7 ms·
Amazon, Google employees bullish; 25% of Microsofties say things will get worse
- adamman 13y agoMicrosofties?
- abhinavg 13y agoIIRC, the term used to refer to Microsoft employees is actually Softies.
- teamonkey 13y agoThat can't be helping their self-esteem either.
- bornhuetter 13y agoIt's still better than being a "Wanger".
- mikecane 13y agoALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW IN BUSINESS I LEARNED AT MICROSOFT http://www.amazon.com/REALLY-NEED-BUSINESS-LEARNED-MICROSOFT/dp/0671009133 http://www.amazon.com/REALLY-NEED-BUSINESS-LEARNED-MICROSOFT... You'll find in that they refer to themselves as Microsofties.
- bornhuetter 13y agoI'm not surprised Microsoft employees are feeling down. It seems most media outlets and popular blogs really have it in for Microsoft, and that must get to you after a while. No matter what they do right or wrong the media hates it at the outset. And their management aren't really helping - campaigns like scroogled must make a lot of employees really squeam.
- iamshs 13y agoJust like this story. The story is a rehash of results, without any analysis. The accompanying picture does not even mention Microsoft. What level were the employees at? Which division? What is the sample size? These statistics are never ever that simple as the story makes it out to be.
- bornhuetter 13y agoI've done surveys like this before - it's usually just an email that goes around to all employees and asks them to rate the company, management, peers etc on various metrics from 1 to 5. The picture in the article shows the top 10 most happy, which is why Microsoft is not listed. But this is a pretty lazy, low value article.
- iamshs 13y agoI cannot even find the original survey. Is it available online?
- bornhuetter 13y agoThis is the original article: http://www.glassdoor.co.uk/blog/top-10-companies-business-outlook/ http://www.glassdoor.co.uk/blog/top-10-companies-business-ou...
- scholia 13y agoIf the sample is people going to Glassdoor looking for jobs then it's probably not the keenest employees. However, that would also be true of the Top 10 companies listed, and they all score much better....
- rlu 13y agoAlso the article says that the question asked "over the next 6 months". That isn't really looking ahead much at all. This seems like it would be more worrisome (if worrisome at all!) if it was over the next 3-5 years.
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- michaelpinto 13y agoPeople forget this but Microsoft is at their best when they're the underdog — just look at Lotus Notes, Word Perfect, Netscape, Apple in the 90s and OS2. If they had the right leadership and if they refocused they would be killing it.
- pyre 13y ago| the right leadership I think that the lack of this is why they are where they are.
- hkmurakami 13y agoI wonder why you were downvoted for this comment. The world might not be a better place if MSFT "wins" again in past fashion, but your observations aren't exactly wrong.
- scholia 13y agoPlenty of people hate Microsoft so don't expect rationality....
- michaelpinto 13y agoI agree: It's the old Steve Jobs quote "choice is a good thing"
- MartinCron 13y agoAnother underdog story: Xbox, which has turned out really well for them.
- jmstout 13y agoThis is an interesting metric, often forgotten. Companies are just people. What better way to gauge future success than by the mood in the room?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- wslh 13y agoI am sure that Steve Ballmer was not interviewed ;-) he is more bullish than Page and Bezos together.
- zalzane 13y agoI'd be absolutely mortified if I was a Microsoft employee. Microsoft's monopoly on desktop PCs may become worthless in the near future as the average consumer realizes they can do everything on a tablet and not have to bother with "slow and hard to use" PC. Office/word are becoming more easily replaceable with the advent of google docs and many free/cheaper alternatives. If their main revenue streams decline, they would have to enter a new market. Oh wait, the last time Microsoft broke into a new industry successfully was with the Xbox over 10 years ago. Ironically, Xbox is one of the few Microsoft products that I think have a long and healthy life ahead of it, but I don't think it will be enough to support much if everything else comes crashing down. I hope someone corrects me on this because there's nothing more horrifying for me than the possibility of someone like Oracle buying up Microsoft IP/patents if they go belly up.
