Microsoft FY10Q3 Results
Time for another quarterly update - all indicators point to a great quarter. With Win7's results and upcoming releases of Office 2010, Natal, and Windows Phone, things are on the upswing. Like I wrote back in July 2009, I believe that Microsoft has turned the corner and is headed in the right direction, though by no means is the corporation out of the scary neighborhood a lot of bad turns sent it into.
But we have hit the bottom with Vista and have emerged as the can-do underdog. If Microsoft knows anything, it knows how to do underdog. We really need to learn how to be the gracious competitive top-dog, too, but for now, underdog works.
Plus, given time, the context of the competitive marketplace has changed a lot. First: thank goodness for competition. Even pureblood Google and Apple fans should be thankful for competition from Microsoft, even if they deign its presence with faint of disdain and use air-quotes when saying the word competition (and for some reason, I can't get a vision of the Seattle Weekly's Uptight Seattlelite out my mind while writing that). Second: there's enough growing concern with Apple and Google's success that folks naturally want balance and by no means do they see Microsoft as dominating. Rather: underdog, fighting for balance.
Things have gotten interesting again. Let's check-in on some of the original reasons this random blog started up:
Improved:
- Microsoft needs to reduce employee size. It’s too big. It doesn’t need a quicky Atkins-equivalent. No, it needs to get itself on a corporate exercise program that will shed itself of unwanted groups and employees. And stay on that.
- Wellll, we added a lot of jobs in the five years after that point, but when the cold harsh reality of over-hiring became obvious, it was handled (poorly) through layoffs.
- Microsoft needs to stop hiring. It’s hard enough finding the scarcest of treasured corporate resources: the talented individual suitable for working at Microsoft. Stop hiring, trim down, and rebalance those precious scare employees inside to where they can be more productive and make products that delight our customers.
- There have been freezes and slow-downs so that's good. But some hiring continues. What we really need is an efficient defrag to allow load balancing in the company.
- Unleash employee driven innovation with a Microsoft Labs community area.
- We have various labs now and other efforts that have come and gone.
- Re-energize the home market. The home market is pretty tepid with-respect-to Microsoft-branded software. It can’t take that much effort to invigorate Microsoft for the home user and make it cool.
- Yes, we realize now that the consumer market is worth pursuing vs. making the IT department happy with limiting features. People find cool technology now outside of work and bring it into the workplace (e.g., the iPhone). This is much improved and has a long way to go before we're great at it. Actually leveraging the power of the individual PC is still barely tapped, and probably groups are confused given Azure and three-screens about pushing more onto the desktop than we are.
- Start working vigorously on Internet Explorer again. Winning the browser wars, dusting off our hands, and running away screaming from IE to the Next Cool Thing represents the very worst in less-than-competitive behavior.
- Yep, we are working on IE with great passion. How we participate and influence HTML5 will be an interesting process to watch. I have no faith in the W3C (what was the last useful thing they helped create... XML namespaces?). HTML5 is the Next Big Thing if you listen to some folks who have large impact regarding Microsoft's future direction, so something is going to happen here. Have fun, IE-team!
- Less research, more application.
- Goodness knows most of the researches I know or occasionally work with are motivated to find out what product teams need and get inline with producing interesting features that the product team just doesn't have the background to create, so kudos there.
- Continue the community effort and make it so if you’re not leading cool innovation, your butt is dedicated to some time per week helping out in the community, sharing all that wonderful knowledge between your ears. Reward that!
- I did have this under the next section of "Not-addressed" until I realized that employee blogging covers this and has become so rampant that it has faded to a point that it's not acknowledged ("blogging is dead" and everyone now of course communicates in spurts of 140 characters. Uh-huh.). I'd like to see this turn into engineering employees writing more code that ships outside of our product line rhythm.
Not-improved:
- Re-interviewing: all employees below a certain life-time review average need to re-interview. Those that don’t make the cut the second time around get to look for new opportunities elsewhere.
- Just an idea regarding what to do for people who do not have career momentum. Over the years, the question has been: "Will this person make Level 63?" - if not, they should find a new company.
- Back to Basics. Win32 and C++. Bread and butter. Not everything can run in the freaking CLR.
- Our development story is a complete mess. And I don't see it getting any better. I'd say we're on a collision course of Bach vs. Sinofsky given development options for the Windows Phone vs. Windows. In the middle of this is a meandering DevDiv organization. If we have a gap in our underdog armor, it is our development story.
