranking didn't say he stack ranked by gender/class or that HR said to stack rank by gener/class. -It is COMMON PRACTICE; however, that HR "scrubs" the preliminary stack ranking submitted in June to "correct inherent biases", so in the end YES, people do get moved up and down the stack ranking based on gender and a number of protected class status markers. Why do the reviews take from June to late August just to "review by management?". It's yee old "HR Scrub". This is true also for RIF's.
This poster is not advocating one way or another, just that IT DOES HAPPEN and that makes the entire review system and the overwhelming discriminatory practices towards "10%rs" at Microsft, entirely moot, since many of those 70s could have been 10s and vice versa. The same with HiPo's. HiPo's may not really be HiPo's, but the person fits the 'mix'.
MS has to report an EEOC-1 form each year, and to not fall outside of commonly used US statistics. To be able to defend their stack ranking system, they need to show that there are no biases against any protected classes and that protected classes do not show up in one category more than another.
I too have been a manager (female) of 12 reports. After the VP stack ranking with the peer managers, we were called back by HR a few weeks later to make HR changes, including we were told (Not given an option to push back) that we "needed to promote one more female". This wasn't based on a performance item that HR noticed, but a diversity directive to "promote one more female" - didn't matter which one. Naturally we picked a female who would be up for promotion at sometime over the next year+, but we did skip her over some non-protected classes in doing that.
In today's climate, it is probably the opposite: "You need to subtract from your promo list one more non-protected class", in order to fit the mix and not be over KT's promo budget - regardles s of performance. A promot-ee may never know that, but be told he didn't get promoted due to lesser performance. Transparency anyone? If HR is just trying to uphold the law, why cannot they be honest?
MS HR LCA would be prudent to review the recent Supreme Court Decision on the firefighters of Connecticut, as that may impact the practice moving forward, but it is much easier to defend their discriminatory 'rank and yank' internal practices, if they fit the diversity metrics of the US Gov't.
10% human here; I am taking a job elsewhere in 2 weeks. 10 years at the firm ends like this. The brain drain continues. Good bye to msft and all of the drama. Mr. Balmer, please step down!
This is against company policy and places Microsoft in a legally dangerous position -- I hope you escalated this immediately to the diversity group for a review? To be clear, the diversity team would *not* support forced ranking based on race and would ensure that the HR team corrected that direction.
It's your responsibility as a manager of a large team to ensure that this kind of thing never happens. It's not HR policy to stack by race or gender, so if you were getting that message from a segment of that org it needed to be corrected.
Wow. You are so right. And I am guessing that you work for HR, or the Diversity Group.
And what did I do exactly? I said "yes sir, no sir, three bags full" and did exactly what I was told to do.
To whom exactly would I have escalated? There is no whistleblower line for managers. The Diversity Group? Please! I was afraid. Sorry.
"What's the big deal about Sinofsky's meeting Friday afternoon?
I feel like skipping.
Skipping? How about gamboling, sauntering, or even dancing? Elsewhere?
Don't go.
"Mini, has your blog been hijacked? Seems that a good 10 days to 2 weeks go by before we see any comment updates. "
Could be worse. If he emulated the IE team you'd get them every other year. Chill, he'll approve or post when he feels like it. You do know you can start your own blog, right?
Adcenter is still in chaos after all the reorgs. It needs another Terry Myerson to fix.
<> Everybody's getting bashed on the internet, including the [other company], not a good place to be sensitive. The outside opinion can be brutally honest, better start listening to it. The "outsiders" (aka your potential customers) have to open their wallets and don't care what happens on the inside.
10% human here; I am taking a job elsewhere in 2 weeks. 10 years at the firm ends like this. The brain drain continues. Good bye to msft and all of the drama. Mr. Balmer, please step down!
I left MS a couple of months ago after 9 years. No regrets since MS is not a good place to be in any more. Poor leadership and unethical and unprofessional directors. Escalated the mal-practice of director to senior leadership and also HR but is a waste of time. HR is absolutely useless as well.
This is against company policy and places Microsoft in a legally dangerous position -- I hope you escalated this immediately to the diversity group for a review? To be clear, the diversity team would *not* support forced ranking based on race and would ensure that the HR team corrected that direction.
Let me share with you this. In MS what is stated in the policy is all BS. I have a colleague who reported on her director's misconduct to the VP and P with evidence and the case handed to HR. But till today the HR had not responded back to her on their investigation and action. The GM seemed to be protecting the director instead of my colleague who is doing what is right for the company. What a disgrace to the whole organization!
"If he emulated the IE team you'd get them every other year."
LOL. On a serious note, has anyone noticed that IE continues to lose share, as it has for some five years now? Also that the rate of loss is increasing? This is another example of Ballmer's laissez faire attitude towards everything. Why didn't he intervene years ago and demand a new strategy? How can anyone think that the current one, with updates every other year, can compete against Chrome and others that provide updates every few months? It would be one thing if our competitors were just so gd'ed terrific that we had no hope. But in many cases, like this one, our worst enemy is ourselves.
