The Two Faces of Microsoft
I saw a company that cared about it’s employees and only getting the best people they could to create products that would empower people to do jobs. I was starting to believe Microsoft’s slogan on their company TV ads; “Your potential. Our passion.” I mean, come on this must obviously be a company that although large and seeming not very friendly to competition (Netscape vs IE) really does want to empower people to be able to get their jobs done and do things that they haven’t been able to do before. They even offer free trials of nearly all their software products.
However over the last year every time I’ve looked at something coming out of Microsoft that excited me, I would later discover several catches that made the product a waste of my time having even found out about it. A few short examples are digital music, Internet Explorer 7.0, Longhorn, and the details thus far about the upcoming 360 (XBox Next)
What’s interesting about this, from my perspective, is that it shows how customers can perceive a duality between the acts of “Microsoft” and the acts of individual employees. It also shows how, to be truly successful some of the changes we are pushing for (in the Developer world) really need to carry themselves across more of the company than our little island. Why, for example, would you use .Net to develop extensions for Windows Media player if you perceive Windows Media Player as evil?
Comments
Anonymous
March 28, 2005
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March 28, 2005
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March 28, 2005
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March 28, 2005
Jeff wrote:
I am a Microsoft fan and always will be sometimes they disappoint me, and sometimes they have me giddy with anticipation and sometimes they leave me truly satisfied.
I can only second this!! I have had a lot of great, aswell as a lot of bad times with Microsoft and its products. But looked at it all together, it was/is a great experience!Anonymous
March 29, 2005
Jeff: Wow, thanks for the in depth comment with great examples of some of the frustrations that accompany trying to pick a MS platform and develop for it. Having come from the dev in test role in VS it also made me feel great that you feel its a well tested product.
Koorb: Try being a MS employee and going to the internal only Tech-Fest every year. You think the mylifebits thing is cool... But alas, I also have the same fears about the time to market for some of the cool innovations I see.Anonymous
January 04, 2008
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March 20, 2008
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