- irishloop 13y agoI don't know, I work for a multinational manufacturing firm in the lighting industry and we have so many things tied up in Microsoft, it's hard to imagine we could extricate ourselves easily. Whether it's legacy Windows API applications still being used to track inventory or simply users' longtime use of Microsoft Office products, or ongoing development in a .NET environment, I do not think we (or many of our peers) are in any position to start moving away from Windows. Your point may remain for consumer electronics, but much of Microsoft's revenue stream comes from corporate users anyway.
- endersshadow 13y agozalzane is also forgetting a big word: SharePoint. It's going nowhere, and it locks in companies to the Microsoft stack.
- jedmeyers 13y agoSAP might help you with your manufacturing needs. AFAIK Philips Lightning is using their products (SAP Manufacturing Execution and ERP).
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- tlogan 13y agoActually, I do see more upside potential for MSFT than for Amazon or Google. Google seems to be already on its peak - same for Amazon (I don't think they will go down just peaked). Here is my reasoning: - Windows Phone: not really because they are great but retardness of Android phone manufacturers (especially Samsung) gives them an excellent chance to gain a significant market share - XBox + Skype: they might become the central entertainment and communication system in nearly every living room in the world - Yammer, SkyDrive, Skype, Web Office and other cloud solutions for enterprises: Definitely something companies are going to try. As somebody else said, Microsoft is the best when they are underdog so I do understand why Larry is so concerned about Microsoft.
- untog 13y agoretardness of Android phone manufacturers (especially Samsung) gives them an excellent chance to gain a significant market share Are you serious? Samsung has a huge market share- more than every other Android manufacturer. And you're saying they are "retarded"?
- tlogan 13y agoYes - I'm. Let me give you example from the past. Yahoo! Mail was the leading email provider before Gmail. And one of reasons of Gmail success is retardness of Yahoo!: they were actually actively working on making Yahoo! Email less useful (restricting IMAP support, restricting storage, adding more ads, etc.). The similar things Samsung is doing now. The same could be said for MySpace. And Informix (their CEO actually went to jail). In sort, past performance does not guarantee future result.
- eclipxe 13y agoHow exactly is Samsung working to make their devices less useful?
- untog 13y agoTo further eclipxe's question (because I think I know how you're going to answer it)- how is Samsung working to make their devices less useful that they haven't already been doing during their meteoric rise to dominance?
- nostrademons 13y agoI want to highlight a statistical quirk that biases the results of this poll: Whenever you have a self-selecting population, approval ratings are measures of the liquidity of the population, not of how good a job the organization is doing. If you're a Googler and you hate your job, you don't stay a Googler for very long. There are umpteen zillion companies that would love to hire you, or VCs willing to fund you if you choose to do your own thing. There are a number of such ex-Googlers on Hacker News. Google software is somewhat proprietary, but the core languages, skillsets, and architectures are common to a lot of firms who would just love to pick up accumulated ex-Google knowledge. If you're a Microsoftie and you hate your job, there's a good chance that your skills are more specialized, or you've "drunk the Kool Aid" and can't imagine a life outside Microsoft. If you think things suck...well, you might not have any other options. Or you might not think you have options, having accumulated so much company-specific knowledge. And so you stay in a job that you hate even though you hate it. It's the same with customers. The reason Facebook, Comcast, TWC, and Congress have such low approval ratings is because users are pretty much locked-in to those services: even if they hate them, they can't go elsewhere. Meanwhile, the reason Google has such a high approval rating is because it's pretty simple to leave most Google products (and ones that are easier to leave, like Search and Chrome, tend to rate more highly than ones with a large degree of lock-in, like Plus and GMail). If you want to tease out companies that are actually doing things right, look for ones with both a high approval rating (indicating large liquidity) and a large & growing population (indicating that despite this liquidity, more people want to come in than go out).
- scholia 13y agoOddly enough, a lot of Microsoft staff got hired by Google....