Microsoft, Mini-Microsoft and the Talent Exodus
The mileage our monolithic proprietary friend has gained out of its new human persona, attributable to the 2,000 or so registered Microsoft employee blogs, not to mention the now-famous Robert Scoble (of Scobleizer), is suddenly being tainted by a self-proclaimed Microsoft Deep Throat.
“Who da Punk”, as he refers to himself on his Blogger-hosted Mini-Microsoft site (ha ha – Blogger being Google’s free blog hosting service and all) is an anonymous Microsoft employee who “pretty much ‘tells all’ about too many meetings, sagging morale, the slow schedule of new releases, etc. (He) also mocks CEO Steve Ballmer’s relentlessly upbeat, non-answers to BW.” (See the recent BusinessWeek Ballmer interview).
Debbie Weil comments, “Interestingly, the anonymous blogger insists that he loves his juggernaut employer and only wants to make it a “lean, mean, efficient customer pleasing profit making machine.” But then Mini (he admits he’s a man; that’s the only identifying detail we get) agrees to meet with a BW reporter at a Starbucks in Seattle.”
The result? The latest edition of BusinessWeek with a flashy frontpage article that highlights the disturbingly high numbers of young, talented individuals that are saying goodbye to Microsoft and hello to Google and others.
To add insult to injury, all this is on the back of the recent Forbes article, which asks if Microsoft is suffering a midlife crisis.
Strangely, as excited as he is about his progressive company culture, Steve Ballmer couldn’t care less about the fact that a.) Mini-Microsoft exists and b.) Literally thousands of people, employees and customers alike, are reading it, because he chooses not to read it. Steve is also convinced Microsoft has the talent thing nailed down, citing that lost talent is not really an issue, because they just develop more talent. Problem is, all that talent has to go somewhere – and in my mind, it’s going to go to Microsoft’s competitors… “More than 100 former Microsofties now work for Google, and dozens of others have scattered elsewhere.”
It seems the general consensus is that Microsoft is so singularly focused on protecting and updating the Windows and Office products that made it what it is, that it has stopped innovating, slipping behind when it comes to Web apps (as we saw when MSN Spaces tried to copy Blogger, and failed miserably).
Talent and maintenance don’t mix.
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This is not the first time I see a LargeCo adopt this sort of stance to talent leaking out the pool. It’s probably a large dose of arrogance (“We attract the best”) with some crafty brainwashing loaded in. One of our local OEM’s seems to be getting this right in our industry …
The LargeCo (cannot mention name as this is not a TT.biz official statement) has by-and-large created its competition by allowing (inadvertently) great talent to exit and start their own jigs. What has their response been? Nope – not higher salaries, but an all-out attack with brainwashing on the front line. They are adept at brainwhasing their employees into believing that all competitors are below standard and that it would be CLM (Career Limiting Move) to jump ship.
I wonder how much of Ballmer’s indifference to the problem is a result of him being brainwashed as well?