4 ms·

I really dislike this line of thinking. It assumes things can't change. Microsoft as a corporation is just a brand, the people have come and gone and with it mu

I really dislike this line of thinking. It assumes things can't change. Microsoft as a corporation is just a brand, the people have come and gone and with it much of the ideology and decision making thought. People that think this way have a ridiculous amount of brand loyalty which really means nothing. The people change behind the brand all the time. It's clear that MSFT is changing. It's clear from the people that I've talked to that work there. It's clear from the messaging by senior management.

simoncion 11y ago
> I really dislike this line of thinking. It assumes things can't change. I never said that things can't change. I've seen many companies change over the years. However, Microsoft's anti-competitive and underhanded practices have been extremely profitable for them and have -all things considered- resulted in very few negative consequences. > It's clear [that MSFT is changing] from the people that I've talked to that work there. It's clear from the messaging by senior management. Both Plus and Hangouts were supposed to be bold new directions for Google. At the time, it was abundantly clear from talking to most people who worked there and senior management that everyone was totally stoked about these new platforms and that this was the direction that the company was going to go for the foreseeable future. But here we are -four years later- and Hangouts is -all things considered- a steaming pile and everyone in the company knows it, Google is slowly but steadily disentangling itself from Plus (and Plus from its services), and Vivek Gundotra -the former head of Plus- quietly "left the company" several years past. As you say, companies change. > It's clear that MSFT is changing. This isn't the first time that it has been "clear" that Microsoft was changing. In the past it turned out to be a temporary change in order to gain reputation, or new users for their platforms or... Like I said before, "Playing the nice guy" has -historically- been just a small -and fleeting- phase of Microsoft's dirty market domination strategies. Given the enormous amount of harm Microsoft has done to the industry over the past several decades, (and given Microsoft's historical propensity for lock-in and intentionally high switching costs) I'm going to wait for a very long time before seriously entertaining the claims that Microsoft has actually changed.

simoncion 11y ago

> I really dislike this line of thinking. It assumes things can't change. I never said that things can't change. I've seen many companies change over the years. However, Microsoft's anti-competitive and underhanded practices have been extremely profitable for them and have -all things considered- resulted in very few negative consequences. > It's clear [that MSFT is changing] from the people that I've talked to that work there. It's clear from the messaging by senior management. Both Plus and Hangouts were supposed to be bold new directions for Google. At the time, it was abundantly clear from talking to most people who worked there and senior management that everyone was totally stoked about these new platforms and that this was the direction that the company was going to go for the foreseeable future. But here we are -four years later- and Hangouts is -all things considered- a steaming pile and everyone in the company knows it, Google is slowly but steadily disentangling itself from Plus (and Plus from its services), and Vivek Gundotra -the former head of Plus- quietly "left the company" several years past. As you say, companies change. > It's clear that MSFT is changing. This isn't the first time that it has been "clear" that Microsoft was changing. In the past it turned out to be a temporary change in order to gain reputation, or new users for their platforms or... Like I said before, "Playing the nice guy" has -historically- been just a small -and fleeting- phase of Microsoft's dirty market domination strategies. Given the enormous amount of harm Microsoft has done to the industry over the past several decades, (and given Microsoft's historical propensity for lock-in and intentionally high switching costs) I'm going to wait for a very long time before seriously entertaining the claims that Microsoft has actually changed.