What is the worst thing about working at Microsoft? | Hacker News Reader

What is the worst thing about working at Microsoft?

forbes.com

59 pointsanirudhgarg77 comments

The author seems to revolve his article around MS software running manufacturing, ambulances, etc. This is only true in the most literal sense possible. The software that runs these industries just happens to be written upon an MS platform due to a number of unfortunate market incidences that forced other OS players out of the game for less than technical reasons. This trend is now rapidly reversing and new software being written for these industries today is now moving towards Linux instead.

Microsoft never did any of these industries any favors - they just managed to capture the market and extract a tax for a number of years. That is why the public does not like them. When they have to fight with Windows to log into their laptop and wait 20 minutes while it does so (Windows Vista?), they blame Microsoft. Microsoft's technical inabilities and millions of man hours wasted patching and rebooting their OS comes at the cost of most of the world's population being less than impressed by Microsoft and those who work there.

This whole post is written merely as a rebuttal to the widely publicized article about how Microsoft is telling lies about Bing. The rebuttal itself comes down to "he's lying, not us!" and "we don't track the results from the Bing It On challenge". Both positions are pathetic as the Yale article has no reason to lie, and the only reason a company would not track results is because the results are obviously unfavorable and so they cooked up their own favorable ones.

You want to know why nobody respects Microsoft? Because Microsoft employees post articles like this which are so far from reality it leaves you wondering how they drive to work.

I think you're forgetting that when the software systems powering manufacturing, ambulances, etc. was first being deployed MS was the best solution out there. The problem was that corporations didn't upgrade their tools and MS was forced to support aging, obsolete, and insecure technology. They didn't innovate for several years, and we're now seeing the market correct itself as businesses turn towards Linux powered solutions which seem to reside in the cloud.

As far as MS lying about Bing, if you read the author's other post defending the Bing it on Challenge, he rebukes Ayres point-by-point.

I think you're forgetting that when the software systems powering manufacturing, ambulances, etc. was first being deployed MS was the best solution out there.

I think you're forgetting a huge amount of computing history with that single sentence. Acorn, Commodore, Atari, Apple, others just in the consumer PC market. Sun, SGI, NeXT, DEC, others in the workstation market. That also doesn't consider purpose-built hardware already doing things that PCs eventually took over.

>>The software that runs these industries just happens to be written upon an MS platform due to a number of unfortunate market incidences that forced other OS players out of the game for less than technical reasons.

It should also be noted that Microsoft was condemned for criminal monopolist strategies in a court of law for those "market incidences".

First, nobody at Microsoft posted an article. I answered a question on Quora, before the Yale incident even occurred. Quora reached out and asked if they could publish on Forbes, which I said was fine. I updated to add the Yale example, which has already been discussed on HN, so I don't rehash, but please note nobody has ever suggested Yale lied. I've suggested they did not great science, which is very much not the same thing.

The statement "Microsoft never did any of these industries any favors" seems to be exactly what I'm talking about. Can you honestly say that you think, in the many years that Microsoft have been producing some incredibly popular software that powers much of what makes modern business productive, that the company has done absolutely no good for anyone? If that's your actual belief, I don't even know how to discuss this with you, as it just seems transparently to be untrue. What is the alternative that you think would have powered this revolution? Nobody is going "damn, that cotton gin forced out all those sickle makers, they really hurt society". Bringing advancements to market has helped human society immensely; how do you see the enhancements Microsoft has brought differently?

Again, Microsoft never brought any advances to those industries. They provided a platform (closely identical to those offered by numerous alternatives) on which the real software that made these advancements was hosted on. Your argument is the same as saying that Ford is responsible for nuclear power because their trucks deliver the fuel to the plants. If there was no Ford, then Toyota trucks could deliver the same fuel with no noticeable differences to anyone or the industry. Same for Windows and plant controller software that runs on it.

So if you agree that Ford did not do the nuclear industry any favours, you must accept that Microsoft did not do the manufacturing industry any favours. Both companies simply got a nice income for providing a necessary but widely available resource. Saying Microsoft is the one bringing the advancements is just silly.

