Linux leader on Microsoft woes

http://www.cringely.com/2009/01/bob-the-impaler/

Admission: I did not read the associated article [my interest in MS is limited], however, from the summary sentences the link might not be as comforting to some as I assume the listed article predicates. That is, MS is slipping, but given the magnitude of their cash intake even gross incompetence will yield a slowly deflating entity.

I cant believe that I am the one bringing this point up. Before everyone starts cheering Microsofts downturn, the jobs that are bring cut are not the decision maker jobs, but more probably the folks who are going home and telling their family that their hosed. In the current economy these folks will probably loose nearly everything.

In a perfect world, if MS were to tank, it's various everyday employee would be able to be absorbed by other areas of the tech industry, thats just not so for today. Bill alone could probably bankroll these folks into other jobs, Ballmer could as well, but loosing employees is much preferable in todays economy than loosing your bonuses.

Steve, thanks for the show of responsibility and support for those who keep your waist line at it's present size.

p.s. Is it just me or has steves furniture disease (the non throwing one) progressing nicely? (Furniture disease ... chest has fallen into drawers)

Joel Spolsky has had some interesting things to say about this a few months ago (before any rumored Microsoft layoffs, iirc).

He was basically predicting that most of the jobs that might get cut in the tech industry would be basic house keeping. Basically, just laying people off who should have been laid off months or years ago (due to incompetence) but weren't because managers didn't want to deal with it. From my own experience, I suspect this is largely true.

From what I understand, the entire FlightSim team is getting cut. In this particular case, I doubt it's because all of these developers/managers are incompetent, but rather that Microsoft hasn't been making enough money on FlightSim to make it worth it for them to continue its development.

That's my $0.02 (or, I guess, Joel Spolsky's $0.02 that I'm simply repeating).

I don't wish anything bad on anyone, but in this case I can dismiss it as being just the way things work out.

I doubt that Microsoft's employees ever felt bad about Netscape, or any other company that got slapped around by Microsoft's monopoly.

Microsoft has hurt a lot more than 5000 good people through the years. This is just the way things go when you work for an ex-monopolist that thinks it is still a monopolist.

I knew someone was going to drop that one, it's not MS that is getting hurt at all. Not even the decision makers. It's some poor schlep behind each of those 5000 faces, who has to go home and tell the family that eating is canceled for the week, and maybe for the next one too.

Or do you blame me for Bush because I worked for the US government to feed my family? Remember there is the distinct possibility that someone feels the same about your job/career/employer, but would make it no less devastating to you in the current economy.

@azerthoth

I'm not saying I blame them or that it is good that they are losing their jobs. I'm just not going to feel sorry for them, unless they worked in the mail room or in some other job that has little to do with the software business. I do know Microsoft employees. But I've seen small businesses go under due to competition from companies like Microsoft, and I'll guarantee you that in those cases they would say it was just a matter of "efficiency".

Another aspect of this is that I should feel sorry for them because I heard about the layoffs in the news. Somehow it is bad if well-paid individuals, with good severance packages, working for large corporations, get laid off, but if you work for a small company it's met with a shrug. How about all the farmers that go bankrupt in good times and bad? Does that even make the news?

@bigg,@azertot I'd sorta agree with both of you, as being someone who _must_ work together w/ various software platforms & systems such as Mac OS's, Linux and Micro$hafts' XPVista (hey, I kept the V in here, so this will not be censored for profanity ;). Also, I know _real_ help desk personnel with especially close ties to M$'s and Sun's products who are already targeted for downsizing in Silicon Valley closer to home in the U.S. and further away in India. In a sense and apologists notwithstanding, its almost a good thing that the almighty Redmond,WA bullies are cutting themselves down to size, and I hope this just doesn't remain at the lower-level of Micro$ofties, but soon reaches up to the highly-paid upper-level mgmt as well. So rather than the great Monopoli$t's layoffs reaching horizontally to other non-M$ firms, I'd hope for the layoff hits go vertically direct up to the top within M$ itself!!

Just my 2c here.

Just read some comments that are attached to the article I cited. One commenter mentioned MS's WebTV debacle where many lost their jobs, hence, this was not MS's first layoff. Other comments argued cogently that one must view the entire exercise as PR that might have little or no connection to reality.

My motto: who needs Reality when Fiction tells the better story. So unlike science where the fiction is not sufficiently inventive.

Uh Oh, Dont tell that to Heinlien, as his Science Fiction pretty much invented the modern technological society.

Heinlien is dead, last I heard so right no he is in no danger learning of the perplexing problems contained in the various lines of cosmology. For example, what is gravity (not the constant)? Eleven dimensions and an infinity of universes? Beats the hell out of space travel, even when assisted by worm holes and the breaking through the physical limit of travel faster than the speed of light. [Note the implicit requirement of beginning from lesser speeds and accelerating through the barrier.]

Heh, did Linux affect MS's downturn.. I gotta laugh. That question is almost inappropriate considering the damn *collapse* the economy just suffered and an ongoing deep recession/depression. Suuure, Linux had something to do with MS's woes. Ballmer must be laughing his ass off at those kinds of assertions.

I'd guess it wasn't Linux, it weren't netbooks, it weren't even all of the half assed "successes" (or failures) like Zune. It was the RECESSION and everything that comes with it, including the paranoia about the future.

Well yes, Linux probably did affect the downscaling of Microsoft. So did Nintendo, Apple and basically every success in every market that Microsoft is a player in. This is a result of a company collapsing under its own weight. They will eventually recover though, I am sure, along with the economy.