4 ms·

I agree, the MSFT engineers (not the marketers) seem likeable enough. I think they're handling criticism reasonably enough and I think the Reddit crowd should u

by djacobs 16y ago

I agree, the MSFT engineers (not the marketers) seem likeable enough. I think they're handling criticism reasonably enough and I think the Reddit crowd should understand exactly how little input these engineers get inside of Microsoft's development model. (Still, I will continue recommending Chrome and Firefox to friends. IE anything is just bad.)

sriramk 16y ago
Disclaimer as usual: I dont speak for MSFT, yada, yada. I rarely get into one of these 'defend-MSFT' threads but I couldn't let one more of these 'MSFT engineers are great but marketing is not' threads go by. I think your characterization of how product managers and devs/PMs/test work at MSFT is way wrong and represents a simplistic 'engineers vs bean counters/marketing' of sorts (apologies if that's a strawman). It's always a tag team effort and it's not always easy to see the boundaries between marketing/biz dev/engineering. All sides take part in collective decisions. If you have any real issues with big product decisions for any product at Microsoft, you need to go to a VP or the executive team. And most Microsoft VPs are from a engineering lineage. On a separate topic, I have nothing to do with IE but in this case, the product managers seem to be working really, really hard with what is a extremely hostile crowd. In some cases, the community has assumed what the real answer should be and even when they get the absolute straight line on why something the way it is, there is disbelief. (the truth as what I would hear if I met Dean Hachamovitch in an elevator and asked him the same question as a Microsoftie).
- pavs 16y ago
  To be fair about the criticisms, it seemed to me like somebody made a list of things they could possibly do wrong while doing a reddit AMA (in front of a bunch of hardcore tech people) and then went on making those mistakes. What were they expecting when they decided to do an AMA on Reddit? If their main goal was to make more people try IE9, and stick with it, I think they did a really horrible job.
  - djacobs 16y ago
    I agree, I think the marketers failed at their own game (understanding their audience and selling themselves) today/yesterday. They sidestepped questions like politicians. If they had understood their audience, they'd have known this would not work, that details and direct answers matter. As it is, they just revealed Microsoft's "feature" model—i.e., we only implement technology that is popular now ... on websites that are built around the lowest common denominator of web technology. IE6. I stand by my statement that the programmers seem well-intentioned and honest (direct, even), where the marketers are clearly avoiding tough questions.
    - sriramk 16y ago
      I have done several customer engagements in past teams from conferences to very private executive engagements where I've been the 'technical guy'. Since most questions flying at me are factual, it is easy to respond with factual responses. But with any hard question which goes outside pure tech, I would deflect it some poor biz-dev/product manager who would have to weigh several things in his or her response - Microsoft's strategy, future plans (both disclosed and secret), competitors and their selling points, what this current customer expects to hear among a host of other things. It is a much harder job and I often came out looking like the 'technical guy who was a straight shooter, not like that other suit' though I had the much easier task. This isn't some Microsoft thing alone. If you parse through any large scale engagement from any big company, you'd almost always see this pattern. Go to any conference and walk up to a large company's booth. If you ask technical questions, you'll often get the engineer to respond. If you ask some roadmap/competitive positioning/touchy question, you'll get directed to someone else. This is usually because the engineer involved doesn't know the answer/strategy/market positioning/whatever. To say that one group is somehow more well-intentioned/honest than the other seems wrong.
      - djacobs 16y ago
        I don't think it is wrong. The engineers have even been clearer and more useful when they're talking about policy. Case in point: The question comes up: "Why aren't you bringing IE9 to Windows XP?" Answer from marketing guys: "XP isn't compatible." At best, the answer was "XP doesn't support hardware acceleration" from them. Followup question: "How do you run IE9 in a VM?" Answer from marketing: "Turn off hardware acceleration." Response: "WTF?" Engineer comes in: "Okay, let me clear this up... IE9 runs on top of D2D, which Windows XP hasn't got. D2D supports hardware or software acceleration, therefore you can turn it off for VMs. But the bottom line is that if we were to port IE9 to Windows XP, we'd have to write the lower levels from scratch, and it would become IE8 with a fresh GUI." Response: "Okay. That, I understand." Here's where the marketing guy either a) doesn't defer to the tech guy when it's appropriate or b) underestimates/misunderstands his audience and gives a flawed, unsatisfactory answer.

