Coin-operated Borgocrat goes to Google, acquires whole new set of opinions | Hacker News Reader

Coin-operated Borgocrat goes to Google, acquires whole new set of opinions

fakesteve.net

175 pointsjavery42 comments

Clicking through to the cited posts:

1. http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2006/12/optio... - Most of this post is praising Google for their TSO program. Microsoft is mentioned almost as an afterthought, to show that they also have good employee benefits (not exactly a secret).

2. http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2005/11/googl... - This was written in 2005, and is pretty much exactly in line with the predominant sentiment of that time. It's hard to make the case even today that Google has yet really attacked MS directly (no desktop OS, a much lighter office suite, etc).

3. http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2006/10/offic... - Again, mostly in praise of Google, talking specifically about how online office suites are a potentially disruptive technology that MS is scrambling to get a slice of like everyone else. And, feature-for-feature, um, of course MS Office wins. But if you don't care about feature count, so what?

4. http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/12/googl... - He specifically says Google is to today's MS as Toyota was to Ford or MS was to IBM 30 years ago. The whimper about MS having smart folks who have played disruptor themselves doesn't exactly equate to "Google won't disrupt MS".

5. http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/02/googl... - Alright, Fake Steve has this one pretty spot on.

6. http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/05/windo... - It's a product blurb, followed by the drooling endorsement of pointing out that people usually don't completely abandon their old email addresses even if they move on to something else.

It's worth noting that every single quote is from 2005, 2006 or 2007. A lot has changed in the past 2 to 4 years.

> Gmail is a reasonable alternative to Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, but it doesn't compare to Microsoft Outlook

Gmail is pretty much the same, sans themes and offline access.

Except for folders...

Adding themes; adding offline access; adding IMAP, POP, and SMTP support; allowing labels to be treated like folders; allowing forwarding; adding in-browser chat; adding keyboard shortcuts; adding online preview and viewing of many documents, including notably Microsoft Office formats; adding contact groups; adding muted conversations; adding to-do lists; integrating with calendaring (Gcal didn't even exist when he wrote that article, let alone integrate tightly); and adding synchronization with BlackBerrys. And that's off the top of my head.

Gmail's UI may be roughly the same as it was in 2005, in the same way that Outlook 2007 is basically the same as Outlook 2003, but the actual experience has markedly changed and improved--certainly enough that I think his claim could be reasonable then, but moot now.

I guess you're right.

I think this deserved pointing out. I'm not sure where this Don Dodge is great stuff comes from or what it's based on but these few posts about him do make him seem coin-operated. The best developer evangelists are able to be sincere, thoughtful and helpful. Without those qualities it's a job that tends to make you into a shill.

I've never really known who this guy was, only that he was laid-off from MS and was hired immediately from Google. I checked his blog and his most recent post was glorifying Google and their products as things far superior to Microsoft's. In a matter of hours or days?

Questionable. Unless he's resentful, but even still, be honest.

Agreed on all counts. Never heard of him until the news he was fired from MS, read his goodbye blog post that was pretty Microsoft-friendly, and threw up in my mouth a little when I saw this new one. I'm sure Don's done some good work, but based on the exposure I have to him (the two aforementioned blog posts) I find it hard to respect the guy.

I agree that it looks pretty bad, but for the sake of playing Devil's, er, Don's Advocate: maybe he was feeling down from being unexpectedly let go from MSFT, and is now having a rebound where everything about his new job looks extra rosy? Just saying there's a human/personal element at play here too.

You might be right, but he could've handled this with more professionalism.

I can understand feeling down after being fired. I can't understand magically having opinions opposite to those you held when employed by your new employer's competitor. The flippant and unprofessional tone just exacerbates the problem.

I don't think any of his opinions expressed are actually a turnaround from his previous statements. He used to talk about the good things at Microsoft and not mention the bad things. Now he is talking about the good things at Google (with comparison to bad things at Microsoft), and not mentioning the bad things at Google (which I won't attempt to enumerate, since I work at Yahoo).

I think he is just trying to remain upbeat about his sudden and clearly quite wrenching departure from a job he loved at a company he respected.

"... Agreed on all counts. Never heard of him until the news he was fired from MS, read his goodbye blog post that was pretty Microsoft-friendly, and threw up in my mouth a little when I saw this new one. ..."

Which means you probably didn't look very hard.

"... The companies were much higher quality than I expected. The founders were nearly all coders and hackers but did a surprisingly good job at presenting their idea, target market, and business model ..." ~ Don Dodge

Don was around YC around 2 years ago and while initially thinking the YC model was a joke, he changed his mind by observing. That's what you want isn't it? People think one thing, but change their minds after observing. Fluid thinking instead of fixed mindsets. ~ http://searchyc.com/don+dodge+bootload

>Which means you probably didn't look very hard.

Because I've only seen these two blog posts? I'm not sufficiently interested in Don Dodge to spend time researching him; and even if I were, a lifetime of washing oil off baby seals wouldn't change the issues I have with his blog post.

>Don was around YC around 2 years ago and while initially thinking the YC model was a joke, he changed his mind by observing. That's what you want isn't it? People think one thing, but change their minds after observing. Fluid thinking instead of fixed mindsets.

You can't honestly think that this blog post is the result of a reasonable change of mind after gaining new information. It's a complete and utter reversal of his stances on publicly available products he'd already used.