Back to quarterly results: the analysis I look forward to:
- Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Beta News
- Mr. Todd Bishop over at TechFlash's Microsoft Blog
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org.
Friday we have a Town Hall. I'm sure there will be questions about going forward competing with the iPhone and iPad and Google. And maybe questions / comments like:
- Are the layoffs over?
- Wow, what a great quarter. I'm really looking forward to my raise this year...
Administrivia time...
This old blog: hey slacker blog-writer, what's going on here? Well, obviously not much. Mainly, unlike many of you talented people, I don't do multitasking well. Writing especially. Back, going on six years now, this was my spare time focus for writing and reading & responding to all the great comments. It was a unique place that arose organically as a lone voice to ask, "Aren't other people concerned about where Microsoft is going?"
Well, this lone voice has other writing passions right now (not involving Microsoft) and that's where I'm putting the occasional spare time I squeeze out of my life. I'm sure you can understand. It also happens at a time where things are fairly good with-respect-to Microsoft's future and direction. Yes, there are problems but there have been more successes than failures and the success of our competitors have provided clarity regarding direction and what success looks like.
If there are interesting constructive topics you'd like to discuss, please let me know.
250 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 250 of 250Anonymous @(Sunday, May 16, 2010 10:45:00 AM) wrote “What could possibly be going wrong in the WP7 team that would allow this to happen? Do they not read tech news?”
What is wrong is people putting most effort and those who are most knowledge with the product code are not allowed to make these kinds of decisions. Instead it is a top heavy TerryM handpicked yes men who make the decisions. Lot of those handpicked people are not even technical, they are just status mail sending dumb PMs who are still in fake demo mode and not able to give any true value add or direction to the product. Coupled with the influence of Zune team, which was another sealed eco system failed product now merged with mobile, they have no idea how to provide a platform that can be used effectively by developers. All they know is to give a closed system with bugs. It is going to be a nightmare for any ISV to build anything useful on this platform.
So you think your performance should be judged after what you write in probably a page of assessment at the end of the year?
Not the OP, but:
No, I don't believe that. However, the entire facade of you writing a review is promoting the false notion that you have input on your review.
We rank, send the data up, when it comes back down, we then decide how well someone did - in written form, as the manager writing their portion of a review - based on the report's placement in the ranking.
Most of my employers never had anything similar to a 'review'. At the end of the FY, you got whatever raise and/or bonus that management felt was appropriate. You didn't have input into it. However, you knew that you had no input.
I, for one, just want Microsoft to be honest with its employees.
With that attitude I'm glad you're out of Microsoft. Yes, you're dead weight. good luck !
This seems unnecessary.
The OP was commenting, if I read the post correctly, that he/she was being treated subjectively with a blanket summarization of 'dead weight'.
The OP's response seemed, to me, to be that they'd do the same, and apply a blanket summarization to Microsoft Products as a whole.
If you find the latter unacceptable, then I'm confused as to why you find the former acceptable.
So you think your performance should be judged after what you write in probably a page of assessment at the end of the year?
And not from what your manager has been assessing through 1-1s, day-to-day work and performance against key commitments of the business group throughout the year?
No, I think my performance review should be finalized (and based on what's really happened throughout the year, not just the last quarter which is how it usually happens) before any type of calibration/ranking.
Otherwise, the review is pretty much written to support the outcome of that meeting. The outcome of that meeting is largely determined by the skill of your manager (or manager's manager) at that meeting, and also by the amount of a**-kissing, grandstanding behavior exhibited by those you're competing with.
What is the deal with MSNBC.COM? I don't know if it's unique to IE or if MSNBC is a giant pig in all browsers. The website loads painfully slow. The stories are riddled with those stupid "links" that pop up BING windows that nobody wants to see if you get your mouse cursor even a little bit close to them. I find that when I load a story and try to scroll the page the page doesn't scroll... the browser is basically locked, you can't even click in the address bar and get a response, and then all of a sudden all of the queued-up mouse scrolls and clicks suddenly take off and the page spastically jumps around. It is a terrible user experience. It is getting to the point where I am going to stop going to the site. I hope Microsoft has nothing to do with MSNBC.COM because if it does then shame on Microsoft for turning out such a pig.
