Microsoft loses its mind.

[richardm]

A plan by the software group Microsoft to save $80m by cutting back on fringe benefits appears to have caused much dissatisfaction among its workers.

An informal and internal poll of 3,000 staff, obtained by Reuters, revealed widespread discontent, the agency said.

The poll found that three in four were "very dissatisfied" with cuts to stock discounts, prescription drug payments and parental leave, Reuters said.


This seems to be a bizarre thing to do. They're saving $80 million a year by annoying their staff, who have (up to now) been famously loyal and hard working.

Microsoft bring in over $100 million a day. What is going on in the minds of their HR people?

Full story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3759163.stm)

[michaellee]

Bill and his management friends must have their eye set on buying something they must be $80 million short of buying. Hah.

[iain]

Look at it from their point of view. Things are bad - they're down to their last $50 billion in reserves. Even worse, if they had no more income at all, they couldn't run the company as it is now for more than four or five years. I think if my company had those sorts of financial problems, I'd be trying to save every penny.

On the other hand, maybe they're worried that people will notice they only make a profit on two products - Office and Windows, with a profit margin of 80% on each; pretty much everything else makes a loss. If everyone in the world buys a Mac or starts running Linux and switches to OpenOffice or WordPerfect, those HR people will be looking pretty clever and you'll be looking pretty foolish. It could happen...

[evildave]

I somehow doubt it costs ten billion dollars a year to run Microsoft. If it cost that much, $80M would be a drop in the bucket.

If they stopped earning money now, and kept spending at current levels, they could coast for decades.

I think Bill and his 'charitable works' just lost sight of how important it is to be nice to those who keep you getting richer.

I mean, just think what the major stock holders could do with $80M to split up. That's new toys for everyone.

I'm sure from their perspective, those thankless, lousy rat employees should be happy that Microsoft doesn't outsource all their overpaid jobs to India, like everyone else is doing.

[DangerousBeliefs]

Originally posted by evildave
I'm sure from their perspective, those thankless, lousy rat employees should be happy that Microsoft doesn't outsource all their overpaid jobs to India, like everyone else is doing.

If MS did, they'd be dropped by government/large corporations computers so fast, it'd make their heads spin. Can you imagine the security problems with outsource software code?

[WorldBuilder]

Originally posted by evildave
If they stopped earning money now, and kept spending at current levels, they could coast for decades.
Wrongo.

I've been saying for 2 years that M$ will NOT be the powerhouse it currently is in 10 years. 8 to go, and I'll bet anyone anything that I'm right. M$ has to do some serious re-tooling, or it's history (at least it won't be on top).

Chris

[evildave]

Re-tooling?

From their 2003 report

1999~2003 Revenue: $19,747,000,000 $22,956,000,000 $25,296,000,000 $28,365,000,000 $32,187,000,000

Net Income: $7,785,000,000 $9,421,000,000 $7,346,000,000 $7,829,000,000 $9,993,000,000

Total assets: $38,321,000,000 $51,694,000,000 $58,830,000,000 $67,646,000,000 $79,571,000,000

Cash and short-term investments:
$17,236,000,000 $23,798,000,000 $31,600,000,000 $38,652,000,000 $49,048,000,000

So, basically, they made $2 billion more than 2002 or 2001, amd the value of their company has gone up by $12 billion in one year, and their cash reserves have gone up by $11 billion in one year, so they want to cut their workers' benefits.

$50,000,000,000 of capital is a lot of money to burn through. Heck, you could put it in a bank and earn interest on it and keep 50,000 people working off the earnings at a living wage pretty much forever.

I somehow doubt there are 50,000 people working on Microsoft's technical projects.

What Microsoft is best at isn't inventing things. You should know that by now. It's muscling in on other people's already established inventions and taking over markets. You let someone else get all strung out taking the awesome risk, then as soon as there is promise, Microsoft will swoop in and give the investors an offer they literally can't refuse (sell it to us, or we'll put you out of business anyway), and reap the bigger rewards in their place. If they can't buy it outright, they'll clone it, make sure the competitors' products are absolutely buried behind the Microsoft products on the end caps and spilling off the store shelves, and if all else fails, they'll 'add it to the operating system'.

It's a pattern they've repeated for years, and they show no sign of stopping or even slowing it, and it's a successful formula that's obviously paying well.

