An Open Letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

re: An Open Letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

GOOD NEWS ONLY PLEASE — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:33:51 GMT

You are so right. As a former engineer at Microsoft since the early days, I witnessed a change in General Manager and Regional Vice President level management, where they punished converyors of realistic feedback and only escalated good feedback to show good results on their commitments so they can get promoted and get good performance reviews, then move on to higher paying jobs. It got worse around the Vista timeframe. From what I hear from my former friends, this has not gotten any better.

Their actions helped advance their careers, while customers suffered, and their actions effected the company's bottom line and public pereption on Microsoft's core competency product.

re: An Open Letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

7 Lover — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:28:52 GMT

yeah well windows 7's out so who cares..lets move on

re: An Open Letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Bob — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:38:38 GMT

Your warning that Vista needing more time was right on. Too bad they didn't listen and apparently even penalized you for trying to help. On this one, Ballmer probably has no real idea what went on with Vista, just like he doesn't understand what went on with WM7. He doesn't have the technical background to really get into these issues and more importantly believes in being hands off, even though it keeps resulting in one failure after another.

re: An Open Letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

mark — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:17:49 GMT

Nice post, I've heard a lot of complaints from beta testers on the Win 7 team going back a year ago including from Paul Thurrott. Although Vista had driver and compatibility issue's the fault was with the vendors and Microsoft not the beta testers. Vista's driver model being so different than that of XP's it was bound to happen, Ballmer dumping blame on testers is pathetic he's CEO doesn't he use this stuff, where was Gates? Beta testers are good for that last 10% you have to be 90% sure of your product based on your own testing and Microsoft has the resources to test it on a wider variety of hardware and applications than anyone else.

re: An Open Letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Robert McLaws — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:19:40 GMT

Thanks Denny, fixed.

re: An Open Letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Denny Crane — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:31:30 GMT

Just a small note, "could care less" doesn't make sense. Unless you meant to say Microsoft do care somewhat; in which case they would be able to care less. "Couldn't care less" is the correct phrase, as it indicates they care so little that it would be impossible to actually care less.