As for your question, who the fuck knows?

Oh wait, you didn't ask for advice, did you? Okay, then just this; don't fuck a girl-microsoftie. She will move in, and she WONT LEAVE.

Back then, if your code was shit, you heard about it. Not just from your lead, but from everyone up the chain. You got one, maybe two fuckups before you went on plan. If you were one to glance at the clock and be out the door at 5pm, you were not long for the company.

Back then, if you performed, you had a chance of becoming wealthy. Today? Well, good luck bitches.

When the options were flying, you didn't mind getting your ass chewed on a semi-regular basis, and you didn't mind living in your office for weeks on end, if it meant your project shipped on time. The stuff I heard back then, directed at me, at women, at minorities, or whoever the fuck you were, would welcome lawsuits today. Back then, nobody cared, we were shipping, and buying homes for cash.

What's the stock done for a decade? Nothing. A decent wage, and even great benefits are not enough to get smart people to work like slaves; ruin marriages, with some threatening suicide in the parking lots. For that, you need the promise of wealth.

And that time is OVER in Redmond. Some will still do well, but there is never going to be that sense that one day, you and the guy across the hall are going to be drag-racing your new Porsche's on the 520, if we can just get this fucking product out the door.

My first day in Redmond as an employee, I parked my Camry next to Bob McDowell's yellow Ferrari, and said to myself, "that's me one day, if I work my ass off, fuck having a life for now".

That day is long gone, and it aint coming back to Redmond.

Ballmer was the perfect guy to motivate back then, even though he was more focused on sales at the time. Today, he cant even say what he wants to say in public. He has to call Steve Jobs a visionary, rather than the spear up his ass, he really feels he is.

If anyone back then had told Ballmer that one day Apple would be worth more than Microsoft, he would have probably strongly suggested that you go work there, and get the fuck off the campus.

Ballmer is the right guy, its just the wrong day. Different people, different motivations, different skills, and thinner skins.

These are the kind of people who allow their self-worth to be determined by others; their cool-factor by how many Facebook friends they have, and what parties they are/not invited to.

They have convinced themselves of a form of technical superiority, when in reality, their platform is too small to be noticed by virus\malware providers, or most productivity app venders save a few like Adobe.

They consider themselves "Counter-culture" when in reality, they are the worst kind of lemmings.

Just watch next year, as hundreds of thousands of them toss their iPad for another one, because it will have a camera, and once again in a few years, for another feature that should have been in v1.0.

Does Apple have good technology? Sure. Is it beyond what anyone else could do? Never has been.

Can they market their platform beyond all common fucking sense to people seeking validation through faddish participation? Fuckin A!

Wanna see an Apple user's head explode? Ask them if their device supports IPv6, and watch them strain to answer without giving away that they dont know what the fuck you are talking about.

If you can get past that, then you deserve the goodies, IMHO.

Suffice to say, we can probably get 3-4 rounds from these same people....maybe a USB port for the 3rd go round? Boy, will they lap THAT up...."

" For round 4.....we'll rumor Flash compatibility, but not deliver it, of course.....we'll please the masses with a custom Steve Jobs signature edition, complete with virtual-arrogance, and disdain for all things with pre-emptive multitasking! "

First, lets establish that Microsoft (I am a former Microsoft employee myself) couldn't give a crap about innovating, its an exercise best left to those unconcerned about profits. Those of us who succeeded at Microsoft understood that our job was how to create/copy/simulate/obfuscate in the name of market leadership.

Its so tiring to see so many still willing to attach these lofty goals like 'innovation' to what is a really simple business challenge. Nobody (well a few, but they always leave to write these crappy articles) takes their Microsoft check to the bank feeling guilty and with less self-esteem because their high-marketshare product line isnt innovating the fuck out of technology.

Remember the line about the bear: "I dont have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you"?

That is how it is at Microsoft. I worked in the Exchange group, and later Visual Studio. Our job was NOT to come up with mind-blowing shit that glowed in the dark, it was to build products that give people reason to buy ours instead of THEIR's. Exchange never had to be slick, it just had to be better than Lotus Notes. SIMPLE.

Was Exchange innovative? Fuck no. Was it better than NOTES? Fuck yes.

That is the software business. We were never about design awards, and "oh we are so forward thinking", and all that shit.

Microsoft is, was, and always will be about profit for shareholders, bitches. Nothing more, nothing less.