I honestly don't know how to reply to that kind of argument, in that it feels like the evidence both overwhelming and widely available that Microsoft has, in fact, provided innovation. Look at the sheer number of patents the company holds; we can debate patent law until the end of days, but in the meantime, it is worth looking at the things that Microsoft brought to market. And then look at Microsoft Research, which produces literally thousands of peer-reviewed academic papers every year, dealing with numerous advancements in technology.

Ford is an interesting example. Arguably, without Ford's advancements in manufacturing, automation, and mass industrialization, we don't get the modern car, which unquestionably has made nuclear power possible. In a very Civilization way, you can't get to nuclear power without modern transportation.

So what you seem to be suggesting is a counterfactual world where some other software (let's say Apples, for argument's sake) rose to prominence instead of Microsoft. It is possible that they might also have done an amazing job of putting a PC on every desk. But we have no way of knowing that and what we do know, in the reality in which we currently live, that Microsoft did an excellent job of pushing computing out of the lab and into the home.

And there seems to me to be decent evidence that we'll continue to make those sort of innovations that push technology forward. While you're welcome to call me "silly", I think saying that Microsoft has introduced absolutely no advancements to the marketplace is silly. So maybe we simply can't come to a place of agreement because we're not working from the same set of facts?

Ok, while I might agree that surely Microsoft has been beneficial to someone over the years other than Microsoft, and while I might also say that I preferred various versions of Windows to Mac or forms of Linux up until some years ago and I have quite a bit of experience with Microsoft technologies that I don't regret that much, when you say something like this 'Nobody is going "damn, that cotton gin forced out all those sickle makers, they really hurt society".' it is pretty ludicrous because HEY! people think the cotton gin hurt society for a whole other reason than it drove out the sickle makers!!

Sorry, perhaps I made the point badly: you're nodding at exactly what I was trying to say. The reason to get angry about the things people produce is for their actual social ramifications (like slavery), not for the fact that they moved technology forward in a way that discontinued the use of another technology.

Hence, it makes perfect sense to take pot shots at Microsoft if you think we actually and materially harmed society in the way that slavery did. But, and I could be wrong, it feels like most people are not critiquing not for actual damage but because in rising to popularity, other technologies did not.

Thanks for clarifying; I'm just a damn scientist, so things that are clear in my head don't always come out fully on screen. Truly appreciated.

> "have been producing some incredibly popular software"

Whoa, Koolaid much?

I'll stop you right there.

You can call your employer's contraptions "ubiquitous". Popular they are not.

> Wait, Microsoft makes chairs? No, not directly. But the part of that chair? Manufactured in facilities running on, you guess it, Microsoft software. Transported in trucks built by Microsoft software, on roads built by Microsoft software, sold by companies running Microsoft software.

The whole premise of this paragraph is wrong. Yes, most big businesses run Microsoft Windows, but most people hate and struggle with it. They run it not because it's the best, because it's not. They run it because monopolistic business practises forced out the competition. If he's trying to argue that Microsoft are misunderstood, that they do deserve respect after all, then maybe respect the hard-nosed business practises which have forced Microsoft products into every nook and cranny despite consistently having a shittier product than the competition.

This is exactly what I was thinking while reading that paragraph.

So in other words, they make chairs, despite being forced to use awful, expensive software? I, too, thought this.

Actually, this puts a whole new perspective on the "Microsoft tax". Everything we do in life has been "taxed" by Microsoft. The argument is specious: you could be sitting on a chair that was sold for less money. You might be working in a more spacious building if better software was in use. You'd probably be paid more money if the costs for IT weren't so high.

Note I don't actually believe any of those things, but they could be valid counter arguments, depending on your own perspective.

The reasoning used in the article is pretty badly flawed. If Microsoft employees are disheartened by the general public's view of their company, that's probably something their management should fix.

> You'd probably be paid more money if the costs for IT weren't so high. Note I don't actually believe any of those things...

I do, from first hand experience: we're developing insurance pro software, and also have an all in one hosted solution, where we handle everything for the customer (from storage to configuration to backup), we set up an IPsec link and they just connect via TS. The product, which has a codebase that organically evolved during 10 years (resulting in DWTF worthy stuff), solves a number of real problems for our customers and in spite of the warts and bugs, they do like the product. It's hosted on Windows machines, including Office and whatnot. The growing MS license costs are currently driving the hosting solution out of business. We know first hand that alternative solutions (like a hypothetic port to Linux) would have cleared enough money to hire two developers, and get rid of a dedicated MS sysadmin (so that makes three full-time engineer jobs). And we're not even talking about moving to a web-based solution, which would cost a fraction of that again (and we know that because we're developing and hosting web stuff too).