I suspect a big part of the problem is the site is overloaded with Flash animated advertisements which could be a grand example of why Steve Jobs is telling Adobe to go f*k themselves. If so then good for Steve for having the balls to call a pig a pig. It's too bad Microsoft doesn't have anyone similarly... capable.
Wave and Buzz may not be setting the world on fire but Android is quickly dominating the smartphone market (more US sales than the iPhone) and Chrome is gaining browser share at a startling rate. Both products are no doubt contributing massively to Google's bottom line.
100% fake Brian Kevin Tuna here at your disposal. So tell me, Obe Wan Kim'O'Sabe, how is it, exactly, that Android and Chrome are each 'massively contributing' to anything. Being as each are free'er than Steve Jobs' liver transplant. Any comment? Or still vacuuming the GooglePlex to fill in the lunch-hour?
Next round coming in July. Watch out ...
I found this blog after looking for info on why the spectacular failure of "Kin" was produced by MSFT. Mini, it's a good read, thanks.
It's clear, the MSFT performance review process is selecting for sharp guys that are usually smiling, have lots of friends, talk a lot, and are good at working systems. But these sharp guys, don't have an edge, its smooth smooth smooth until we get a smooth Kin.
Mack
To all the folks advocating running things in the CLR- I know that a couple of people already commented, but I have to chime in as well...
Managed code has it's place in the world, including client/server code (Azure), platform-independent Web UI (Silverlight), and zillions of good programs that run on desktops and servers the world over doing tasks that don't need to wring every bit of power out of the CPU.
However, managed code is a poor choice for mobile devices. It uses alot of memory/CPU; there are perf problems due to JIT, GC, and code optimization; the mobile debugging toolset is poor; there are major problems with native/managed resource consumption and interop; and it lags in support for hardware features which are common on mobile platforms.
I don't know what the poll numbers look like for my immediate org but if the management's recent behavior is anything to go by, they weren't very good.
I'm receiving praise for completing routine mundane tasks and some thinly veiled questions about how I feel about the team as they presumably try and fish out who voted poorly.
On a happy note I'm seeing signs that management is acting on feedback be it temporary. We have a test manager who's usually in from 10-4 on the days he decides to show up. He offers zero technical input to the team - I've never seen him discuss a bug or quality metric or a schedule in the last three years. His new manager has gotten this message via the poll and is scrutinizing the situation. The 10-4 manager was last seen scrambling to collect metrics he didn't understand.
"Instead, what I found more interesting was the list Ballmer shared with attendees about “the five things that matter” to him as a CEO of a major tech company. The five (as listed on this slide he showed):
1. Attracting talented employees
2. Making balanced investments
3. Innovating in the right areas
4. Maintaining a positive product flow
5. Making the right future bets (like the cloud)"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Ballmer's now decade long record one of monumental failures in almost all these areas?
"Hey, I was part of the layoffs, and guess what? This dead weight now works for another Fortune 500 company with significant decision & recommendation power on tech purchases. Guess what I won't support?"
If you make your decisions on that basis rather than making a proper cost-benefit analysis, then it sounds like they were right to fire you, and the other Fortune 500 company unfortunate to hire you.
And what cost-benefit analysis would that be exactly, Kim-Osabe? Something along the lines of having 3-4 teams work on a smartphone and have the winner beaten to death by the iPhone or Android. Your response only solidifies my assessment of MS as commercially clueless.
"And what cost-benefit analysis would that be exactly, Kim-Osabe? Something along the lines of having 3-4 teams work on a smartphone and have the winner beaten to death by the iPhone or Android. Your response only solidifies my assessment of MS as commercially clueless."
What the fuck are you talking about? I mean a goddamned cost-benefit analysis. Where did the smartphone thing come from?
I didn't say or imply anywhere that Microsoft would or should win such a cost benefit analysis. In fact, the guy didn't even say what sort of things he'd be purchasing, so I couldn't possibly know if that's one of the fields we're good at or one where we suck royally. But when you decide Microsoft loses because you got laid off instead of Microsoft loses because the other guy is better, it's only luck that can keep that from stunting your new company's growth.
Health Solutions Group has some bad managers. The management is so lethargic that we ICs suffer the consequence.
Time to look around.
J Allard leaving MS over Courier axing?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/21/j-allard-leaving-microsoft-over-courier-axing/
According to another of Foley's sources, things eventually got so heated that Ballmer "showed Allard the door" because of their disagreements about the Courier's potential. So, did he jump or was he pushed
Maybe SteveB should be the one shown the door?
