6 ms·
A Microsoft Without Sinofsky?
- drivebyacct2 14y agoIf you didn't read the comments, they're kind of the highlight of this submission. edit: uh, sorry, this isn't meant as any sort of commentary other than "Hey, if you don't normally look at the comments, I think you're meant to on this one." :/
- smhinsey 14y agoAnything in particular? That seems like damnation by faint praise as far as I was willing to read.
- kevin_morrill 14y agoIt's a blog frequented by employees (albeit mostly disgruntled ones). Most enlightening comment to me: "I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the EU mess yet. Sinofski was given responsibility by the board for ensuring that MS stayed compliant with the agreement regarding browser choice in Windows. Now, MS is facing a possible 10 BILLION dollar enema by the EU because Sinofski couldn't be bothered by something as trivial as a check box in Windows."
- skc 14y agoYou have to read those blog comments with a grain of salt though. Most of the commenters appear to be very unhappy employees. And some of them are obvious trolls who have never worked at MS but pretend to.
- AmVess 14y ago" Why do we need to pay $1M+ (with benefits) to a VP in Finance, Purchasing, Customer Service and IT? These services are available for 1/100th of the cost." A comment from that article that proves your points.
- michaelhoffman 14y agoDo people within Microsoft really consider Microsoft Research to be a drain on company resources as implied by a couple of those comments?
- kevin_morrill 14y agoI did when I worked there. The return on investment relative to what the product groups were creating was off the charts. I was all for taking the money and talent to think about long term issues, but it was just distasteful how poorly value was captured from it.
- CamperBob2 14y agoIt's no secret that the idea behind Microsoft Research is to keep the talent from working anywhere else. They don't have to ship a darned thing, as long as Google, Apple, or Sun don't either.
- meaty 14y agoI got that impression during an interview with them in Cambridge in 2005. They genuinely couldn't promise that anything that was done was going to end up in a product or would actually be used. Fortunately I was too crap to be considered a threat if I wasn't hired :)
- volandovengo 14y agoMicrosoft research produces some amazing gems. They are a case study for what good things can happen when you let 2 or 3 really smart geeks works on problems which have yet to be solved. Unfortunately, MS research is pretty disconnected from the product teams and as a result, they tend to innovate in a vacuum. As a result very rarely are their innovations integrated into the products. They therefore come off as a drain on the company.
- s_henry_paulson 14y agoOr some of the products are so advanced that the the product teams won't deal with the fruits of the research for many years. I remember being excited about Microsoft's SenseCam just a little under 10 years ago. 4-5 years later I thought the product would never be available to consumers, and lo and behold, it's finally become technology that is available to the public... but man did that take a long time.
- anothermachine 14y ago> I heard he's leaving due to the health benefits changes! What happened?