I think if it were a web based solution your argument wouldn't be as sound.. MS server licensing isn't really so bad if you aren't also doing larger deployments of SQL and/or Exchange.

As it is, have you checked into porting your software to Mono (assuming it's .Net based), which may or may not work for what you have... if it's COM or ATL based, you're really SOL. That said, if you're mostly winforms, and don't have too many dependencies on third party gui controls, you have a shot there.

That would really lower your costs... and as you mention, a web based solution could make a lot more sense, if you can support that model, depending on your software.

    That’s right. The worst part of working
    at Microsoft has nothing to do with our
    internal culture (that’s not quite true;
    more on that in a bit). It isn’t stack
    ranking or ship cycles or trying to get
    things done. It is working at a company
    that people don’t believe in, despite
    the immense importance it plays in
    their daily life.

Uh, no. It's the politics, and the stack ranking, and the interminably long ship cycles, and the typical unwillingness to even consider a market unless someone else has proven that it's a billion dollar business. And especially the politics and the stack ranking. They're absolutely toxic.

n.b. I haven't worked there in six years (and in fact the ten year anniversary of my FTE interview was this week!), but my feelings on the matter have been confirmed in every conversation I've ever had with an ex-MSFT FTE. Call it survivorship bias if you want, but this has been consistent in every conversation I've had, regardless if the person left a year ago or five.

edit: and the in-fighting. and the backbiting... but I guess those are just politics by another name.

Really depends on the group you're working in.

1970s-style PR. This mirrors the oil company messaging: "pay no attention to the oil spills and CIA-sponsored coups de etat, we're the swell people that make the petrochemicals in that ziploc baggie in your little girl's lunchbox." "We power the trucks that bring organic vegetables to your dinner table."

Microsoft: For the Children.

More like a 90s BASF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NQuMr45xd4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJHPpsb3FzM

We don't make the MBA/OSX/Chrome you use to write this comment - we make the chair you sit on possible.

Remember what it was like back in the 80s before there were chairs?

Those DEC VT100's were awfully hard to sit on.

There is a difference between saying "chairs wouldn't exist without Microsoft" and "Microsoft had a hand in making possible the chair you currently sit in". To be clear, I'm making the second argument - that there is a disproportionate amount of vitriol directed at Microsoft (and even in this thread) given the role that it has played in enabling human advancement.

Microsoft: making chairs cheaper for 30 years. =]

Were chair prices spiraling out of control before DOS was released? Something like 40% of office furniture is made by american prisoners, and I have a feeling they're not using Windows while making it. Paying workers <$0.15 an hour is what is making chairs cheaper.

Ziploc baggies? That is PR amatuer hour. You've got to talk about making the plastic that premature baby incubators are made out of.

Remember, it can't just be for kids, it has to be saving kids.

How about the plastics used in pacemakers (cue story about four-year-old Jimmy and his pacemaker)

Wanna see that done masterfully?

http://www.apple.com/ios/videos/#developers

Think for a minute what these helicopter shots cost in these places, and getting the crews and 4k cameras and such out there....

Oooo, that almost makes me angry. For the prosthesis, it's not like the "app" couldn't be replaced by a single switch on the foot. From what I can tell the "app" is literally the most superficial, least important part of the whole system.

Good example.

Your mock argument for oil companies is actually better than the one in the article for microsoft.

But the part of that chair? Manufactured in facilities running on, you guess it, Microsoft software. Transported in trucks built by Microsoft software, on roads built by Microsoft software, sold by companies running Microsoft software.

Imagine you got out of that chair for a second. Walked across the street to get a cup of coffee. Got hit by a bus. The ambulance that picks you up? Microsoft. The hospital that saves you? Microsoft. The doctor? Trained at a school running Microsoft, using delicate instruments running Microsoft. If you prefer not getting hit by a bus, think about the role that Microsoft has had in making sure your baby was born healthy.

All of those things existed before Microsoft! Certainly the ubiquity of MS software has resulted in efficiencies over the years, but does anyone really doubt that another platform (Classic Mac, GNU, *BSD, VAX, etc) would not have filled the void in a World Without Microsoft?