@I, for one, just want Microsoft to be honest with its employees.
This is not possible unless Microsoft will manage the managers and principal Dev manager. These guys are only working towards fulfilling their own aspirations(At least in MSIT, INDIA).
@Next round coming in July. Watch out ...
Manager's turn NOW.
@MS was born in a garage and MS will end in another garage.
The way we are going...quite possible.
I think we've become so insulated here that we sometimes fool ourselves.
To the fired guy who suggested he wouldn't consider Microsoft products at his new company, a colleague chastised him for not having the best interests of his new company in mind.
Is it possible that the best solution for companies nowadays doesn't involve Microsoft products?
1. Attracting talented employees
2. Making balanced investments
3. Innovating in the right areas
4. Maintaining a positive product flow
5. Making the right future bets (like the cloud)"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Ballmer's now decade long record one of monumental failures in almost all these areas?
Well, I think it's your point of view.
1. Attracting new talent. Well, stats do show that we win 75% of the graduates that we compete for, so nyah, nyah to you! Plus, nobody said that we need to hang on to the talent!
2. Making balanced investments. Hey, Windows and Office made money, xBox and WinMo lost money. Sounds balanced to me, what's your beef?
3. Making right innovations. On the advice of my lawyer, the honorable William J. Clinton, depends on yoru definition of "right."
4. Positive product flow. Hey, product is going out the door faster than they are coming back in. Sounds positive to me!
5. Making the right future bets. Refer to #3 and the definition of "right."
Gee, I really don't know what you guys are bellyaching about, you dead weights!
- Steve
"Hey, I was part of the layoffs, and guess what? This dead weight now works for another Fortune 500 company with significant decision & recommendation power on tech purchases. Guess what I won't support?"
If you make your decisions on that basis rather than making a proper cost-benefit analysis, then it sounds like they were right to fire you, and the other Fortune 500 company unfortunate to hire you."
You know, one of the most refreshing things about Microsoft cutting me loose was the effect of loosening the insane MS loyalty mentality. I now use Gmail, have an iPhone, and my kids play the Wii. I still believe that MS Office is the package to work with, and our computers at home are Windows machines. But I no longer think that BPOS is the wave of the future. I no longer consider SQL server as a necessity. And I don't think a Windows 7 tablet is the solution for my traveling needs. I would think the OP is in the same place when making his cost/benefit analysis.
Jallard leaving MSFT
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/21/j-allard-leaving-microsoft-over-courier-axing/
I was just remembering what a dark day it was in Microsoft's history when they got rid of Dilbert comics in Micronews.
So tell me, Obe Wan Kim'O'Sabe, how is it, exactly, that Android and Chrome are each 'massively contributing' to anything. Being as each are free'er than Steve Jobs' liver transplant. Any comment?
Android and Chrome are locking tens of millions of users into Google search and services (= Google ads). If that isn't increasing their search market share, it must at least be preventing it from decreasing.
It is appalling to think some Microsoft employees don't understand even the basics of Google's business model.
Also: Making good, free products is a great way to gain mindshare, foster goodwill, and get free publicity. Of course it's impossible to say how many dollars that's worth but I assume it's a large number.
J Allard's leaving?
http://m.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/where-in-the-world-is-j-allard/6256
"Next round coming in July. Watch out ..."
That is one and half month before stock vest, not good.
J Allard out. I'd applaud a little evidence of accountability at the executive level, but it sounds like he is leaving of his own accord.
"Just write a review rebuttal if you disagree with the assessment after you get the review results."
I nearly spat coffee through my nose laughing when I read this comment. It's so deliciously naive.
Yeah, go ahead. Attach a rebuttal to your review -- and flag yourself as a troublemaker with the HR folks, and with your currrent (and future) management chain. In the next cycle of layoffs, you'll quickly discover that you've become part the "dead weight" crowd.
It doesn't matter how well you think you've done. It frequently doesn't even matter how well you've done by objective standards. What matters is whether you have a manager who is willing to champion you in the political hurricane that is stack-ranking; whether you have (favorable) visibility with your skip-level (and preferably double skip-level) boss, and whether these upper-level managers are viewed favorably by the levels above them.
The key to surviving and prospering at Microsoft is finding a sweet-spot in the management hierarchy and carving out a niche for yourself. The quality and quantity of your work are almost irrelevant.
