A Report from the Heart of the Empire

Redmond, I mean, home to Micro$oft, exemplar of forcing God-awful products on people, an exemplar of the inherent flaw of the radical rightist bidness model: forcing a product is paramount, the product's essence, as it were is irrelevant. (An example: When M$ rips off Apple, it's to steal an idea or make an interface too pretty to work easily, never to copy the structure of an idea. Zune is a perfect example: it's success will be based on its link to Windows, not because of any inherent, actual goodness. Or Aero: damn pretty, just can't really look at it to use as a, you know, actual GUI.)

So here's the report:

I went to work before the appetizers were served at the opening supper by asking event organizer Nick White (whose business card describes him as "Product Manager, Windows Marketing Communications") why I should trust a company whose CEO consistently threatens to sue me and other Linux users over unspecified patent violations.

"That's history," Nick said. "We're trying to move forward."

"I was referring to some comments Steve Ballmer made just a week or two ago," I said.

"Well, that's not really anything I can comment on," he replied. "I'm a product marketing guy."

This was the kind of answer I got to all the hard questions I asked, including several suggested by Pamela Jones of Groklaw. None of the Microsoft people I met had anything to say about their deal with Novell, working with the Open Document Format (ODF), acceptance of the GNU General Public License (GPL) as a legitimate software license, how DRM built into Vista may anger users, or other topics I thought might interest you.

Like any rightist organization, a great deal of energy goes into denial of reality. Some would call it delusional paranoia....

I came away with a sense that Microsoft doesn't currently have a clear sense of what Microsoft should be and where Microsoft should be going.

***

But there are also many people who don't like Microsoft. Some dislike the company because of its poor record on software security (and, all too often, poor software quality in general), some dislike its business practices, and others have other reasons. You might even go so far as to say that many computer users merely tolerate Microsoft even as they use its products, and that some of the company's customers might even revile it but feel they have no choice besides Microsoft's software.

Imagine working for a company that is tolerated, at best, in many social circles. Imagine being a computer science graduate, going to a class reunion, telling people you work for Microsoft, and watching your former classmates slowly back away as if you'd just told them you had a venereal disease.

Microsoft is not short of smart, hard-working employees. I'm sure that in many ways it's a great place to work. I also think, from what I heard during my visit and what other Microsoft employees and customers have told me at other times, that it has degenerated into a series of disconnected fiefdoms that aren't all moving in the same direction.

Loads more here.