"You said you wanted to live in a world without Microsoft, Jimmy. Well, now your car has no battery!"

http://s993.photobucket.com/user/nataliasc/media/MrParksWebs...

This is believable. It certainly mirrors my experience of the worst thing about being friends with people who work at Microsoft: the constant sense of insecurity and desire to be be trusted. I've been told countless times in the past 2 or 3 years that I should put all my money in MSFT because they're Coming Back in a Big Way(tm).

The story is always "this shit we have in the pipeline is going to blow everyone away! why are you snickering!?" or "the consumers just don't understand us / never gave us a chance. we could have never anticipated this."

I do feel sorry for them, it can't feel good. I mean, obviously they are making cash hand over fist, but I really get the sense that they aren't getting any gratification.

What's worse than working for Microsoft is ... being a shill for Microsoft.

In a weird way, minus the "but really we're great" part, it must be hell to spend your life touting Microsoft when they are so hated. Because in these networked days, a PR person can't go home and tell their friends "they suck, I just work there" because things get around much more quickly.

This was an honest answer on Quora to a question that I think is interesting. It is how I actually feel. Quora reached out to ask me if they could publish it on Forbes, and I said it was fine, because it was already public and out there.

You seem to be suggesting that the only way someone could want to work at Microsoft and feel this way is if they are a shill. Isn't that exactly what I just wrote about, as basic lack of respect for the people who choose to build at Microsoft?

No and Yes,

No, I don't think everyone who works at MS is a shill. I think the average MS engineer goes home and can put their Microsoft boosting away. It's only the people who professionally represent MS, who's job it might to say sell Bing to schools or similar stuff, who have to be always on, always convinced that MS is good.

And Yes, I agree I'm demonstrating some of your point. I think you were honest on the basic point. There's basic lack of respect. It must be hard. I don't know how to help you there. I try to focus my anger on the people with decision making power.

Pure rubbish. MSFT should have been split up for blatant violations of the Sherman Anti Trust Act but got a last minute pass by Bush. The company is nothing more than a drain on the technology industry in this country.

The worst thing about working for Microsoft? You have to run Windows.

You seem to have some special hatred towards Microsoft (looking at your twitter stream). But considering you work in devops, I'd understand why ;)

The part about Microsoft being ubiquitous begs the question: is it actually good that Microsoft software is everywhere? The part that really gets me is schools.

I can't see pushing Surface/Windows 8/Office/insert MS product here on students (especially young ones) being beneficial to anyone other than Microsoft. As a student who was expected to format essays according to Word and to use (Excel, Powerpoint, even FRONTPAGE) extensively in K-12 education, I really can't see a way to put this strategy in a positive light. "ad-free" bing for schools? Really? What's more poisonous--getting students dependent on a stack of proprietary software, or a search engine with ads?

Well, as the guy behind Bing for Schools, let me suggest an alternate world. Let's pretend Microsoft simply blinked out of existence. Can you name any software package as well integrated, as powerful, and as empowering for students as Office? You said that putting Office in the hands of students can't possibly be beneficial to anyone but Microsoft. But that's EXACTLY what I'm writing about. Let's pretend it was free and you took off the Microsoft brand; Office absolutely creates huge efficiencies in the ability of students to create, to learn, and to share. But because it has MSFT on it, you seem to be suggesting that it must necessarily be bad for kids.

Most of the world, and even the people in the US aren't using desktop computers daily... using any tool that ties them mostly to a desktop platform, or an also-ran mobile platform is not doing them any favors.

IMHO, if the Office division were actually able to run as a separated business unit from the whims of Windows, they would be MUCH better off.

I think that as office suites go, MS Office is absolutely the best of breed. However, there isn't much of anything that it offers that gives an elementary student an advantage over a pre-configured linux convertible tablet with Libre Office.

I like windows.. it's a consistent platform that isn't subject to an incredibly fragmented desktop/application space. IMHO IIS is an incredibly good web server. VS is a great IDE, with a wonderful level of integration for devops environments.