We have a test manager who's usually in from 10-4 on the days he decides to show up. He offers zero technical input to the team - I've never seen him discuss a bug or quality metric or a schedule in the last three years.
Those test managers are pretty common at MS, since they view themselves mainly as people managers. Moreover, care about quality or not, they usually have guns pointed to their heads by PM/Dev to release on time followed by many hotfixes.
Choice titbits from WSJ:
- "Microsoft seems to have lost so much relevance that no one even cares to insult it anymore."
- "Increasingly, it seems that Microsoft is fighting yesterday’s battles, while Google and Apple are squaring off over the future."
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/05/21/google-admob-we-miss-you-microsoft/
>> how is it, exactly, that Android and Chrome
>> are each 'massively contributing' to anything
Umm, ads? What do you think is the default search engine in Chrome and Android?
Folks have to click on ads only a couple dozen times (or even once, depending on the bid for the ad) to make Google as much revenue as Microsoft is going to make from WP7 license sale.
And I'm not even counting impressions-based brand advertising here.
Do a simple experiment - if you have anything you want to sell (a piece of software you wrote, or your own resume), sign up for both Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter and compare the two. AdCenter is an embarrassing failure in comparison.
"broad perception is that career growth for Senior IC's (outside of what was once WEX) is about 0."
Another blithe slanted statement about the Windows org from a Mini dittohead...
This applies at the lead/manager level as well - here you're lucky if you haven't been demoted in a flattening out. :) Junior ICs are in better shape, they just need to wait 18 months to 3 years between promotions.
There was a generalization of COSD as being over promoted and undisciplined, thus the hammer came down on the org as whole, even the strong (or once strong) groups. It's like in Star Trek when some alien species comes and decides that your planet must die.
>Both products are no doubt contributing massively to Google's bottom line.
Hahaha, thanks. I needed my daily dose of idiocy. Have you any idea where say 90-95% of Google's revenue comes from? Any ideas why they are so desperate to find alternate income streams?
"I suspect a big part of the [MSNBC.com] problem is the site is overloaded with Flash animated advertisements which ...."
Which is why many of us use Firefox extensions such as Flashblock which will only allow a user-selected clicked-on Flash component to run.All other Flash components are blocked.
Apple's market cap is almost about to surpass MSFT's. MSFT 233 to Apple 228. Look at what the selected 20 percent HiPo & ExPo people did to this company. We are going down the drain.
A historic week. Apple should become more valuable than MS. It's been quite a decade.
Re Older employees and employees with health issues costing the company more (in terms of health insurance)
Is this just speculation or does anyone have proof to back it up?
Surely MS pays some overall corporate rate for employee healthcare.
Does the health care provider really insist on a breakdown of ages and health conditions before setting the annual price?
Maybe they do, but unlikely to go into that mucg detail ?
NB We are only discussing employers healthcare costs here.
Could also argue about the 'costs' of other factor's such as attendance, hours worked, productivity and perceived commitment etc
I for one admit to slowing down and losing my edge as I've got older.
So who's up to bat to replace J as Visionary(tm)?
"Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she" to quote Lou Reed.
I'm thinking about shaving my head, dropping a few letters from my 1st name and hiring a personal PR guy.
What are the possible outcomes of the rumored E&D reshuffle?
1) WinPho to Windows?
2) WinPho gets a real business model? Maybe building the phones in-house?
3) Kin gets euthanized?
4) ERod's projects get folded down?
5) Natal exodus?
Gap between AAPL and MSFT market cap $6bill today. AAPL up 17% YTD, MSFT down 14%. How can Ballmer still be CEO?
"Most troubling for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is surely the fact that his company has, amid considerable fanfare, introduced a series of products that turned out to be also-rans or outright flops while rival Apple launches blockbuster after blockbuster including, most recently, the million-unit selling iPad.
An open question is how long Ballmer himself will continue to receive a pass from Microsoft's board and institutional investors."
Microsoft Flops Stir Shakeup Talk
Learning politics FREE OF COST in EXD-LPO, MSIT, India.
Rajesh Sampath, you are the boss. Hats off to you.
@Next round coming in July. Watch out ...
Manager's turn NOW.
Great! It should include the directors as well and also operations. We have directors and senior managers who talked the most and spent time playing politics.
I think we've become so insulated here that we sometimes fool ourselves.
