10 ms·
Having worked there for 11 years I also got the impression that company management is inadvertently trying to stay culturally isolated. For example, when the i
by DenisM 14y ago
Having worked there for 11 years I also got the impression that company management is inadvertently trying to stay culturally isolated.
For example, when the iPhone came out, the management called AT&T and asked them to exclude the iPhone from the previously negotiated Microsoft Employee Discount program. MS phone is Ok, Blackberry is Ok, iPhone not Ok. The effect was, obviously, even less awareness of the best products out there, especially among the most loyal, and thus most influencing managers. One high-ranked manager told me he can't use an iPhone because he couldn't give money to the company trying to kill MS. Assuming the unlikely that Apple indeed was out to kill MS (rather than the more plausible - to make a good product and a few bucks), that would be a very good reason to get half a dozen iPhones, so that you know well what's going to hit you over the head real soon.
Culture is the least identifiable, least amendable, and yet most influential component of any organization...
- Nelson69 14y agoRe: 'trying to kill MS..' I've never worked there. I did work at IBM while MS was beating the hell out of OS/2 and Lotus though. During those years, MS did use phrases like "cut off the air supply" and "embrace, extend and extinguish." "Killing the opposition" seems like it's a very deep part of their corporate ethos, at least that's what a lot of their competition thinks and FWIW, their golder years seemed to be when they were more vocally that way. I'm not sure that's the healthiest approach to take. From there, every thing starts to look like defense, are they making a given play because they have something to contribute and a vision of how search, mobile, gaming, etc.. should be that's different than the market? Or are they making the play because they want to shore up their defenses? I'm not sure I'll ever fully trust them, maybe if they had a complete outsider running the show.
- yuhong 14y agoI wrote a blog post about the 32-bit OS/2 one: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms-os2-20-fiasco-px00307-and-dr.html http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms-os2-20-fiasco-...