That said, I don't feel that Windows has much of a life left in it, and that 10 years from now, it will be relegated to the same role that Solaris or AIX workstations were in the early-mid 90's, a developer platform for server deployments. There's money to be made there in the long run, sure... but if MS really wants to succeed, it needs to allow the windows core os to develop apart from the desktop, server and mobile spaces.. and for the VS and Office teams to operate apart from that. It would also do well to let competitive products rise from within. Both in terms of support, as well as vision.

Go to skydrive.live.com, create an Office document, edit it. Note that the experience is significantly better than any other online office suite. Do the moonwalk.

I don't think anyone is arguing that if Microsoft blinked out of existence, no one would be inconvenienced. What a lot of people ARE saying is that "if not Microsoft, someone else."

If Microsoft never bought the software that eventually turned out to be Office, someone else would have provided a solution. If Microsoft hadn't bought (and resold) QDOS, someone else would have provided an operating system for IBM, and people who make chairs wouldn't have seen a big difference today.

Not only that, they kind of have to.. you can't legally track users under the age or (12 or 13 I forget which), so that means if they're aware the users are under age, they have to not track them.

I like a lot of the technology and software that has come out of MS.. VS is a pretty damned great IDE, and there's a lot to like. ASP.Net MVC is one of the nicer frameworks I've used, the Razor view engine in particular... That said, I stopped going to their developer presentations a couple of years ago, because every one seemed like an advertisement for Azure.

I like that Azure is there, as an option.. I also like that there's Joyent, Amazon, Linode and a dozen others. Options are great... But I'm tired of seeing it shoved down everyone that develops on an MS platform.

I've spent roughly half my development time for over two years developing towards node.js ... I find a much lower level of friction, that it lends itself better to modularization and can support multiple concurrent versions of libraries without having them all in the same bin directory. Not to mention imho better testing ability, and just a smoother cycle with less prescription in the core.

Ironically enough, I still think that Outlook + Exchange is the best tool combination out of MS compared to their competitors, and even that is much more open today than ever before. I don't think most people NEED MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Especially with web tools for powerpoint and excel that are as good as their desktop counterparts. And Libre Office Writer in many ways besting Word... I don't see much value there.

If MS would really separate some of their business units, it could work so much better...

If Windows developed as a Core OS framework, with UI developers for desktop, xbox, and mobile separated, we wouldn't have to deal with Metro on the desktop, where it's imho a poor fit, but could have it in mobile where it makes more sense.

If the Office team were untangled and better able to target iOS and Android, a better job with OSX, and less tethered, they could be a powerhouse. Separate Outlook and push them back with the Exchange team.. or hell as a separate product. They could do what BlackBerry should have done and create a best of breed cross-platform mail app.

They've been so tethered to trying to integrate their marginal sales into windows + office that they've been strangled against competition that many of their departments should have been able to take advantage of.

In doing the above, their Visual Studio team could embrace other platforms better. Web Matrix is one of the best tools out there for NodeJS development, and most of the features haven't gotten into VS.

MS developed azure as a great platform to deploy too, but keeping a lot of their concepts tied to windows + vs, has restricted growth they could have had. Azure would have been better off without the heavy MS & Windows tie ins... they could have embraced other OSes earlier on, and perhaps been seen more favorably with them. Their PaaS levels could have even supported distributed/shared LXC deployments, and much better tooling.

Historically, MS has made most of their money with Windows and Office from business customers, and will continue to do so.

However, if they don't let their individual business units actually integrate, inter-operate and compete with third parties on a whole new level, I don't think that they'll find the niches that Oracle and IBM have found in the long run.

They'll be here for a long while regardless, but they won't have the same exposure to every person with a computer as the trend continues.

The ambulance that picks you up? Microsoft.

What a larf. Why did Forbes print this? No, man, Alcoa picked me up. And US Steel. And Con-Ed. And Exxon. And Starbucks! Oh, wait, the driver had Dunkin' Donuts. Whatever.

How about "People who answer legitimate questions with two non-answers"?

>> It is working at a company that people don’t believe in, despite the immense importance it plays in their daily life.

Very true, Microsoft's business level software does not have as much visibility IMHO. People underestimate the role their software plays.

>> Imagine you got out of that chair for a second. Walked across the street to get a cup of coffee. Got hit by a bus. The ambulance that picks you up? Microsoft. The hospital that saves you? Microsoft. The doctor? Trained at a school running Microsoft, using delicate instruments running Microsoft. If you prefer not getting hit by a bus, think about the role that Microsoft has had in making sure your baby was born healthy.

