The point of the Kindle line is to make people buy stuff from Amazon. Any sale to someone who won't do that that they avoid is not a "hurt", as they are likely still selling at a loss. Razor & blades model.

I wish I had some mod points; I laughed so hard I almost spilled my drink. Someone mod this one Funny.

Is it possible the OP is already the junior developer hired for this purpose? :)

Of course the guy doesn't know marketing, that's why he is asking about it.

But to not mention the product in the question is not a problem- if he had, everyone and their brother would be complaining about slashvertising and critiquing the product. That's not what he's looking for. He chose to include only the relevant information- it's aimed at the mass-market and is a software product, and he wants to know about how to get marketing expertise involved without screwing up.

Unfortunately, I haven't been in his position so I can't give much help. I work with some great technical marketing people, but AFAIK they are all happy and I'd prefer to keep working with them. I can say that for each person out there who can do good technical marketing, there seem to be many that suck at it, and many more who think that they are in sales. Until you have a start at a good marketing group it will be difficult to get started, because interviewing people out of your area of expertise is very difficult.

Your post is an excellent example of how a bad culture encourages bad decisions by developers. The company culture rewards the just mash out the code with known bugs for QC to find approach, then sliding the fix in when someone else "catches" it. A better culture would be to enter the bug in tracking yourself if the code is needed immediately and you don't have time to fix it before a drop dead deadline.

Indeed, their problem is that enough people have decided that they did get one to work well enough, and only buy a new OS when they buy a new computer, that they are concerned about future OS sales. Computers are not getting 'better' as quickly as in the past to the view of the average user, and so there is less reason to buy a new one every few years. The ego upgrades are going for phones instead. To combat these factors, a strategy of convincing people somehow that upgrading their OS is something they do regularly for a nominal fee is indeed probably a good way to keep sucking blood from the users.

They want unemployment benefits until they find a job they like.

The programs are short, but can instill some much-needed paranoia about how things can go wrong interacting with even a simple environment:).

"SHARON PROST, Circuit Judge
SHARON PROST was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001."
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/judges/sharon-prost-circuit-judge.html

"KIMBERLY A. MOORE, Circuit Judge
KIMBERLY A. MOORE was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006."
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/judges/kimberly-a-moore-circuit-judge.html

"JIMMIE V. REYNA, Circuit Judge
Jimmie V. Reyna was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by President Barack Obama in 2011."
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/judges/jimmie-v-reyna-circuit-judge.html

Too bad there isn't a "poster can't read" mod option.

The summary said "corporate massage day" not "corporate message day".

As someone who works at a place where they do have someone come in to do massage once a month, I think this is a great perk.

That said, if the place is small enough that folks will feel their individual contributions make a difference for the company then options are a good long term incentive.

Identifying slackers properly only works if that is what actually happens. But most layoffs seem to do things in the wrong order- you have to start with thinning management layers down which is very very hard to do right, since the very people you need to get rid of are usually the ones with the skills to do office politics well without contributing to company success. There are two reasons to start with management- first, it's much better for employee morale. Secondly, the folks you need to get rid of in management will tend to keep the wrong employees.

Everyone screws up sometimes. I'd say that if you feel you DON'T ever have to apologize for anything that's a lot worse. That sort of view is part of why we so often get only psychotics who never admit to doing anything wrong in positions of power. The decent folks admit it when they screw up, try to fix it, are attacked for having displayed a weakness, and so tend not to prosper.

Of course, to apologize is only part of making things right when you screw up. But it is an important first step.

This could also be the magic app that leads to the govt to start trying to control access to replicators.

There's a reason that I don't use the Start menu to get things done, and it's not that I'm using some other part of Windows.

Austin has a great local economy, plenty of tech, a decent state university, and plenty of things to do.