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Technology Stocks : Microsoft - The Evil empire
MSFT 496.920.0%Nov 7 9:30 AM EST
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To: Dragonfly who wrote (1252)6/13/1998 10:38:00 AM
From: rudedog  Read Replies (2) of 1600
 
Dragonfly -

Although I have many close friends who are present or past employees at MSFT, and I have had some good times there, I would say that my experience with MSFT reinforces many of the arguments that you and others propose. I differ only in what the intent and culture that created those actions was based on. I believe that the creation and growth of an insulated MSFT culture, reinforced by the kind of pressure you describe, has gradually shifted the definition of normal behavior far from the mainstream of normal business culture and ethics. The most comparable experience I can recall is during the Viet Nam war when young high-school age men were trained by the army to think that subjugation and killing of large numbers of asian people was a normal and rational activity.

Ship date and competitive feature set (by which MSFT means features that competitors are selling already in the market) are almost the only important drivers of product schedules. Quality gets lip service but only until it is 'good enough' which means that the revenue generated is greater than the back-end service pain. Innovation, as you have pointed out, is not a part of the culture and MSFT prefers to buy it after it has already been proven in the market.

This is not a subjective assessment but a stated direction from the most senior executives at MSFT.

As far as money, in their dealings with most outsiders and some insiders, the goal is to sell the banana but deliver the peel. ANYONE who accepts the first, second or third offer in any negotiation with MSFT will get the peel.
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