Microsoft.com - Careers: Linux/Open Office

https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jid=9914&jlang=EN

by wglb • 17 years ago

32 34 17 years ago

careers.microsoft.com

wglb4• 17 years ago

Some analysis: http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?ent...

sriramk• 17 years ago

I prefer Paul's post (http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/12...)

[disclaimer: I work for the company in question :)]

simplegeek• 17 years ago

Damm, I don't understand a word of that job posting. "Compete muscle" and yada yadda, I mean FTW.

brown9-2• 17 years ago

Does Microsoft expect applicants to know what all these internal terms mean? Or is this a listing more for internal candidates?

If you’re looking for a new role where you’ll focus on one of the biggest issues that is top of mind for KT and Steve B in “Compete”, build a complete left to right understanding of the subsidiary, have a large amount of executive exposure, build and manage the activities of a v-team of 13 district Linux& Open Office Compete Leads, and develop a broad set of marketing skills and report to a management team committed to development and recognized for high WHI this is the position for you!

imajes2• 17 years ago

looks like an internal job ad (to me) that got disclosed incorrectly.

timdorr• 17 years ago

And apparently this job is also for you if you hate grammar...

Zilioum• 17 years ago

"...to win share against Linux and OpenOffice.org...". Looks like somebody is scared. I like that very much :D But seriously, who would take that job? Somebody who understands a lot about Linux but then decides to "fight" against it?

jodrellblank• 17 years ago

How did you get 10 upvotes for a two sentence comment, the first boasting about how you don't understand something(!), and the second being an incomprehensible mash of a two word quote, a misspelled dismissive phrase and an unclear acronym ('For The Win'?).

endtime4• 17 years ago

I'm willing to bet the upvotes came from people with accounts less than six months old...

FraaJad• 17 years ago

Open Office != OpenOffice.org, AFAIK the trademark for Open Office is held by some one other than OO.org

GrandMasterBirt• 17 years ago

Open Office = Microsoft Office thats openly sold to the public.

nailer• 17 years ago

You're technically correct - just like the the 'Linux is a kernel' people are also technically correct.

However most people refer to 'OpenOffice' meaning OpenOffice.org, in the same way they refer to 'Linux' and mean a Linux-based OS.

timcederman• 17 years ago

It's a compete lead. The job is for competing against Open Office and Linux.

motters• 17 years ago

"Grow your US evidence" ??

Microsoft must have an interesting internal situation going on. On the one hand they want to work with open source - at least, that's what they claim. On the other they want to "compete" with Linux. Since there is enormous overlap between open source projects and Linux projects, that must result in some cognitive dissonance for MS employees.

jf4• 17 years ago

The words "evidence" and "compete" have special meanings inside Microsoft:

As I understand it, "evidence" is proof that your work was received well by the community you are targeting. Rather than sales figures, "evidence" is the currency of the division that this job is in.

"compete" is a blanket term for "not Microsoft": Mac OS X, Linux, (Free|Net|Open)BSD, Plan 9 are all part of "compete".

wglb4• 17 years ago

And joel weighs in with an analysis: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/12/30.html

alanthonyc• 17 years ago

"Microsoft...[have] become so insular that their job postings are full of incomprehensible jargon and acronyms which nobody outside the company can understand."

Sounds like something I heard about GM last year. Their managers had no idea what the competition was like because they all "had" to drive their own cars.

mbreese2• 17 years ago

they all "had" to drive their own cars

I can imagine that this must be a hard thing to overcome in a car company. When you work for a car company, you want to be proud of your product so you want to buy from your company. However, most families have at most 2 cars, so you have very little incentive to buy and really understand a competitor's product.

I can see how in Microsoft you have the same forces at work. When building infrastructure or programming there is so steep of a learning curve regardless of what technology you choose that it is all but impossible to really understand all possible choices. Couple that with the inherent Microsoft desire to dogfood everything, and you get a lot of people understanding only the Microsoft way. Once you start going down that path, it's very easy to create your own mini-languages. It's all very incestuous, and not a good way to run a company. I think this is why Microsoft seems to have a hard time understanding Apple and Linux.

MrFoof• 17 years ago

I need to find the source, but when top GM brass was given a new model to demonstrate, they were given a ringer -- the whole car gone over with a fine toothed comb to iron out the slightest defect (source: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/inside-gm-mystery-of-crap-i...).

So not only were they less aware of what they were competing against, they had a false idea of what they were competing with.

cabalamat• 17 years ago

> 2. Be a Perception Change Agent. The CSI Lead needs to drive perception across a number of key audiences (IT Pros, Government Elites, BDMs, IT Journalists, etc.) Ability to implement programmatic marketing that will CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE think about Microsoft, specifically those with a ‘hostile’ or negative perception of the Microsoft platform.

If I was Microsoft, and I wanted to change perceptions of my company, I'd start by changing the reality. Perceptions of MS are poor largely because the reality is poor. But MS want to change the one without the other. This is called bullshit, and is unlikely to work for an organisation as much in the public eye as MS.

jf4• 17 years ago

People inside Microsoft are working on changing the reality. Things are changing, but change is happening slowly.

wglb4• 17 years ago

Having worked for some large companies, the public perception of the organization is thought to be subject to various PR and marketing efforts. What MS has always excelled at, is the PR angle, relying less on advertising. That is the #2 element you quote there.

Part of the reality of MS is that they have a very healthy cash flow from the products that are sold in an institutional fashion, that is, to the enterprise and preloaded on consumer devices. Any organization in that successful situation can't innovate like we have come to expect small companies to do--serious changes in their "reality" will threaten territories that are bringing home the bacon.

And it has to be a difficult proposition to continue to convince people to pay you money for software that, to a first order of approximation, costs nothing.

andrewcooke• 17 years ago

so what is a v-team? vertical? victory?

sjf• 17 years ago

Virtual team, as in remote or distributed. (I assume.)

jf4• 17 years ago

Vendor. A team of contractors.

mbreese2• 17 years ago

I assumed vertical, but vertical to what?

moron4hire• 17 years ago

Even if we dismiss the jargon, it still demonstrates some really bad grammar.

Microsoft.com - Careers: Linux/Open Office

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