InsideMicrosoft

Microsoft Working On 3,500 Open XML Concerns

Microsoft’s battle to get Open XML approved as an international standard continues, with them working their asses off to clear three thousand, five hundred twenty two comments from international voting members. The members of Ecma have addressed their concerns, and if Microsoft wants their votes, they have to address those concerns. Microsoft’s Brian Jones, who is Microsoft’s sole Ecma member, explains what the company is currently doing to whittle those down.

There are 3522 comments in total, but when you group them into similar buckets it narrows down pretty quickly into a more manageable list… but still pretty impressive!

There are currently 662 responses, and the plan is to provide updates to this list every few weeks. We still have almost 2 months until the deadline, but given that we have a lot of issues to work though, we thought it would be best to provide the responses earlier than the Jan deadline to allow for more time to discuss the issues.

So far I think we’re doing a pretty good job of doing what the national body is asking for. Most of the comments were accompanied by a proposed resolution, and most of them are great suggestions, so our response back is often that we’ll do exactly what they are asking for.

More at Computer World and Slashdot.

November 23rd, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate, Office, Applications | no comments

Microsoft Fires CIO Stuart Scott

Microsoft abruptly fired Chief Information Officer and corporate VP Stuart Scott this week, and everyone’s been trying to figure out why he was kicked out. Valleywag leads the pack, as always, wondering what the company means when it says he fired “for violation of company policies”. They also suggest that Microsoft fired him while he was traveling to his sister’s funeral, in order to further embarrass him. Most of the speculation is in the direction of him being fired for cheating, or rather having an affair with an employee of his.

Valleywag talks about another firing at the beginning of the year, that of Martin Taylor, Steve Ballmer’s right hand man. Apparently the rumor mill has been spinning on that one, with company insiders saying Taylor was given the boot for charging the company for hotel rooms he charged the company for, rooms he used for weekend getaways as part of an affair with a coworker.

Seems to be becoming a pattern, or perhaps not. People are always having office romances, and some people are always cheating on their wives (just read InsideGoogle). Microsoft is just standing up and being willing to fire these people, no matter how important they are to the company. You’ve got to respect that, applying company policies to everyone no matter their pay grade, though having to hire a fourth new CIO in four years must be getting tiring.

November 11th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate, General | 3 comments

Microsoft Stock Up Another $10 Billion

Microsoft stock continues to gain, closing earlier today at $36.81, up another 3 1/2%, up over 19% in the last week since its blowout earnings report. It’s up 23% on the year, 40% over the last two years. The stock hasn’t been this high since June 2000, 88 months ago. Microsoft’s market cap is now just shy of $350 billion.

Amazing, just amazing.

November 1st, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate | 5 comments

Hillary Clinton, Fake Steve Jobs, Speak At Microsoft

In seperate events, former First Lady and current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and “Fake Steve Jobs” blogger, editor and author Dan Lyons spoke at Microsoft yesterday. Todd Bishop spoke with Fake Steve and has an interview up, asking Dan how it feels, as a fake Apple icon, to be at the Microsoft campus. If you like reading, here are some quotes from the interview. Here’s Fake Steve announcing his plans to come to Microsoft, saying “Apparently the Microtards just can’t get enough of my abuse”.

This Microsoftie seemed quite impressed with Hillary’s speech earlier that day. This photo is from the event and was taken by Jeff Maurone, licensed under CC:

October 26th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate, Apple | no comments

Microsoft Has Blowout Quarter, Stock Up Over $30 Billion

Microsoft has released its quarterly earnings report, and how good was it? The stock is up $30 billion!

Microsoft stock in after hours trading is up $3.55, which translates to $33.37 billion. Microsoft gained in the last few hours more than most companies are worth, smashing nicely above the $300 billion barrier. Microsoft stock was last $35.56 in July of 2001, a huge gain for the stock.

