the tindog coffeehouse

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Previously:
Windows launch party video: the perfect ad for OS X
Microsoft: Internet Explorer 8 perfect for porn addicts

Former Microsoft vice president Dick Brass (insert your own jokes here) wrote a pretty indicting op-ed piece yesterday in the New York Times about how his previous employer’s corporate culture stifles any true innovation coming out of the Redmond monolith:

Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator. Its products are lampooned, often unfairly but sometimes with good reason. Its image has never recovered from the antitrust prosecution of the 1990s. Its marketing has been inept for years; remember the 2008 ad in which Bill Gates was somehow persuaded to literally wiggle his behind at the camera? …

What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.

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It’s hard to believe, but it was 10 years ago this week that I first went to work at Microsoft, the ink on my new MCSE certification still fresh. To this day, I’m still not sure how I made it through the rigorous interview process, but somehow I made it on as a “blue-badge” (a full-time Microsoft employee, as opposed to the “orange-badge” contractors that mostly walked through the door), hired to provide professional server support from the still-under-construction Las Colinas campus in Irving, Texas.

I arrived just as Windows 2000 was being released to manufacturing and just in time for Y2K. It was also right before the dot-com bubble burst in early 2000. Indeed, in the two years I worked there, I saw the glory days of the late ’90s — a time when working at Microsoft meant swimming in lucrative company stock options and bonuses and work was something you did between foosball tournaments — give way to the harsh realities of the falling stock market, before regaining a sense of hopeful optimism with the impending release of Windows XP.

It was from my cubicle that I watched the presidential debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore in which Gore touted his infamous “lockbox” and where I watched the ugliness of the 2000 election drag on with all its “hanging chads”. And it was from my cubicle where I witnessed the horror of September 11th. But it was also a place where I made numerous friendships and countless memories.

It was a stressful job, and I can’t say I fully miss it. But I learned more there than I have at any other job I’ve ever had. It provided invaluable experience that I’ve taken with me in the years since leaving, and I’m grateful for the time I was given there.

(Click to enlarge.)

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What you see on those photos is a Windows XP error box floating in thin air. That’s not photoshop or post effect of too much vodka.

That night there was strong fog in this Ukrainian city so due to it such an awesome illusion of windows in the skies appeared – there was an advertisement screen nearby and it went out of order.

Had this happened during the day, would it have been a Blue Sky of Death?

…was including Internet Explorer 8 with it.

Hear me out.

Windows 7 has gotten a lot of praise for its improvements over Vista, both under-the-hood changes to the core OS as well as more visible changes such as a revamped taskbar and the introduction of features like Jump Lists and Libraries. It’s not a major upgrade of Vista and certainly not perfect, but most of my complaints are minor. For example, why is there still so much fluff (desktop gadgets, Wordpad, Sticky Notes, etc.)? Why all the boring and/or confusing “Microsoft-isms” (Home Groups, User Account Control, Windows Live Essentials, Windows Easy Transfer, BitLocker, Aero Peek, Aero Shake)? And why is Steve Ballmer still around?

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