Agreed. I'd probably be biased towards Google and against Microsoft given my background, but it's even obvious to me how completely transparent this guy is and how little his recent praise of Google matters.

On a personal level Don has been extremely helpful to me and several other startups in the Techstars program. At least in the circles I move in he's earned a lot of respect for being a Microsoft representative who was actually eager to talk to early-stage companies looking to do something on the platform.

Let's say he is being honest, and we believe that he really is actually acting on new information. So working for Microsoft completely blind-sided him to how useful Gmail and Google Docs are? He really didn't know about Gmail's spam filtering and conversation threading? You're not going to be a very good advocate if you don't know your competition.

Developer evangelism is marketing, not development. To view this through any other lens seems silly. You wouldn't think badly of a marketing agency that was effectively able to promote two competing companies -- they're just doing their job well.

"Developer evangelism is marketing, not development. "

I agree. I am just surprised such "marketing" is successful in influencing developers. Maybe I have an (erroneous) image of developers as essentially rational people who are somewhat immune to such empty "buzz" as Mr Dodge seems to put out.

Even marketing - vapid crapola though it often may be - has to try a little bit and maintain at least a superficial veneer of sincerity and substance in order to work.

I don't see much in the way of inconsistencies. In _2006_, Don notes:

"Google knows that on a feature comparison basis there is no contest. Microsoft Office wins."

And, in the SAME blog posting also says:

"Feature comparisons aside, I think the real story is free online collaboration, which is the next battlefield."

Now that he's left MSFT, he says:

"I can’t think of a single feature missing from what I need every day. There may be some edge cases, but I haven’t bumped into any yet."

I haven't used Google Docs much, but haven't they improved significantly in the past three years? Furthermore, he noted while at MSFT that the killer feature is collaboration, not the number of unique word count statistics. I see little in the way of inconsistency here. Doesn't Ballmer change his arguments at least twice a year when it comes to dissing competitive offerings?

Many of those quotes are 2-3 years old. Google has been consistently improving their web offerings and the speed of web apps has been getting better and better.

I have changed my opinion of products and companies over a the span of years many times. I think we should agree that he can too.

Perhaps I wasn't sufficiently clear...I agree with you entirely. And, I don't see much evidence that he's actually changed his opinion much over time.

Technically, you're right. But in both cases he's carefully choosing his words to make his employer's product sound better.

It's patronising because it implies:

* that I'm not capable of noticing any drawbacks of the product, which he conveniently didn't mention, and

* that I would ever give any serious consideration to a spokesman's supposed opinions of his own company's product.

I would have much more respect for somebody who came out and praised the competition and acknowledged what they got right instead of what they got wrong. It would show much more confidence in his/her own product.

'Even Microsoft’s online version of Outlook called Outlook Web Access is far better than Gmail'

Even according to the standards of marketers/evengelists, this is so overboard.

Wow, yeah. No one who actually uses OWA on a regular basis could say that with a straight face. Gmail was far superior, right from launch (or at least as close to launch as I got an invite).

Laughable is an understatement, OWA is so unbelievably bad...

I am one of the unfortunate people that have to use Outlook Web Access at work. Unless you use IE, you lose a lot of features.

Since I use firefox, I find that even Hotmail is better than OWA.

You can actually use your gmail account to check your exchange accounts. If your work place allows that, go right ahead! I've been accessing my univ exchange account via gmail and never regretted it.

I guess he never really had to work with Office or Outlook, or otherwise he would have known their advantages.

Firing him was just a logical consequence, since he didn't seem to do an awful lot of work.

I believe Scoble at least waited a few weeks to make his conversions seem organic.

I think this would have less of a bad taste if we thought of these guys as being particularly conniving salespeople rather than "evangelists".

After Goog prevented Jon Skeet from getting his MS MVP award, this post might also have been internall encouuraged by Google. Nothing would demoralize MS more than seeing its ex-girlfriend sleeping with its hated rival (even if they initiated the breakup).

FSJ is the tech industry's court jester.

The point should be that every platform company needs great developer evangelism, and a great developer evangelist should certainly be serving the developer community as much as they serve the company that writes their check. This is why the current situation is ultimately a win for Google and a loss for Microsoft.

Fake Steve misses the point on this one, which is a surprise considering how amazingly great Apple is doing with developer evangelism on the iPhone. No wonder he wouldn't want Don Dodge. What would he do with someone like that?

FSJ has a point here. The blind endorsment of Google technology within a week of switching jobs is fishy. Plain and simple.

I understand the point, but given Apple's track record with developer relations recently I find it ironic that FSJ found this topic to riff on.

You do also understand that Fake Steve Jobs doesn't really work at Apple, right?

Yes, I understand it's satire or at least something similar. I'm not a regular reader, and maybe I'm missing some subtext. In this case it's too subtle for me because there's this huge glass house called iPhone Developer Relations. Fake Steve should at least boast about how well they nailed it. That would be funny.

As a tech evangelist, you could say he's just doing his job very well. (sarcasm.)

The fact that we're having this discussion means he probably failed. The evangelist needs to make with the awesome about products without raising suspicion.

The point is to get well paid for publishing such blah-blah-blah. And he did.

"I sent a copy of this to Katie with a note asking how we missed out on this guy, because he's exactly the kind of coin-operated true believer we need around here."

LOL

Reply on news.ycombinator.com