How good was the quarter? The facts:

• Revenue of $13.76 billion, 27% higher than the same quarter last year.
• Operating income:$5.92 billion
• Net income: $4.29 billion
• Diluted earnings per share: $0.45
• Fastest growth of any first quarter in eight years
• Cash on hand: $6.637 billion (enough to buy 1/3 of Facebook and have over a billion left over)
• Microsoft beat estimates by $1.2 billion and 6 cents, proving the doom and gloom about the software company is dead wrong.
• Microsoft has now sold 85 million copies of Vista (hardly a failure), 25 million in the last two months.
• $1.8 million copies of Halo 3 have been sold, bringing in revenue of $330 million.
• Operating margins: 43%, meaning the company is immensely profitable.

My favorite part, the revenue and profit/loss per division:

As you can see, revenue in the Entertainment and Devices division was up 90%, resulting in the first-ever profit for the division, almost entirely attributable to Halo 3 (but not entirely, so its possible, but not guaranteed, they could show a profit next quarter, too). Revenue was up over twenty percent in the Online Services division, but it lost 150% more money, due to rising costs. Revenue in the Client division, which sells Windows Vista, was up $800 million, a really good sign.

Amazing, just amazing. Microsoft really hit this one out of the park.

UPDATE: Venkat reminds me in the comments that this is, indeed, the Entertainment and Devices division’s second quarterly profit. The first? When Halo 2 came out, of course!

October 25th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate, General | 5 comments

Cute Microsoft Job Recruiting Site

Check out this funny website marketing that explains why you should want to work at Microsoft. It’s worth your time, as the videos are quite entertaining.
(via Heather)

October 23rd, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Marketing, Corporate, Humor, General | no comments

The Ballmer Peak: Alcohol = Coding Skill

Love this comic from xkcd.

October 11th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate, Humor | one comment

Two Microsofties Die In Plane Crash

Ralph Abdo, a Microsoft Office program manager, and Bryan Jones, a systems engineer at Windows Live, were identified among the ten victims killed in a plane crash late Sunday near White Pass, Washington. The Cessna 208B was full of skydivers, part of a skydiving weekend. Todd Bishop at the Seattle PI is asking for stories about the victims, if you’d like to share them.

Both Abdo and Jones worked at Microsoft for seven years. Abdo was 27, Jones was 34.

Abdo’s LinkedIn profile says he attended McGill University. He is the owner of a patent for “Provisioning computing services via an on-line networked computing environment”. He posted on Yahoo Groups like this windsurfing one under the name “LetsGoScubaDive“.

October 9th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate | one comment

Ballmer Among Most Underpaid Executives

Microsoft CEO “Screamin” Steve Ballmer is one of the most underpaid chiefs in the industry, receiving a pay package of $1.3 million last fiscal year. Ballmer received a salary of $620,000 and a bonus of $650,000, plus $6,750 for his 401K and $3000 for life insurance and his gym membership. Of course, Ballmer owns 4.3% of all Microsoft shares, and with MS stock rising over 30% on the year, he made about $3 billion off the company’s success anyway.

Microsoft’s compensation committee believes Ballmer is underpaid, especially considering the success Microsoft enjoyed last year and Ballmer’s growing role as Gates retires. Gates reportedly received less than Ballmer and four others at the company. Ironically, because of the performance of Ballmer’s stock, he didn’t need to be paid much, but if the company did worse, they might have to pay him more to make up for it.

At the annual meeting scheduled for Nov. 13, Microsoft shareholders will have the opportunity to vote on two shareholder proposals, also disclosed in Friday’s filing.

One, brought by the New York City’s comptroller, William Thompson, asked Microsoft to change its business practices in countries he described as “authoritarian.” His proposal asks Microsoft to stop keeping data that can identify individual users who live in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries, and to refrain from giving equipment or training to government agencies in countries he identified as restrictive.

The other proposal asked Microsoft to establish a board committee on human rights.

Microsoft’s board recommended shareholders vote against both proposals, citing existing efforts in both areas.