What role, Windows, SQL Server, Azure? Microsoft may have helped there but so has the janitor who keeps the hospital clean, the barista who makes coffee for the doctors. Doesn't mean I'm going to thank Microsoft for saving my life when I get hit by a bus. This is a valid argument, but a very weak one because Microsoft is one cog in so many that keeps a hospital running.

Rest of the arguments in the article are quite valid, but when some tells me my ambulance is running Microsoft software I have a horrible flashback with a BSOD.

You are absolutely right that the janitor has a role, as does the barista, and I afford both of those people immense amounts of respect in my daily life. I don't look at the things they do and say "simply because you are a barista, I am going to dislike this."

And yet there are many people, especially in tech, who are willing to take pot shots at something just because it was produced by Microsoft. My answer was an attempt to look at that critically.

Microsoft worked very hard to earn that disrespect.

I know that Microsoft Engineers have pulled off a large number of complex technical feats over the decades, and this is admirable.

Unfortunately, all this doesn’t translate into a smooth day-to-day experience for the end user, which is why all the hate builds up. People contrast this with the relatively smooth and fluid experience on say, Apple products. They then conclude Microsoft is garbage. I understand that in some (note, some) cases, MS isn’t even directly responsible for the issues. For example, Enterprise IT departments tend to cram massive amounts of software into boxes with moderate specs, leading to a slowdown in performance.

I can’t think of any practical solution for all this. Some radical re-engineering without regard for backwards compatibility, accompanied by strict specifications for minimum hardware requirements maybe? Will take too much of Management willpower to fly. So I’m sorry to say, Microsoft and its employees will continue to be ridiculed for some more time to come.

The worst part about the stack ranking implementation at MSFT is that there will always be a bottom 10-20% who'll get fired in a couple of review cycles. If you're in a stellar team, you're pretty screwed (which is sad because now we'll eventually have rock stars looking for shitty teams or leaving). Stack ranking should rather be used to identify the top 10%

Can you really credit Microsoft with software running on production lines, and in hospitals, ambulances, etc..? Isn't that more of a result of market share?

Exactly what I was thinking. It might just be me tired and not thinking clearly, but where do we draw the line? Tire manufactures for the ambulance? Tools manufactures that built the hospital?

Other than this, everything else made sense. Microsoft does play an important part.

I actually don't think we should draw the line: it takes many, many people working together to create the world we live in. My point was that we should operate on a basic level of respect for those people, rather than simply taking pot shots at them based on branding.

My fault. It was a rhetorical question. I completely agree. Respect all involved.

Endless patronizing condescension to outsiders?

After years of bugs/viruses/bloat and what not, Microsoft finally got the OS right with Windows 7. I personally know many people (including myself) who were/are quite impressed with it. Then it goes ahead and inflicts Windows 8 on the users.

Just when you got something right, after over a decade, and had a chance to build goodwill/positive response from your users, you go ahead and royally screw it up. I won't even go in their predatory/arm-twisting business practices.

The worst thing about Microsoft is that they never seem to learn from their mistakes or, more importantly, care.

The question was "What is the most innovative company?" Innovation is different than market penetration. And this article seems to aim to fend off a self conscious thought. Nobody thinks that people who work for MS are jerks. That is the author's own thoughts about himself. People just don't respect MS because of the lack of efficiency. Nobody argues about penetration, I am wrting this comment on a computer that runs MS. That does not take away my right to criticze the product.

Stack ranking sounds a lot worse than other people doubting you.

I think Matt's discussion was spot on - it only bothers you if you pay attention to it. Microsoft offers an opportunity to positively impact a lot of people, both developers and end users. It takes pretty good care (benefits and pay) of its employees, too. If that's enough to motivate you, you only need to worry about stack ranking if you're worried about ending up low on the stack. If you're doing good work, that's extremely unlikely.

You mean the worst thing about working at Microsoft isn't Steve Ballmer?!

Not anymore ;-).

No matter how good or bad Microsoft is, the workers there dont have a magic privilege that should force anyone to respect and feel grateful to their company and them...

I'm not asking for a magic privilege. I'm asking people to step back and evaluate what Microsoft is actually doing. Take Bing, for example; you strip the brand off and people actually prefer our results. Take an honest look at the products we produce and still don't choose to use them? Totally fine. But it is important that people do take that step back - we can't let tech be ruled by branding only.

