>
> "Two problems with this approach: one is that kinder and gentler
> people, who may be still be very smart, get stomach aches and other
> unpleasant symptoms when they gave to confront bullying. Microsoft
> lost out on some people who could have contributed but couldn't
> take this kind of heat. Second problem is that the bullying gets
> emulated down the line. There was nothing quite as absurd as a
> newly-hired college graduate thinking he could be as smart or rich as
> billg if he could only manage to be as rude."
>
I think this must be at least part of the answer to my question---why
Microsoft continually produces such technical mediocrity in spite of
having some good people---the management style of Bill Gates and the
example it sets for the rest of management. But I also think there
must be more to it, for example, the management really must not care
about quality, beyond the minimum needed to get the product out the
door or to screw the competition. I have no inside information about
this, it's just a guess, but it's supported by some things I have
read, such as the Gates quote "we don't fix bugs", and the Microsoft
reputation for vaporware. I mean, really, some things they have
done regarding security have been deliberately stupid and backward,
and they didn't help anything even from their standpoint. Microsoft
is frequently credited with "getting it right on the third try", for
example, with IE (getting it right meant producing something
technically comparable to Netscape, in that case), and they may
eventually do something similar with Vista, at least insofar as things
like drivers, copying files etc are concerned (I'm sure the DRM will
remain).
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