October 5th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate | 2 comments

Comparing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs’ Presentation Styles

Presentation Zen takes another look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and how they use presentation slideshows. As they explain, while Jobs obviously does it right, if you were to do what Gates does for work, you’d be fired. I’m amazed that there’s no effort at Microsoft to stop using the nested bullet point/flowchart diagram model.

As the article says, “Bill’s slides aren’t really necessary”. Sadly, the things Bill says, especially at trade shows, are often unnecessary as well, talking about “possible” products that someone else might create in the future. I’ll miss Bill and the leadership he brings to Microsoft, but I doubt anyone will miss his presentations and ill-fitting shirts.
(via)

Photo by Blind Justice and dfarber under CC

October 4th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate, Apple, General | 2 comments

As Always, Bill Gates Is The Richest There Is

As much as he was last year, and for many years before, Bill Gates is still the richest man in the country, now with $59 billion. Gates earned $6 billion this year to keep his status, staying ahead of Warren Buffet, who earned six as well to reach $51 billion, far ahead of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who earned $8 billion to get to $28 billion.

Head to InsideGoogle for info on the Google founders, who shot all the way up to #5 and 6.

September 24th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate | 2 comments

Microsoft Providing Windows Live Developer Toolkit

Mary Jo reports that Microsoft is planning on releasing some new developer tools in November that will make it easier to develop applications on Windows Live platforms. The Windows Live toolbox kit will work with the company’s Visual Studio developer software and look and work like Microsoft’s Facebook developer toolkit. Developing apps on the cloud is an important part of how Windows Live will become Microsoft’s next big operating system, and since an OS is only as good as its developers, these tools will help it along the way.

September 18th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Live, Corporate, Windows | no comments

Microsoft Announces Another Dividend

Microsoft has announced its latest dividend, increasing the regular dividend to an 11-cent one, which will be payed December 13 to shareholders as November 15. After this divident, Microsoft will have returned $4.50 to shareholders over the last four years.

September 17th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate | one comment

Dave Cutler Wins First Bill Gates Award

Another report from Microsoft’s annual company meeting says that outgoing Microsoft boss Bill Gates unveiled a new award, The Bill Gates Award, which will be given yearly to the Microsoft employee who has made the absolute highest contribution to Microsoft. The award will only be given to candidates who truly deserve it, and thus will not be given if a suitable winner can be chosen. Bill Gates has said that he will return and personally present the award whenever it is given.

The first recipient of the award was Dave Cutler, who earlier this year won the TCN award, which used to be the top award. Cutler has been instrumental in the development of Windows NT, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows Server 2003 SP1 64 and Windows Vista, and he currently works on Windows Live.

September 10th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate | no comments

Microsoft Simplifies Volume Licensing

eWeek reports that Microsoft is trying to widen the appeal of its Volume Licensing program by simplifying it so customers can better understand it. Microsoft is slashing the number of price points and program options, updating the language and bringing better consistency to the agreements, and even removing most of the places participants are required to sign the contracts, all in order to make it easier for potential customers.

September 9th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate | no comments

Microsoft Hires WebGuide Developer, Software Now Free

Microsoft has gone and hired Doug Berrett, developer of WebGuide. WebGuide is an amazing piece of software that lets you access Windows Media Center (XP or Vista) from a web browser, letting you watch live TV and recordings, schedule new recordings, access music and pictures, all over any internet connection, and do pretty much the same thing through Windows Mobile as well. It’s amazing, and it is now 100% free!

Microsoft hired Doug to work on Media Center development (though not related to the things WebGuide does), so he wrapped up development and removed the $18 price tag. Active development of WebGuide is over, which is a shame, so hopefully someone will think about doing open source updates, though the software is pretty excellent already. Download WebGuide now that it’s free and see what the fuss is about.

Interestingly, there is a recent beta of WebGuide for Windows Home Server. Hopefully Doug will let someone else complete the project, because that is too damn useful to not be finished.
(via Download Squad and Neowin)

September 6th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Home Server, Server, Corporate, Media Center, Windows | no comments

Microsoft’s Muffins: Stolen!