by djacobs 16y ago

sriramk 16y ago

Disclaimer as usual: I dont speak for MSFT, yada, yada. I rarely get into one of these 'defend-MSFT' threads but I couldn't let one more of these 'MSFT engineers are great but marketing is not' threads go by. I think your characterization of how product managers and devs/PMs/test work at MSFT is way wrong and represents a simplistic 'engineers vs bean counters/marketing' of sorts (apologies if that's a strawman). It's always a tag team effort and it's not always easy to see the boundaries between marketing/biz dev/engineering. All sides take part in collective decisions. If you have any real issues with big product decisions for any product at Microsoft, you need to go to a VP or the executive team. And most Microsoft VPs are from a engineering lineage. On a separate topic, I have nothing to do with IE but in this case, the product managers seem to be working really, really hard with what is a extremely hostile crowd. In some cases, the community has assumed what the real answer should be and even when they get the absolute straight line on why something the way it is, there is disbelief. (the truth as what I would hear if I met Dean Hachamovitch in an elevator and asked him the same question as a Microsoftie).

pavs 16y ago
To be fair about the criticisms, it seemed to me like somebody made a list of things they could possibly do wrong while doing a reddit AMA (in front of a bunch of hardcore tech people) and then went on making those mistakes. What were they expecting when they decided to do an AMA on Reddit? If their main goal was to make more people try IE9, and stick with it, I think they did a really horrible job.
- djacobs 16y ago
  I agree, I think the marketers failed at their own game (understanding their audience and selling themselves) today/yesterday. They sidestepped questions like politicians. If they had understood their audience, they'd have known this would not work, that details and direct answers matter. As it is, they just revealed Microsoft's "feature" model—i.e., we only implement technology that is popular now ... on websites that are built around the lowest common denominator of web technology. IE6. I stand by my statement that the programmers seem well-intentioned and honest (direct, even), where the marketers are clearly avoiding tough questions.
  - sriramk 16y ago
    I have done several customer engagements in past teams from conferences to very private executive engagements where I've been the 'technical guy'. Since most questions flying at me are factual, it is easy to respond with factual responses. But with any hard question which goes outside pure tech, I would deflect it some poor biz-dev/product manager who would have to weigh several things in his or her response - Microsoft's strategy, future plans (both disclosed and secret), competitors and their selling points, what this current customer expects to hear among a host of other things. It is a much harder job and I often came out looking like the 'technical guy who was a straight shooter, not like that other suit' though I had the much easier task. This isn't some Microsoft thing alone. If you parse through any large scale engagement from any big company, you'd almost always see this pattern. Go to any conference and walk up to a large company's booth. If you ask technical questions, you'll often get the engineer to respond. If you ask some roadmap/competitive positioning/touchy question, you'll get directed to someone else. This is usually because the engineer involved doesn't know the answer/strategy/market positioning/whatever. To say that one group is somehow more well-intentioned/honest than the other seems wrong.
    - djacobs 16y ago
      I don't think it is wrong. The engineers have even been clearer and more useful when they're talking about policy. Case in point: The question comes up: "Why aren't you bringing IE9 to Windows XP?" Answer from marketing guys: "XP isn't compatible." At best, the answer was "XP doesn't support hardware acceleration" from them. Followup question: "How do you run IE9 in a VM?" Answer from marketing: "Turn off hardware acceleration." Response: "WTF?" Engineer comes in: "Okay, let me clear this up... IE9 runs on top of D2D, which Windows XP hasn't got. D2D supports hardware or software acceleration, therefore you can turn it off for VMs. But the bottom line is that if we were to port IE9 to Windows XP, we'd have to write the lower levels from scratch, and it would become IE8 with a fresh GUI." Response: "Okay. That, I understand." Here's where the marketing guy either a) doesn't defer to the tech guy when it's appropriate or b) underestimates/misunderstands his audience and gives a flawed, unsatisfactory answer.