To whom exactly would I have escalated? There is no whistleblower line for managers. The Diversity Group? Please! I was afraid. Sorry.
There IS a whistleblower line that ANYONE at Microsoft can use. You can find it with a ittle bit of digging around on corpnet. Maybe it was in the employee handbook?
However, I don't blame anyone for being afraid to use it or any other escalation option for fear of retaliation. I faced severe career-ending retaliation when I refused to take a response by HR and management that was counter to Microsoft policy on a diversity-related issue, as the final answer.
Diversity issues appears to be a sacred cow that one should not speak up against if one values one's career there.
So quick question to those who know...
Is the MSPoll really anonymous? Not sure how easy it is to run a "report" and see detail at what granularity.
"You know, I'm not even an Apple fan and this is the worst case of denial I may have ever seen. Apple has simply dominated both the mobile phone and the MP3 markets, both of which represent massive margin. They *own* the over $1000 laptop market which represent any kind of margin that makes sense for PCs. Their market share has grown in one of the worst economies"
It's almost as if you forgot that I said Apple hasn't innovated, not that it hasn't produced successful products (before iPod Touch, the iPod line was actually feature POOR). You didn't produce an iota of argument to the contrary. You're either a fannish adolescent or just dumb.
World's Best CEOs
Steve Jobs #1. And Ballmer again doesn't even make the list of 30.
Apple today: up another two billion to $211 billion
MS: going nowhere as usual at $260 billion.
How long until Apple is worth more? Three months? Six? Tick tock...
Why is Ballmer still CEO?
When I read about the complexity of the review system, procedures in general etc. I get the feeling this place has gotten way too big. Isn't time to focus on the products again and stop worrying about "org building", processes, scientific management tools and so forth? Just appoint some old fashioned visionary technical dictator who makes sure the impossible happens again.... (Crunch)...
"Search is going to be an ever-growing share of Microsoft's profits"
This is a typical Ballmer statement. He knows it will be construed as optimistic. But what it really means is "He hopes search will one day be profitable and growing, because he knows profits from Windows and Office will be declining".
This is against company policy and places Microsoft in a legally dangerous position -- I hope you escalated this immediately to the diversity group for a review? To be clear, the diversity team would *not* support forced ranking based on race and would ensure that the HR team corrected that direction.
It's your responsibility as a manager of a large team to ensure that this kind of thing never happens. It's not HR policy to stack by race or gender, so if you were getting that message from a segment of that org it needed to be corrected.
Practice is not always the same as official policy.
The book 'Corporate Confidential' written by Cynthia Shapiro has been mentioned here before.
A common response to someone complaining is to get rid of them with the help of HR.
HR does not know who is competent in technical positions and just goes along with whatever a manager says.
If you are thinking of reporting a manager higher up in the organization to HR or you are the person they knock down to fit the curve, it is better to just transfer to another position internally without saying a word.
If enough people have the same reaction to a manager, eventually HR will figure it out without you trashing your career.
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10% human here; I am taking a job elsewhere in 2 weeks. 10 years at the firm ends like this. The brain drain continues. Good bye to msft and all of the drama. Mr. Balmer, please step down!
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Good luck! People remember experiences by the ultimate high/low point throughout the entire duration and how these have ended. Do not allow the dehumanizing 10% label to tarnish your 10 years of contributions.
And bravo for finding another job in this economy!
Now Apple "invented" the portable music player (lol), the touch phone (lol), the tablet (lol), even multitouch itself (lmao).
OK, that's correct on the face of it. What Apple did was to make those things useable by regular humans. If you MSFT employees don't get that, you're going to continue getting bad press. Sure, y'all will always have the IT/enterprise market locked up — those guys know that keeping the Windows boxes going is what butters their bread, and IT flacks are your most partisan fans — but everyone else will use your products only if they feel they have to.
Wouldn't you rather make products that people want to use? Sit your moms down with an eval copy and get a video camera rolling. You'll find the sharp corners and rough edges quick, and then you'll know where to polish.
Surprised there's been no mention of last week's layoffs. Another 1,000 if I understand?
Again, some of those laid off were upwards of 40 and recently had medical problems. Guess I shouldn't be shocked...
"10 years at the firm ends like this. The brain drain continues. Good bye to msft and all of the drama. Mr. Balmer, please step down!"
If after ten years at the company you don't even know how the CEO spells his name, maybe this should have come sooner.
Sit your moms down with an eval copy and get a video camera rolling. You'll find the sharp corners and rough edges quick, and then you'll know where to polish.
I laughed out loud at this "insight". Every single division has small teams of people whose sole job it is to do this and MS *still* puts out the products it does.
Cracking the Redmond echo chamber is not a matter of MS lacking the basics, kiddo.
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