A terrible tragedy has befallen the Microsoft campus. Some fiend has absconded with the Muffin truck! According to MMTyler, someone robbed the Muffin Man and stole his Muffin Truck, leaving Microsoft with no muffins, no muffins at all. And on someone’s birthday! How terribly terrible.
(via Raymond Chen)

Microsofties were heard singing:

Do you know the Muffin Man?
The Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man.
Do you know the Muffin Man,
Did you rob him?
You son of a bitch!
Give me back my muffins!

One of Raymond’s commenters had the best title for this story:

Muffinless Microsofties Mourn Muffin Malarkey

Photo by tschörda under CC license

September 5th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Corporate, Humor | no comments

Rude Windows Vista Activation Rep Pisses Me Off

Last night, after I fixed a hard drive problem by moving my entire PC to a new hard drive, Windows Vista demanded to be re-activated; otherwise I would face a firing squad (or Reduced Functionality Mode, something like that). Now that’s annoying and unnecessary, since a new hard drive isn’t such a significant hardware change that Windows should want re-activation, but I figured, whatever, you gotta deal with it.

So, I click to activate and it fails, which again, after a system check, it shouldn’t. The computer gives me some options: Buy a new copy of Windows (sure, throw away $280!), find another copy of Windows just sitting around (actually, I could have done that, but it would have been another waste of $280), or contact Microsoft.

Naturally, I’m not sitting on a pile of money, so I take option 3.

Now, in contacting the automated support line, they give you a toll-free number to call and a 54-digit ID number which you must read to a computer. Surprisingly, the voice recognition worked great, failing only once out of the nine groups of six-digit numbers I had to read, but activation still failed after going through all that!

I’m annoyed at this point, having tried to activate several different ways, with no luck, when it shouldn’t have even been necessary. But I push on, knowing they are sending me to a phone representative who will be forced to make this work, since I haven’t been doing anything wrong.

The phone rep comes on and asks me to repeat the first set of numbers, and if I’ve installed this on more than one computer. He keeps dissapearing and re-appearing, leaving me on hold with no music several times, with no way to know if he’s just hung up on me or the call has been dropped. Finally, he reads me a 54-digit ID number to enter into my computer so I can re-activate.

Hurray!

Except, here’s how the conversation goes:

Him: ….981. Windows is now activated thank you and good day.

Me: Wait, lets make sure this worked.

Him: We are done. Windows has now been activated. Goodbye.

Me: No, don’t hang up. The software is still working, and it hasn’t said Windows is activated.

All this time, I’m getting the rotating circle that indicates the software is at work, but this idiot wants so badly to hang up on me.

Him: We are finished.

Me: No, we are not. It isn’t done, and if it doesn’t work, you have to stay on the phone to figure out what went wrong.

Him: We have entered the code to activate Windows.

Me: No, the software is still going, it has not said we are finished. You have to wait.

Finally the slow software says “Activation was successful”.

Me: Okay, its finished.

Him: That is all. Goodbye.

*Hangs up*

I don’t understand what his big rush was. The process wasn’t complete, but I had to beg him to not hang up on me. Where was he headed that he was in such a hurry? Aren’t these people supposed to be trained on some sort of interpersonal skills? I’ve never spoken to a phone representative I actually wanted to strangle before I spoke to this guy.

All things considered, once you call the phone line, Microsoft has already failed the customer. That means that whoever works the line should be working from an apologetic frame of mind, trying to make this mistake a little easier to deal with. Microsoft should be stocking this line with higher quality phone reps, or at least instruct them to deal a little differently with the dissatisfied customers than they would a normal tech support call.

This was the first time I ever had to call a Microsoft support phone number, and for most customers, this will be the most common number they call. This is the only person-to-person experience many customers will ever have with Microsoft, and they’re really screwing it up.

September 2nd, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Vista, Corporate, Windows, General | 14 comments