So, no, Microsoft doesn't have to 're-tool' anything. All they have to do is monitor what other people are doing, snap it up, and slap a big Microsoft logo on the box, and the retarded public will continue to believe that Microsoft is 'innovating'.

[WorldBuilder]

Originally posted by evildave
So, no, Microsoft doesn't have to 're-tool' anything. All they have to do is monitor what other people are doing, snap it up, and slap a big Microsoft logo on the box, and the retarded public will continue to believe that Microsoft is 'innovating'. Sure they will. You're assuming that the public stays the same over the years... It doesn't, and the younger generation is wise to the changing trends in IT. Poll a few hundred teenage computer geeks and you'll be amazed at the percentage that DON'T use M$ products.

Trust me, the mood is about to change. :)

Chris

[rockoon]

Originally posted by WorldBuilder
Sure they will. You're assuming that the public stays the same over the years... It doesn't, and the younger generation is wise to the changing trends in IT. Poll a few hundred teenage computer geeks and you'll be amazed at the percentage that DON'T use M$ products.

Trust me, the mood is about to change. :)

Chris

Trust me, it isnt.

You see, 10 years ago the younger generation was wise to the changing trends in IT. If you polled a few hundred teenage computer geeks you would be amazed at the percentage that didnt use MS products.

[WorldBuilder]

Umm, exactly what changing trends were there in 1994 (10 years ago)?

Hell, I grew up with this stuff, and linux was barely even HEARD of in 1994! Open source was all but non-existant back then...

What were those trends you speak of?

Chris

[evildave]

Networking was growing through the early to mid 90's.

Remember Netscape? That newfangled company that basically made browser technology to give away for free, and servers for sale, and sort of got the ball rolling on that wacky 'internet' idea? Whatever happened to them? ... Oh, yeah. Microsoft made their own browser, and made it 'Part of the OS'.

They bought OneTree Software, the people who created SourceSafe. And you thought they made that mess all by themselves?

Here's a friendly site:
http://www.kmfms.com/whatsbad.html

And a list of products/companies Microsoft bought instead of inventing things.
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/yrcatalog.shtml

It's disgusting how Microsoft portrays itself as the supreme innovator when just about all the technology that it has was copied off of others' previous work. Think about all the major innovations in CS technology and then count how many of them were developed by Microsoft. I count zero. This is because Microsoft admittedly does not enter a market until the potential amount of money to be made in it is fairly large.

* Check out The Microsoft "Hall of Innovation" (http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.shtml) web page for an ongoing effort to find some technology that can actually be considered a Microsoft innovation.

[rockoon]

Originally posted by WorldBuilder
Umm, exactly what changing trends were there in 1994 (10 years ago)?

Hell, I grew up with this stuff, and linux was barely even HEARD of in 1994! Open source was all but non-existant back then...

What were those trends you speak of?

Chris

OS/2 was all the rage.

Nobody liked Win3.1. OS/2 was a true 32-bit OS. Win3.x, which had been around 4 years, was not.

All the young geeks said how great OS/2 was and how Windows was going down.

Also there were still many die hard Amiga fans as well as Macintosh. Lets not forget BSD.

Borland had taken over Ashton Tate (a company that was local to me) in the early 90's which at the time was the maker of the very popular DBASE database system. Everyone said how times were changing and that Borlands line of compilers plus Borland owning of the defacto database standard would mean Borland would be real competition for Microsoft. The times they were changing allright. DBASE is all but *GONE* by the end of the 90's.

--

Don't get me wrong.. Linux is a nice operating system.. but the majority of the installation base for linux is, and always has been, machines that would have run another variant of unix if linux did not exist.

Linux has not hurt Microsoft. That is a MYTH perpetuated by people spouting their anti-microsoft religion. Both Linux and Windows have cut into the server pie replacing such operating systems as BSD, VMS, AT&T System V, Ultrix, SunOS, Solaris, NextStep, Xenix, Irix, HP-UX, and AIX.

All the other operating systems are losing to Linux and Windows.

The young geeks are meaningless. I was one of them. I didnt run windows until very late in the game. Why did I finally break down? Because I wanted an operating system that supported my hardware. I wanted an operating system with games and applications. I wanted choice.

Thats right.. Windows represents Choice.

