Former Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge on Google vs. Microsoft | Hacker News Reader

Former Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge on Google vs. Microsoft

venturebeat.com

12 pointsdabent20 comments

I don't like how an evangelist can completely jump ship from all the things he loved and pushed and used before he changed jobs in less than a month.

In whole it makes one seem even less trustworthy than normal sales people.

Yup, he really seems quite clueless about similar things out there - "Wow! Gmail has threaded conversations!?!", "Wow - attachments in GMail can be viewed inside browser"...

Can someone tell how can I get a job like this?

By being likable. If you recall there were a lot of stories written on his departure from Microsoft and all of those stories called Microsoft stupid for letting him go. But if you look at his job description his job at Microsoft was to sell MS technology to startups and I don't know many startups that use MS tech.

No wonder why Microsoft sacked him :P

I see where you're coming from but you have to look at this logically. If things worked the way you wanted them to than an evangelist would just have to retire if his company fired him.

I've always though of Evangelists as slightly more useful sales man. Because they're trying to sell you something just like a salesman but they can also provide useful info on occasion. But they're still salesman and that means they'll talk up whatever company is paying their check.

It really isn't my concern if they have to retire as I like evangelists less than normal sales representatives when they act in such a way.

Note that they're different types of things. At Google he's focused on selling cloud stuff, at Microsoft he couldn't particularly do that since Azure isn't open for business yet and Microsoft's current offerings are pretty weak. E.g. is MS even trying to sell Hotmail to enterprises?

re: Hotmail to enterprises

They already have outlook web access (OWA) as a feature of their enterprise outlook product and plenty of independent providers exist which will host your entire outlook stack for you.

It was his job to like those things and talk about them. Would you feel the same mire towards a salesperson who, after switching jobs, did not continue to try to sell the products from their old employer?

I don't understand why a professional evangelist, in a paid position, would be expected to behave any differently? He is a salesman.

Slightly off the point, but the title 'evangelist' really irks me for some reason. From my observation this title has gained more prominence in the latest tech boom (web two point 'doh).

I suppose as more API's become available you need specially designated people to evangelize them...

My job at MSFT was to put Microsoft in the best possible light, not an easy task, and help developers get access to software and support. BizSpark helped with that.

At Google the job is much easier because the product strategy and technology is better. Chrome OS (open source), Google Apps and App Engine (cloud), and Android (mobile platform) are the waves of the future. I firmly believe Google has the right vision and the right products.

Microsoft is a good company, with good products, and good people. MSFT didn't get to be a $60B company on FUD.

Developers and customers make decisions based on what solves their problems easiest, fastest, cheapest. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution to every problem. Google has a pretty solid vision for the future, and new technology/products that will satisfy the needs of a large fraction of the market.

Your mileage may vary.

Don

It seems like it would be hard to go from selling best-in-class software for office work, development, and communication, to selling the steaming pile that is Google Apps. How do you convince people to buy inferior products? The best line I can think of (without lying) is to claim that they don't need all the features, consistency, and speed Office provides compared to Google Apps.

I firmly believe Google has the right vision and the right products.

Did you believe this while you were employed by Microsoft too?

One of things which annoy me is that he was an evangelist and didn't even try the latest products. Office 2010 preview was out which has threaded discussions he raves about in gmail. He hasn't looked at office online version but says he suspect that it won't be good. I guess he should have as an evangelist asked some questions and pushed few features in the product he would have been selling if he wasn't let go.

> Office 2010 preview was out which has threaded discussions he raves about in gmail.

Serious question: When was that available? Gmail had it at least since 2004 (I know since that's when I got my account).

And I was reading threaded emails in emacs in the early 90's, and I bet I was late to that party then.

Well, I have been using Outlook 2010 since June and it has threaded discussion features since then. I am sure as he was an Microsoft employee he had access to the early release and dog-food versions which he should have tried. So, threaded discussion shouldn't be a new feature for him. And if he was using Outlook I don't know why offline Gmail wows him so much.

IBM was king. I think in the late ’80s and early ’90s, we saw that shift and Microsoft became king of the hill. And in 2009, 2010, going forward, Microsoft is sort of like IBM. It’s a longtime company with a great tradition and still very profitable, but it’s not the leader.

Another sign that a company is at the top, but due to come down:

Awesome R&D, which hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting to be a real product. (IBM, Xerox, the old AT&T)

Apple and Google still seem to be actively turning new tech into product. Microsoft: mainly the XBox division seems to still be doing this.

Microsoft: mainly the XBox division seems to still be doing this.

Also, the developer division: Generics, LINQ, F#. They all came from Microsoft Research.

With the vendor-based technologists and vendor-based evangelists, at least you are certain who is paying them to espouse their opinions; you know how they're going to slant.

Various Industry Analyst firms and Industry Pundits can undergo these same sorts of seismic shifts. And whether the opinion is with technical merit, a paid opinion, a troll for web hits, or a curmudgeon that has made a career out of being quotable, is far less certain.

Well, a few of the curmudgeons are obvious.

title says "vs" but there is no real comparison btw 2 companies.

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