To the fired guy who suggested he wouldn't consider Microsoft products at his new company, a colleague chastised him for not having the best interests of his new company in mind.
Is it possible that the best solution for companies nowadays doesn't involve Microsoft products?
Why not? MSFT please do ot be naive and keep thinking that MS makes the best products. I left MS and is currently using many google apps. There are alternatives. Many of the features MS has are not really required. So get out of that "high and mighty MS" attitude and see the world.
Arguably the biggest mistake Google made with Android was to initially force developers to write apps in managed code (Java).
The problem with Win7 and managed code only is the arrogance at MS. Take a look at Google, say "duh stupid, no-one wants java on that, it'll be a flop" but then re-create the same mistake thinking that the problem is with Java, not the new managed API. So obviously, to their minds, that Win7 uses .NET, everything is fine.
Dev churn is the greatest curse of .NET since it appeared (that and the BS hype that .net is perfect in every way with no performance or memory issues). Today, you might want to code C#, but is that C# for .NET 2.0, or 3.5, or 4.0? And hey, who wants to write C# anymore, that's so old and crufty. Everyone wants to code F# and parallel extensions.
The same with the GUI, sure get rid of MFC and replace with WinForms. Oh no, stop, it must be WPF. Wait - not crufty old WPF, it must be Silverlight (that not enough people have installed).
That's even before we start to consider old code that could have been reused and evolved, now we're all stuck with massive, major rewrites.
The dev tools are good though. Make VS2010 flicker a lot less and use up a ton less RAM and I'll be happy with it. Good news that C++ is making a bit of a comeback in 11, I'll believe it when I see it though.
To Anon: Microsoft is a self-insured company - MS pays each dollar of health cost on behalf of the employees. Premera is only used for claims management.
I have not seen any systemic targeting of old timers due to health problems. But there is definitely an undercurrent to manage out old timers who are perceived to not have a good career growth path, which can indirectly lower health care costs.
"Next round coming in July. Watch out ..."
That is one and half month before stock vest, not good.
Please let one of the bullets hit me in this round.
Surely MS pays some overall corporate rate for employee healthcare.
MS is self insured. Pays other companies to administer the benefits.
"What the f**k are you talking about? I mean a godd***ed cost-benefit analysis. Where did the smartphone thing come from?"
Touchy, aren't we? You really give yourself away with your gratuitous use of bad language - clueless goes with classless as do peaches with cream, and I personally wouldn't hire you to so much as sweep floors.
"I didn't say or imply anywhere that Microsoft would or should win such a cost benefit analysis."
And rightly so, because there would be few such analyses where Microsoft products would come out on top. That's why Windows for netbooks is so heavily discounted, and why Android is going gang-busters, and why HP has bought Palm, and so on ad infinitum.
Anyone who follows this blog can plainly see that the internal workings of Microsoft are heavily influenced by a highly politically-charged atmosphere, one of the most immediately obvious manifestations of which is that the wrong people are occupying senior positions. It beggars belief that an employee of Microsoft cannot understand that if some can ascend the corporate ladder for the all the wrong reasons, then some can also be shown the door for all the wrong reasons. No one should be surprised if what amounts to a political assassination is characterised by Microsoft as a deserved termination and the employee thereby aggrieved is transformed into an ABM'er. Some Microsofties simply cannot grasp the concept of cause and effect, and they display a pathological aversion to having this shortcoming pointed out.
(I am not the OP).
"Re-interviewing: all employees below a certain life-time review average need to re-interview."
This seems to be a lament from Mini-Microsoft about the workers in Microsoft. At most companies these are the employees who get the work done. Sorry, but the idea that the bottom 10% of the manager ranking really reflects the true bottom 10% is just sad.
The reality is that the people who understand how to "Manage Up" do well at Microsoft. Try that at a small company and you usually get sacked quickly, or counselled.
The philosophy of "Managing Up" leads to "Exceeds" at Microsoft. At other companies, for instance, Intel, Boeing, HP, any small company, you end up in the suck up list and good luck on getting promoted.
Having worked at a large company that did the reinterview thing, it didn't work. In fact it worked so badly that they went out of business, closed their doors and that was it.
The fastest and easiest fix for Microsoft would be to cut back the middle management. Most people are self managing, and all managers seem to do is provide the infamuous review at the end of the year and a nice conversation once a month.
Mini-Microsoft, are you one of the management divas? You write like one.
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