I personally don't like the haters.. and of all tech companies, Sony is probably the only one I won't use because of politics against their brand/management decisions. They've done some cool things, and BluRay was a better format than HD-DVD, but the market was leaning towards HD-DVD when backroom deals killed that. (not to mention rootkits, etc)

Many people feel the same about MS. What I find issue with is that people will completely dislike a solution for the brand alone. I've seen this for years when I've suggested/supported Mono in Linux. .Net is a pretty damned good platform/runtime.

I think it's a perfectly valid choice to not run something because of the company that makes it. Lambasting something for the same reasons, in a non-technical fashion isn't so great.

Many of the haters will poo-poo on anything. In my household I have Android on my phone and tablet, an osx macbook pro for my laptop, a windows desktop, an htpc now running ubuntu/xbmc (was running win7 before). A NAS running FreeNAS (BSD), and a handful of other devices.

I'm not tied to any one platform, and like most people don't care too much about what I run, as long as it works. I develop software for a living, and most of that has run on Windows. I appreciate that there are great, brilliant, and wonderful people at MS. I also recognize that many of it's management decisions have been bad for the larger community. Not to mention the damage being done to some what could be better divisions at MS.

"What I find issue with is that people will completely dislike a solution for the brand alone. I've seen this for years when I've suggested/supported Mono in Linux."

To be fair, Mono never delivered on its promises. There must be tonnes of .Net applications that Linux users would have been thrilled to get on their platform. Yet the only ones I have seen running on Mono were the ones that were specifically targeting Mono, not ones that were running on windows and just happened to find their way to Linux.

So, either most .Net applications are crap that no one really cares about or they were tied to the windows platform. Of course, it could just be blind, unmotivated hatred, but that's not how I've perceived it.

IMHO Mono offers nicer constructs for a higher level runtime that can utilize lower level system libraries with less friction. Compared to Java+JNI, C# is a dream.

Most of the applications that don't work tend to either utilize windows specific features, or use components that do likewise. With XAML, the fate is somewhat sealed in terms of cross-platform applications.

ASP.Net apps tend to run with little/minor modification, however are usually written towards MS-SQL server, so they are tethered there. You're right that most cross-platform Mono apps are written as such.

Personally, I don't care if a Mono app doesn't run in Windows, or ties to libraries that aren't or are difficult to bundle for windows. I still really like C# as a language, and prefer Mono to a lot of alternative higher level systems.

That said, if Node gets some good UI integration for Gnome, all bets are off imho. I really love node.js + npm, and if I can write desktop UI with it, that will be what I use for just about everything. (There are a few libraries/bindings, but most are incomplete, and some are tethered to a browser-based UI, which I don't mind too much, but are forks from node proper)

Read the 100s of comments here, nothing positive! The hacker community hates microsoft, which is the biggest reason why you should not work for them.

The Hacker News community takes a break from creating the current wave of internet fart-apps-as-as-service-with-photo-sharing to voice its displeasure.

What is the worst thing about working at Microsoft? My first guess is being forced to spend at least 8 hours a day developing on a windows machine.

Pretty funny to contrast responses to this with responses to the "Designed by Apple in California" video.

Classic PR stunt...

Actually, I just wrote this as an honest Quora answer. Quora then reached out and asked if they could publish to Forbes.

Thanks for building the bus that hit me!

Ok, many people here said it, but still.

"Asked to name the most innovative tech company, they’ll say Apple or Google. And they’ll do it with a straight face, while sitting in a chair made by Microsoft. Wait, Microsoft makes chairs? No, not directly. But the part of that chair? Manufactured in facilities running on, you guess it, Microsoft software."

Let's look at this statement. "sitting in a chair made by Microsoft". It's pretty clear what "made by Microsoft" should mean, shouldn't it? What do you think when I say "a smartphone made by nokia"? You surely think that the smartphone was manufactured in a facility that may or may not used some software from nokia, right?

So my issue with that article is very misleading language. Can I call it newspeak?

So "made by microsoft" means neither made by microsoft nor does it mean made with sotware made by microsoft. It means it was made in a facility that may or may not uses an operating system made by microsoft. Who actually made the chair is an ingenieur using software not made by microsoft but that for reasons decided to target the microsoft operating system.

