Sounds like the same Microsoft culture as has always been. Like a cult. It can do no wrong. The conversation with Microsoft businesspeople at conferences was always the same: Microsoft has no deficiencies, there is nothing it isn't working on and it has a solution for every possible problem. Other sources of software do not exist. There is only Microsoft. Total illusion put forth by delusional employees. The outside world can be ignored because life in the cult is good.
This comment sounds hyperbolic, but it really isn't. It's really bad. This has been my experience with Microsoft employees also.
In my experience, what makes for bad software is PM and engineering hubris. You definitely need some vision and confidence as just following user feedback is a recipe for terrible software as well. The key is to find the right balance and straddle that line.
If it's been long enough for insiders to tell the story of Windows Phone and the eventual cancellation, I'd be fascinated to hear the story of that (from inception to death) and how that went internally given the culture.
Can confirm, it is 100% hubris based on my limited time of working at Microsoft.
There is pervasive NIH syndrome, re-inventing the wheel, and massive amounts of over engineering and unnecessary abstraction caused by chasing the endless "But what if...?" dragon.
This behavior is justified, and critics are silenced, by the "But we're an enterprise company!" cop-out
Just wanted to say that I thought the Windows Phone (the last version of such) was relatively nice. It had a decent developer experience, but was pretty much an also ran and didn't have enough market share to overcome mindshare for first party apps. When so many first apps were iOS first and Android later, throwing a third option in the mix just missed the mark more often than not.
I was already in the Android ecosystem and far less cynical at that point about Google.
If memory over the last two decades serves, this is a relatively recent degradation.
Microsoft's security reputation prior to the recent (5ish years?) failures was largely built up on top of the work stemming from the Trustworthy Computing memo.
Bill Gates in 2002: "So now, when we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security."
Satya Nadella in 2024: "If you’re faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security."
Microsoft in 2024: Run this software on your computer so we can take a screenshot of everything you do, index it and we promise Security is still, and have always been, the priority. And yes, we do store data unencrypted on your disk, why are you asking?
> And yes, we do store data unencrypted on your disk, why are you asking?
But don't worry, you need to be an administrator to open the file. What? your average person daily drives an administrator account? How should we have known that???
AI Safety. Code is run through AI to check for vulnerabilities. Files are analyzed by AI to ensure they aren't malware. Every instruction is run through AI to ensure nothing maliciously is happening (mostly enforcing DRM :). Every pixel is output by AI to ensure you see nothing not intended for your precious eyes.
You joke, but (the DRM part at least) is the future I fear is coming. It could hit us from so many angles (not forgetting Chrome's Web Environment Integrity and Apple's Private Access Tokens), and with all the money and power behind it (big tech plus big copyright), and the complete apathy of the average user towards this, it seems inevitable.
What Microsoft can provide are lots of nice stickers saying they conform to this or that security standard, making security folks in IT departments all warm and fuzzy.
At least that's how it appears from our POV, selling B2B applications. They don't seem to care that much about actualities as long as the security checklist passes.
To be honest, that sounds like every company that suffers from delusions of grandeur and wants to conquer the planet, one way or another.
What you're saying is equally true for Apple, Google, Amazon and most other public companies today. You're never gonna get "Use this Microsoft product" as an answer from Apple support/engineer even if that product would solve your particular problem better.
The conferences always included representatives from other large, public companies in the same or similar industries, e.g., Apple or Amazon, as well as other, different industries. But there was always something cult-like about the folks from Microsoft, their level of BS and (deliberate?) ignorance, that I never experienced with the others.
To be clear, I could not make the same comment about Apple or Amazon businesspeople. While they may exhibit their own stigmatic qualities, they are, IME, different. Nothing like Microsoft.
Microsoft does not suffer from "delusions of grandeur". It achieved grandeur a long time ago, and then became delusional. Currently, it is either #1 or #2 on the list of the world's wealthiest companies. Comments suggesting that the company has "changed", and such comments have been popular on HN in recent years, are quite amusing.
