For those that are struggeling to get
work done using windows, here's some
insight on the company and its culture.
kelly
from the New York Times
January 17, 1998
Besieged Microsoft Is Humbled and Jittery
By TIMOTHY EGAN
R EDMOND, Wash. -- On the campus where food is strictly fuel for
another lap around the digital track and a mere eight-hour day is
considered slacking off, the Microsoft corporate flag flies as high
as ever in a wintry gale. Surrender is not an option.
But there is a clear sense, both inside Microsoft and in the region
that takes such pride in having spawned a company where perhaps 1
in 5 employees are millionaires, that the world's most powerful
software corporation has lost some of its swagger.
Employees arrive at work after hearing themselves compared to a
tobacco company or a 19th century trust on the evening news. Many
say they are tired of having their integrity questioned every day,
by the Justice Department, software rivals or neighbors.
The computer screen is no escape. More than 100 Web sites devoted
to Microsoft hatred cast the company as the Evil Empire and
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates as the devil, or much worse.
The ever-flashing stock price, a carrot for tough days, has been
stagnant for months and is currently down 10 percent from its
52-week high, closing Friday at 135 1/4, well behind the breakneck
growth that inspired dreams of working five years and then retiring
for life.
"What a lot of people are feeling now is this huge backlash," said
Rick Segal, a former department head who left Microsoft last year.
"A lot of my friends in the company are wondering if it's all worth
it. I mean, how did Microsoft become more hated than the
government?"
Prospective employees still flock to Microsoft, a company
consistently rated among the most admired in America. Its products
have many supporters. And its operating system is still used in
more than 85 percent of personal computers worldwide.
But the long antitrust fight with the Justice Department,
highlighted most recently by an embarrassing series of legal and
public relations setbacks, has taken its toll.
Microsoft has always had passionate enemies within the computer
software industry, critics who say the company is predatory and
ruthless in crushing all rivals. With the recent legal clash,
Microsoft has come under fire from the secular world as well, as
people in Redmond sometimes refer to the nondigital.
"A few months ago, everyone I met seemed to think that working for
Microsoft was a pretty cool thing to do," columnist Jacob Weisberg
wrote in a recent posting of Slate, Microsoft's online magazine of
public affairs. "Now strangers treat us like we work for Philip
Morris."
His column was in the form of a political memorandum to Microsoft
management, echoing a commonly-heard complaint that however
brilliant the company is in the software business, it is a hayseed
in the realm of big-time legal, political and public relations.
Last week, corporate leaders of Microsoft -- people who used to
compare themselves to Samurai warriors -- apologized for the
company's behavior in its dealings with the government, and said
even Microsoft's own best customers were saying the company seemed
tone-deaf.
This week, more hearings before Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of
U.S. District Court in the nation's capital, increased the
likelihood that Microsoft would be held in contempt for violating
the judge's order to stop forcing computer makers to install the
company's Internet Explorer with its Windows 95 software.
The courtroom tactics, blunders, and air of defiance have provided
much more than drinking-fountain fodder in the Seattle area, where
the enormous wealth created by Microsoft has transformed the
region.
"I don't think there's a person in this area who either doesn't own
a piece of Microsoft stock or doesn't know somebody who works
there," said Tina Podlodowski, a Seattle City Council member, who
left Microsoft in 1992, after six years at the company. "So at some
point what's happening with the Justice Department starts to hurt
the entire Pacific Northwest."
Of course, there are plenty of Microsoft critics within the Redmond
area code as well. But, with charities, museums, home prices and
the regional niche in popular culture tied to the software giant,
hometown bias prevails. There is considerable concern that the ride
may be over.
"I went to a dinner party recently with a lot of Seattle people,
none of whom worked at Microsoft, but what was so striking was how
totally loyal they were to Microsoft," said Michael Kinsley,
Slate's editor. "They all felt that there was an effort by the
government to get the company."
Last Oct. 31, on Halloween, just days after the government filed
suit in which it accused Microsoft of violating a consent decree,
Kinsley wore a Justice Department baseball cap to the campus. "I
wore it because it was the scariest thing I could think of,"
Kinsley said. "Some people were not amused."
Microsoft has long felt like it is under siege because it is so
dominant in the software world, and has produced so much wealth,
company officials say. But what has changed of late is that some of
the envy, criticism and concern is now coming from loyal customers;
more than anything that has caused some quaking at Microsoft
headquarters in Redmond, where more than 12,000 people work for the
company.
"We don't want our customers to see us as unnecessarily strident,"
said Greg Shaw, a Microsoft spokesman. "This is a company that
respects justice and the courts, and respects capitalism."
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's second in command, the executive vice
president, long known for his scorched-earth attitude toward
critics and competitors, last week presented a newly humble
corporate face. He said e-mail and focus groups conducted by
Microsoft indicated that people with no axes to grind were angry at
the company.
Gone, for the moment, are fire-breathing comments like the one
Ballmer made last year about the Justice Department, when he said,
"To heck with Janet Reno," the attorney general.
The company has gone so far as to issue an apology, with Robert
Herbold, the chief operating officer, saying, "We're sorry if we
have made any statements that would suggest we do anything but
respect" the Justice Department.
It is a long way from remarks just a few weeks earlier, in which
Microsoft said Justice Department lawyers were "totally uninformed"
about how software works. They also said they could package
anything, "even a ham sandwich" with their operating system if they
wanted to.
The change in tactics shows that many Microsoft officials realize
suddenly that the company may be in serious trouble, and -- in
their worst-case fear -- could even be broken apart by the Justice
Department.
"It's always been part of the corporate culture there to write the
strongest e-mail, to scream the loudest," said Posy Gering, a
Seattle computer consultant. "They love having an enemy. But now,
enough people are telling them they haven't got a clue what they're
up against."
Microsoft's insularity, its focus on hiring stereotypical nerds
without an outside life, is what has come back to haunt it, some
people here say. "Microsoft has never put any effort into figuring
out how to schmooze with people," Ms. Podlowdowski said. "They
simply don't understand why people don't see things the way they
see things. So I guess they're suffering now for being
intellectually arrogant and socially inept."
Part of the problem, said Bruce Jacobsen, a former Microsoft
official, is that most Microsoft officials have never worked
anywhere else -- perhaps because of the lure of the company's stock
appreciation.
Segal, the former Microsoft department chief, painted a picture of
tightly-wound company, despite its reputation for casual dress and
slacker-generation slang.
"When you first go to work there, everyone feels like they're being
watched by the smart police," he said. "It's a very telling sign of
their culture, of not respecting the outside world."
He added: "We in America love to root for the underdog. We hate
arrogance. Now, excuse me, but if Microsoft is now hated more than
the government, what's the message? And do they get it?"
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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