And these reasons are not something anyone at microsoft should be proud about. They worked really hard at disabling their competition with unethical methods. It's not exactly secret, anyone can read about their history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107...

"Transported in trucks built by Microsoft software, on roads built by Microsoft software,"

Microsoft produces software for building trucks and roads?

"Trained at a school running Microsoft,"

Said as if it wasn't a bad thing microsoft is pushing educational institutions to use proprietary software.

"If you prefer not getting hit by a bus, think about the role that Microsoft has had in making sure your baby was born healthy."

Ok, do people really think that it's not a bad thing that (according to the article) the whole manufacturing chain is dependent on proprietary software made by one vendor? Is it not bad that fucking hospitals and their instruments "run on" proprietary closed source microsoft software? Again, this was achieved by becoming a (quasi-) monopolist by methods described in the links above.

"we’re only able to do so because of generations of Microsoft leadership in technology."

What gets me is the casual tone that (as I read it) sounds like microsoft had "generations of leadership in technology" on their own merits instead of because they disabled their competition by their business behavior.

"I run our Bing for Schools program. It gets hardware in the hands of kids, teaches them digital literacy skills, and creates a safe environment for them to practice in. And when we launched, the haters emerged from the woodwork with pitchforks and torches, growling “Google! Google!” Just for fun, see the comment stream on The Verge story: Microsoft offers classrooms free Surface RT tablets with ad-free Bing for Schools"

Again, as others have said. It's cool that children are introduced to technology. It's bad that it's proprietary technology. Especially at educational institutions. When I advocate that they get android tablets instead it's not because it's from google but because it is (mostly) free and open source. Meego/Sailfish OS/Firefox OS would be fine too. But getting taught proprietary microsoft software, possibly with their first contact to this technology? No.

"But think about the number of young people who make a face when you say Microsoft. That’s an entirely different problem."

Why is that a problem? Sounds totally healthy to me.

"Because even if you know that you are working on something that will help save lives"

Actually you don't do that. You are working on something that others will build something for that will save lives. And because you work for someone who has become a quasi monopolist with unethical behavior those others will have to give a lot of money to your employer even though without you we may or may not had a world running on free and open software by now.

"or make things better for humanity"

Again, look at the list of lawsuits microsoft was in and lost. And that's only the stuff that is actually illegal, there is a lot you can do that is not illegal but still unethical. There's everything from their faked "get the facts" studies to the plan to pressure hardware manufacturers to cripple absolute basic standard functionality just to make their competitors look worse http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/...

"I’ve pushed through a program that does good things for kids."

You mean the program that is designed to make children already dependent on microsoft software? It's called vendor lock-in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in#Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft#Vendor_l...

Tl dr; I personally don't see how anyone that thinks stuff like "know that you are working on something that will help save lives or make things better for humanity,", i.e. who has a heart and a conscience can work for Microsoft. I'm sure the working conditions aren't as bad as some people say and the products aren't as bad as people say either. For example the metro interface: I don't really see why microsoft thought it was a good idea, but I could certainly work with it with no problems if I wanted to. It'd be only a little bit annoying but as someone who has no problems with fluxbox/openbox, xfce4, gnome2, gnome3, kde4 etc. it'd be no big deal.

The thing is that it's not just microsoft, they "support" a whole industry intentionally or coincidentally designed to lock you in: Adobe Flash DRM, while atrocious, did work on linux. But it wasn't "good enough" or something. The media industry had to choose microsoft technology with silverlight. Result: netflix, lovefilm, ... only (officially) work on either microsoft windows or apple's mac os, both commercial proprietary operating systems.

I run our Bing for Schools program. It gets hardware in the hands of kids, teaches them digital literacy skills, and creates a safe environment for them to practice in

Yeah, all altruistic no doubt.

Let's take altruism as "devotion to the welfare of others". It is pretty hard to argue that Bing for Schools is anything but that - we looked at what we could create that would be good for kids and then we fought our way uphill to be able to offer it. Does it gain us market share? Hopefully yes. But that doesn't make it not altruistic.

We could do what Google is doing and advertise to kids. We are choosing not to do that. How is that anything but good?

When you do something to gain market share then it's not altruistic.

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