Linux is the final stand for Unix. And I'm sure it will be around a long time. Of the unix variants, Linux offers the most choice. But in the end it cannot offer enough choice to overcome the freedom a Windows user has to choose his hardware and software.

I'm not talking about choice is server software or anything of that kind. I'm talking about choice in text editors, games, email clients, web browsers, printers, digital cameras, video cards, sound cards, and so forth.

The best linux can do is parity. And parity is not enough. Parity while behind in client base is not an advantageous position to be in. They need to offer MORE choice than a user running Windows has and frankly, thats simply not going to happen.

[princhester]

Originally posted by WorldBuilder
Sure they will. You're assuming that the public stays the same over the years... It doesn't, and the younger generation is wise to the changing trends in IT. Poll a few hundred teenage computer geeks and you'll be amazed at the percentage that DON'T use M$ products.

Bah, nonsense.

Polling teenage computer geeks to find out what the future holds for Microsoft is like examining albinos to find out what the average skin colour of the general population is.

[jimlintott]

Rockoon is basically right about linux mostly replacing other unix systems. I think that linux does offer a threat to MS's dominance of the desktop though for several reasons.

MS dominated the nineties on the business desktop. It enjoyed its monopoly position and really was the defacto standard for business software. It was the OS of choice for commodity PCs. The reality was that unless your business was desktop publishing or graphics (Apple) your business used a PC running an MS operating system.

The climate has changed now however. MS has had their wrist slapped over their monopoly practices. This allows hardware vendors to feel easier about supporting other operating systems. The rumour was that MS would always threaten hardware vendors if they supported other operating systems. Not being able to run your hardware on the most popular system would be a disaster. You can now buy machines with linux installed from a variety of vendors. Mostly servers of course.

MSs position has been further weakened with the rampant security problems they have been having. Businesses are starting to realise that the constant dealing with virusses and such is costing them huge dollars. When CEOs start to realise that their corporate servers have been running on linux or bsd or such for several years. Reliably and securely the suggestion that it be used on the desktop will start to be taken seriously. Further, when the stories of succesful migrations start appear with emphasis on cost, flexibility and security start to surface the alternatives will start to make inroads.

MSs position is the weakest it has ever been. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[iain]

Originally posted by rockoon
Don't get me wrong.. Linux is a nice operating system.. but the majority of the installation base for linux is, and always has been, machines that would have run another variant of unix if linux did not exist.

Linux has not hurt Microsoft. That is a MYTH perpetuated by people spouting their anti-microsoft religion. Both Linux and Windows have cut into the server pie replacing such operating systems as BSD, VMS, AT&T System V, Ultrix, SunOS, Solaris, NextStep, Xenix, Irix, HP-UX, and AIX.Up to a point. The big three comercial UNIXs (Solaris, HP-UX and AIX) continue to grow. Solaris has problems because their workstation base is being eaten away by Linux; but at the server level I think Linux is probably taking share from Windows and other UNIXs about equally. Microsoft are certainly worried about Linux - they believe Linux is a threat, or they wouldn't be spending millions on anti-Linux advertising.


Thats right.. Windows represents Choice.All depends what choices you want. Windows offers the widest choice of applications but it doesn't offer as much choice as Linux in many other ways.

Linux is the final stand for Unix. And I'm sure it will be around a long time. Of the unix variants, Linux offers the most choice. But in the end it cannot offer enough choice to overcome the freedom a Windows user has to choose his hardware and software.

I'm not talking about choice is server software or anything of that kind. I'm talking about choice in text editors, games, email clients, web browsers, printers, digital cameras, video cards, sound cards, and so forth.

The best linux can do is parity. And parity is not enough. Parity while behind in client base is not an advantageous position to be in. They need to offer MORE choice than a user running Windows has and frankly, thats simply not going to happen. You have a fair point; but I wonder if choice is really the primary reason most people choose an OS (to the extent that they choose one at all). After all, I only need one printer and I only use one word processing package (OpenOffice) so having another hundred available to me isn't such a big deal.

I think that breadth of choice is one factor, and probably not the biggest, which will influence the OS platforms over the next few years.

[Nasarius]

They bought OneTree Software, the people who created SourceSafe. And you thought they made that mess all by themselves?

You mean, Microsoft actually bought that awful piece of garbage? I thought only they could f*** up source control that badly.

