5 ms·

No way. I'd take dirty cash from Larry Ellison before I signed up to anything related to them these days. This is after 20 years of working with Microsoft on l

by kryten 13y ago

No way. I'd take dirty cash from Larry Ellison before I signed up to anything related to them these days. This is after 20 years of working with Microsoft on large enterprise products, some of which were built in partnership with them. If you've ever been on the end of a partner agreement, which is what this probably amounts to with much more lock-in (as they're channeling cash to you as well), then you'll understand what I mean. It's overbearing and you're treated like a criminal after about 3 months if you don't spend, spend, spend. Also, I worked for a startup which was spun up in conjunction with them (no funding but support, advice and endorsement). It was quite successful circa 2005. We switched out to Python/PostgreSQL as to be honest it was getting expensive throwing SQL boxes out and the time to market for ASP.Net was high. The moment this happened, everything was off the table and we had the license police on our arses, even though we were in compliance and they knew it. You know the film: The Firm? Not far off it from experience.

ethomson 13y ago
That's interesting. I had the exact opposite experience. I was part of a small startup that received exactly what you describe as "support, advice and endorsement" (like you, we did not receive funding) for developer tools. We developed Java software using Eclipse. Most of our team used Linux or Mac OS, only one of our developers used Windows. We shipped software for HP-UX on HP-PA RISC and IBM mainframes. Our web site was written in Ruby on Rails and backed by PostgreSQL. Microsoft liked this arrangement enough that they acquired us. (Full disclosure, I remain a Microsoft employee.)
- ibdknox 13y ago
  Out of curiosity, what was the name of your company?
  - ethomson 13y ago
    Teamprise was the name of the company. (To be pedantic, it was not my company in that I was not a founder; I was an employee.) I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not certain that I know the new name of the product. Microsoft product names can get a little, em, verbose when you start talking about small parts of bigger products that are also small parts of still bigger products. I think that the name, officially, is "Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Team Foundation Server Team Explorer Everywhere". While the acquisition was better for the product (more resources!) and better for customers of it (it's free!), the new name is regrettable.
    - voltagex_ 13y ago
      Right, it's the cross platform TFS Explorer (basically Source Control View in Visual Studio, but pulled out as an app)
- kryten 13y ago
  We must have been blessed with an asshole rep or two!
  - ethomson 13y ago
    That would be difficult. Our positive experience was certainly a direct connection to the welcome nature of the product development team and the sales and evangelism teams. Without them, we would have had a much more difficult time making inroads into a sales channel. I'm sorry about your experience and I really hope it's the exception and not the rule.
    - kryten 13y ago
      Which country? We were in the UK and is was the guys from Reading (partner support).
      - ethomson 13y ago
        United States.
      - MichaelGG 13y ago
        In my personal experience, the foreign subsidiary care about nothing except screwing as much licensing out of people as possible. I've dealt with a local MS that told people it was _illegal_ to use a non-regional copy of Windows inside the country. (So, technically, travelling with a laptop using US Windows wasn't allowed.) This was incorrect, they didn't care. In another country, the regional MS office was flat-out corrupt. I have a feeling the incentive structure for the other offices is very different, and the lack of R&D happening there skews the work environment. I've met good individuals, just haven't seen good overall management. Then again, I'm not looking at total sales as my evaluation metric.
        kryten 13y ago
        Thanks - that makes sense. That matches our experience exactly.

by kryten 13y ago

ethomson 13y ago

That's interesting. I had the exact opposite experience. I was part of a small startup that received exactly what you describe as "support, advice and endorsement" (like you, we did not receive funding) for developer tools. We developed Java software using Eclipse. Most of our team used Linux or Mac OS, only one of our developers used Windows. We shipped software for HP-UX on HP-PA RISC and IBM mainframes. Our web site was written in Ruby on Rails and backed by PostgreSQL. Microsoft liked this arrangement enough that they acquired us. (Full disclosure, I remain a Microsoft employee.)

ibdknox 13y ago
Out of curiosity, what was the name of your company?
- ethomson 13y ago
  Teamprise was the name of the company. (To be pedantic, it was not my company in that I was not a founder; I was an employee.) I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not certain that I know the new name of the product. Microsoft product names can get a little, em, verbose when you start talking about small parts of bigger products that are also small parts of still bigger products. I think that the name, officially, is "Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Team Foundation Server Team Explorer Everywhere". While the acquisition was better for the product (more resources!) and better for customers of it (it's free!), the new name is regrettable.
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    Right, it's the cross platform TFS Explorer (basically Source Control View in Visual Studio, but pulled out as an app)
kryten 13y ago
We must have been blessed with an asshole rep or two!
- ethomson 13y ago
  That would be difficult. Our positive experience was certainly a direct connection to the welcome nature of the product development team and the sales and evangelism teams. Without them, we would have had a much more difficult time making inroads into a sales channel. I'm sorry about your experience and I really hope it's the exception and not the rule.
  - kryten 13y ago
    Which country? We were in the UK and is was the guys from Reading (partner support).
    - ethomson 13y ago
      United States.
    - MichaelGG 13y ago
      In my personal experience, the foreign subsidiary care about nothing except screwing as much licensing out of people as possible. I've dealt with a local MS that told people it was _illegal_ to use a non-regional copy of Windows inside the country. (So, technically, travelling with a laptop using US Windows wasn't allowed.) This was incorrect, they didn't care. In another country, the regional MS office was flat-out corrupt. I have a feeling the incentive structure for the other offices is very different, and the lack of R&D happening there skews the work environment. I've met good individuals, just haven't seen good overall management. Then again, I'm not looking at total sales as my evaluation metric.
      - kryten 13y ago
        Thanks - that makes sense. That matches our experience exactly.