For anyone who has never had the pleasure of using SourceSafe: you thought CVS was frustrating and flawed? Ha!

[evildave]

Of course, carrying on the Microsoft harrassment and racketeering against people with other code bases:

Lindows becomes Linspire
http://www.linspire.com/lindows_michaelsminutes_archives.php?id=112
http://www.linspire.com/lindows_michaelsminutes.php

wxWindows becomes wxWidgets
http://www.wxwindows.org/

[evildave]

Originally posted by Nasarius


You mean, Microsoft actually bought that awful piece of garbage? I thought only they could f*** up source control that badly.

For anyone who has never had the pleasure of using SourceSafe: you thought CVS was frustrating and flawed? Ha!

I like 'Perforce', but am stuck with CVS for the time being. It's free for 1~2 users, or open source.

As a big plus, CVS and Perforce don't corrupt the source archive whenever someone's computer crashes, or the network hiccups. Pretty much only SourceSafe has ever done that. They're client/server solutions, too. MUCH faster than SourceSafe.

Microsoft probably bought SourceSafe as a way to sabotage other potential developers of Windows applications. After all, I've lost countless hours to SourceSafe problems when I've been forced to use it in the past. Especially during the stretches where I had to use the pig over VPN or MODEM lines prior to that. What a nightmare.

[Nasarius]

Originally posted by evildave
Microsoft probably bought SourceSafe as a way to sabotage other potential developers of Windows applications. After all, I've lost countless hours to SourceSafe problems when I've been forced to use it in the past. Especially during the stretches where I had to use the pig over VPN or MODEM lines prior to that. What a nightmare.

I'm always astounded by the fact that Microsoft endorses (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/previous/ssafe/downloads/addon/) a product that lets you "Access Visual SourceSafe over the Internet!"...all for the low low price of just $200+ per license. :eek:

CVS over SSH has been doing this for many years. Everything you need is GPL'd (ie, free in every sense of the word).

I'm using CVS at the moment too, kinda waiting for Subversion to stabilize. I'll take a look at Perforce though.

[evildave]

The Perforce people put out an open source build utility called 'jam', too. It's very, very nice.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by evildave
Networking was growing through the early to mid 90's.

Remember Netscape? That newfangled company that basically made browser technology to give away for free, and servers for sale, and sort of got the ball rolling on that wacky 'internet' idea? Whatever happened to them? ... Oh, yeah. Microsoft made their own browser, and made it 'Part of the OS'.

They bought OneTree Software, the people who created SourceSafe. And you thought they made that mess all by themselves?

Here's a friendly site:
http://www.kmfms.com/whatsbad.html

And a list of products/companies Microsoft bought instead of inventing things.
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/yrcatalog.shtml



One of my pet peeves about microsoft. They never invented anything, except their original Basic, and that, as legend has it, was not really Bills work anyway. Bill was just the comsumate opportunist, who sold IBM DOS, and never looked back.

I believe that his subsequent investment disasters are due to his inability to accept he just got lucky. There's just no pleasing some people. You would think billions of dollars would be enough.

[Prester John]

Can i play all my lovely games using Linux ? Until i can i will continue to use Windows. I don't especially want to, but from an ordinary users pov Windows is the only choice. Before you mock the humble gamer, the games industry is huge, and possibly the driving force behind the continual upgrading of PC's. Lets face it you could Word process just fine on PCs 10 years ago.

[evildave]

You can play Doom & Quake and a few other open source games. You can take up with a game company why they don't support Linux. Sooner or later someone will make a Windows emulator that supports DirectX better, but Microsoft will find a way to break it.

I remember the days when PC users would say "That's just a Game Machine: this is a Serious Business Computer". It was always rather ironic, in that these same people were the most hopelessly non-productive (productivity typically lost to gaming) people I ever met.

[WorldBuilder]

I don't feel like replying to everything, but I thought this was interesting (since it's true). It's only the beginning!

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=174156

First, it's the browser which'll croak, then, as linux users (by FAR the biggest *nix user base ever, and growing) age and grow, M$ will slowly lose market share in the OS market.

Evolution...

Embrace it or fight it, it's up to you. But don't say I didn't say it was coming...

Chris

[richardm]

Originally posted by evildave
You can take up with a game company why they don't support Linux.

I bet I can guess the answer you'll get, though!